Election Officials Describe Quitting in Fear After Harassment from Trump Supporters: 'It's Hard to Keep Going'

Mar. 15, 2025

Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

A new Reutersinvestigative reportdetails the relentless efforts of Robert Beadles— a businessman and pro-Trump conspiracy theorist who says he has evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election — to oust Washoe County registrar of voters Deanna Spikula.

At a county commissioners' meeting in February, Beadles, 45, said that Spikula counted fraudulent votes, accused her of “treason,” and said to “either fire her or lock her up.”

Someone called Spikula and threatened to bring 100 people into the office to “put this to bed today.” One man who claimed to have evidence of voter fraud left a threatening message for her office saying that “there is gonna be f—ing hell to pay.”

“Motherf—ers have f—ed with the wrong people, so we’re coming,” he said in the message.

But the calls were just one part of the threats that resulted from Beadles' campaign against the Washoe woman. One individual came to her home claiming to be a private investigator. (She didn’t answer the door.) On a different occasion, Spikula was followed home. Her husband also began receiving calls from strangers.

By June, Beadles was successful in ousting Spikula. She held the position of voting registrar since 2017 and loved the work she did, but was driven to quit out of concern for her family’s safety.

“Basically, what really drew the line for me was the fact that I started to fear for my children,” she told Reuters.

Including Spikula’s resignation, 10 out of 17 Nevada counties have seen their top election official “resign, retire or decline to seek re-election since the 2020 vote, which the state government calls a drastic exodus,” perReuters, and four of these officials cited harassment and “sustained efforts” to challenge election results in their reasons for leaving.

A self-described “constitutionalist” who made a fortune off of cryptocurrency, Beadles is a vocal supporter of the Donald Trump- andSteve Bannon-endorsed “precinct strategy” to “take control of local Republican committees and elect like-minded candidates to county commissions and school boards,” per Reuters.

According to the news agency, he has donated $830,000 to groups including the county’s Republican Party, whose committee he won a seat on last year, and attends lots of Washoe public meetings. In a county school board meeting last year, he protested a proposal to remove a right-wing board member.

“God has blessed me. I have a s— ton of money,” he said in the board meeting. “And I am going to do everything that I f—ing can to remove all of you.”

Washoe County’s Republican clerk Jan Galassini, who was also a target of Beadles' accusations and says her life has been “hell” since, told Reuters that the man “knows how to weave a web, and that’s exactly what he’s done.”

Beadles said that it’s “absurd” to suggest that he’s caused any threats or intimidation, telling the publication, “I’ve never called for violence; I’ve simply asked questions.”

Another Nevada election official, Carson City clerk Aubrey Rowlatt, plans to end her eight-year career in December at the end of her term, telling Reuters that the election denier harassment she’s received is “exhausting.”

“It’s hard to keep going because you know what’s coming on the other side of the election — more nastiness,” she said.

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Beadles, on the other hand, told the news agency that he isn’t slowing down anytime soon, and is calling on supporters to observe the upcoming midterm elections and keep an eye on “the people that are trying to do things nefariously,” according to theReuters report.

“Everything that we see happening around the world right now is due to stolen elections,” Beadles said, despite the glaring lack of evidence backing his claim. “They call us crazy, but we see everything burning.”

Check your voter registration, locate your polling place, and make a voting plan atVote.orgto ensure that your voice is heard this election season.

source: people.com