Arizona’s secretary of state asked the Justice Department to investigate a report of possible voter intimidation at a ballot drop box, The Washington Post reports.
A voter in Mesa on Monday filed a report to Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat running for governor.
“There’s a group of people hanging out near the ballot dropbox filming and photographing my wife and I as we approached the dropbox and accusing us of being a mule,” the report said, referring to the widely debunked Trumpworld conspiracy theory film “2000 Mules” that claims voter fraud via ballot drop boxes.
“They took … photographs of our license plate and of us and then followed us out the parking lot in one of their cars continuing to film,” the unidentified voter said in the report.
Surveillance video shows a man dropping ballots in the drop box before someone appears to engage with him off-camera.
Referred to DOJ:
Hobbs referred the matter to the Justice Department and the state’s attorney general.
The Justice Department told the Post that it received the referral.
A spokesperson for the Arizona attorney general’s office said the referral is under review.
“Everyone should feel safe exercising their voting rights,” the spokesperson said, urging people who feel threatened while dropping off ballots to call the police.
Another complaint:
Hobbs also referred another complaint to county officials.
The complaint claimed that people dressed in camo were “taking pictures of me, my license plate as I dropped our mail in ballots in the box.”
“When I approached them asking names, group they’re with, they wouldn’t give anything. They asked why I wanted to know, well it’s because it’s a personal attack,” the complaint said.
Officials also alerted county workers of another complaint claiming they came across an image on Reddit of “a vehicle at a polling location that they are trying to monitor for supposed fraud.”
