Election officials’ homes ‘swatted’ as presidential race heats up

[ThatRobGuy]

https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/13/politics/swatting-election-officials-invs/index.html

CNN —
When a man called to confess he had shot his wife, was armed with an AR-15 and planned to kill himself, police in Jefferson City, Missouri raced to the scene.

Heavily armed officers ordered the homeowner to walk outside with his hands up. From the doorway, a middle-aged man emerged. It was Jay Ashcroft, Missouri’s Secretary of State who minutes earlier was gearing up for a workout on his home treadmill.

“I just couldn’t believe this was happening to me,” Ashcroft, a Republican and the state’s top election official, said in an interview with CNN. “It was very surreal.”

At least four swatting incidents have been aimed at the homes of senior officials who oversee or work to secure elections since December. Aside from Ashcroft, who is running for governor in Missouri, those hoaxes involved officials’ homes in Maine, Georgia and Virginia. Each case remains under investigation, local authorities said.

 

[Ophiolite]

Troubling. If repeated, there is a serious chance one of these will not end well.

 

[durangodawood]

"Stolen election". Wars have been fought over less. So no surprise the aggrieved feel justified applying tactics like this.

 

[JSRG]

Troubling. If repeated, there is a serious chance one of these will not end well.

Oh, there have been. In 2017, a man named Andrew Finch got swatted in Wichita and shot by the police during it. Finch wasn't even the intended target of the swatting--the person who engaged in the swatting (Tyler Raj Barriss) was trying to swat someone else, but had the wrong address so he sent the police to the wrong place.

 

[Vambram]

"Stolen election". Wars have been fought over less. So no surprise the aggrieved feel justified applying tactics like this.

What justification could be made in order to do a "swatting" of the Missouri Secretary of State? I am curious as to what the supposed grievance was.

 

[wing2000]

What justification could be made in order to do a "swatting" of the Missouri Secretary of State? I am curious as to what the supposed grievance was.

It seems the motive is often difficult to determine:

(from the linked article)
“I anticipate we’ll probably see some more of these as we get closer and closer to the election,” said Sterling, who noted the challenge of identifying those responsible for such hoaxes. “This could be a kid in Britain who is bored. This could be a concerted effort. This could be Russians. This could be Americans. That’s one of the things about swatting … you can’t trace the individual. It’s very, very difficult in most cases.”

 

[ThatRobGuy]

What justification could be made in order to do a "swatting" of the Missouri Secretary of State? I am curious as to what the supposed grievance was.

It's tough to tell these days.

When you look at the various forms of backlash that occur, it's tough to pinpoint a source with any confidence based on purely partisan grounds. (like it would've been back in the 90's and 2000's)

Circa 2024, For a Republican Secretary of State, it could be
1) a Left-wing agitator
2) a disgruntled Right-wing person who felt that the SoS wasn't sufficiently "right-wing enough" on one particular issue or another (or wasn't sufficiently loyal to Trump)
3) random bad act by a random bad kid doing something for internet bragging rights on a random chan somewhere


We're in an era now where it's not just a simple as "red team vs. blue team".

There have been numerous occasions were people are the subject of doxxing and harassment from people who ideologically outflank them from their own side.

For instance, it wasn't left-wing people with nooses walking around shouting "hang Mike Pence"...it was other republicans, and it wasn't right-wing people circulating Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan's address and organizing a massive protest at her house...it was other progressives


When things devolve to the point where any deviation from "ideological absolutism" is regarded as being "just as bad as being on the other side", these types of antics could be coming from anywhere.