County officials receiving threats after Feb. 17 elections meeting
Washington County officials have received an influx of threats through direct messages and on various social media platforms from numerous people in the days since an Ohio physicist met with them to discuss his concerns with the 2020 presidential election.
In a joint statement issued Thursday morning by the county board of commissioners, officials said the threats began the day after their Feb. 17 meeting with Douglas Frank, who claims he found irregularities in Washington County’s election.
After the meeting, county officials said in media interviews that they wanted more information from Frank before fully investigating his claims, prompting him to post on his various social media platforms that he planned to go “scorched earth” to expose irregularities. Some followers to his social media pages have posted comments with veiled threats of violence.
“Since then, county officials and staff have been made aware of threats,” Commissioners Diana Irey Vaughan, Larry Maggi and Nick Sherman said in a joint written statement. “These threats have been reported to the appropriate law enforcement agencies and are currently being investigated. The County takes threats very seriously and the safety of our staff is of our utmost concern.”
County officials declined to elaborate on what those threats were or which authorities were investigating them.
During a lengthy phone interview Wednesday afternoon with the Observer-Reporter to discuss the Feb. 17 meeting and corresponding online threats, Frank said he did not mean to insinuate he wanted violence with his “scorched earth” comment, which he said was a metaphor for his cause. He claimed that the Washington County Board of Elections, which includes the three commissioners, did not properly reconcile the results with voter rolls before certifying the election and has a discrepancy of 1,280 votes. County election officials have previously said Frank is using voter information from February 2021, which is different than the registration data from the November 2020 election and accounts for the discrepancy.
“Definitely, ‘scorched earth’ doesn’t mean violence against a public official,” Frank said in the phone interview. “It means we’re going to go public with information. I don’t want violence. I don’t want people to be hurt.”
Frank issued a series of posts last weekend on his Facebook page and social media platform Telegram directed toward Washington County and its officials. While not mentioning county Elections Director Melanie Ostrander by name, Frank posted on Feb. 20 that she did not properly reconcile elections results with the voter rolls, among other irregularities, all of which Ostrander has previously denied.
“Dude, if I lived in such a county, I’d be all torches and pitchforks. It’s tar and feathers time,” Frank wrote at the end of the post.
One follower responded on the Telegram version of the post that alluded to the execution of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini in 1945, while others suggested firing squads and public gallows.
The threats apparently go beyond social media comments, with some being directed toward county officials. Security measures appear to be increased this week at county buildings, although the specifics on what upgrades have been made were not released to the public.
Frank said he was unaware of threats against public officials, but he planned to clarify in future posts that he would not tolerate threats of violence.
“I like the temperature high because it keeps people motivated,” Frank said. “But I don’t want the temperature to be violent.”
He intends to continue investigating Washington County’s handling of the election and suggested they may sue the county in an attempt to get a court order to open the electronic voting machines to see if there are mechanisms that could be externally hacked. County elections officials have repeatedly said the individual voting machines do not contain modems or other devices that can transmit vote totals, which would violate state laws.
“I came in with olive branches and that’s the response I got, and I’m not happy about that,” Frank said about the county’s response following the Feb. 17 meeting. “I’m not threatening them physically.”