3 Things To Know About Shaye Moss, Poll Worker Who Provided Gripping Testimony To Jan. 6 Committee About Racist Threats
On Tuesday (June 21), Georgia poll worker Shaye Moss provided gripping and heartbreaking testimony to the January 6 committee about threats she received while counting ballots from the 2020 Presidential Election.
"A lot of threats wishing death upon me. Telling me that, you know, I'll be in jail with my mother and saying things like, 'Be glad it's 2020 and not 1920," Moss said during her testimony. She also said that, at one point, Trump supporters showed up at her grandmother’s home and attempted to push their way through the door.
"It's affected my life in a major way,” she added during her testimony, noting that she is no longer a poll worker due to harassment. “In every way. All because of lies. For me doing my job. Same thing I've been doing forever."
Additionally, Moss said that her mother Ruby Freeman, who was at the hearing in support of her daughter, was forced to leave her home after then-Donald Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani released a video claiming Moss and Freeman colluded to commit voter fraud.
"Now I won't even introduce myself by my name anymore,” said Moss. “I get nervous when I bump into someone I know in the grocery store who says my name. I'm worried about who is listening. I get nervous when I have to give my name for food orders .... I've lost my name and I've lost my reputation."
Moss’ testimony was, for many, the first time the world was introduced to her and her story. Here are three key things to know about Shaye Moss.
On Election Day, She Worked With Her Mother Processing Ballots In Atlanta For The Fulton County Elections Board
While working, lawyer Giuliani falsely claimed that a spliced video clip showed Ms. Moss and Ms. Freeman pulled 18,000 fraudulent ballots from a suitcase and illegally feeding them through voting machines.
According to the New York Times, the baseless allegation was quickly taken up by right-wing media outlets like The Gateway Pundit, which subsequently wrote several stories about Moss and Freeman, calling them “crooked Democrats” and claiming they began counting ballots “without election monitors in the room.”
Fulton County and Georgia election officials immediately debunked the accusations, however it didn’t stop Trump and his allies from amplifying them and comparing Moss and Freeman to drug dealers and calling for their homes to be searched.
She Was Among Five Honored With JFK Profile In Courage Award
On Sunday, the JFK Library Foundation honored five people with their annual Profile in Courage Award – and Moss was one of those earning the distinction.
"I want to give a special thank you to all the anonymous election workers out there. The ones that are doing the heavy lifting our democracy depends on far from the spotlight," said Moss after receiving the award, according to CBS News. "Tonight I represent all of them. All of those hardworking people with incredible courage to do the job and do it right."
The others who received the award include Congresswoman Liz Cheney, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, Arizona Representative Russell Bowers, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
She and Freeman Have Sued The Gateway Pundit and One America News Network For Defamation
In early December 2021, Moss and her mother filed defamation lawsuits against right-wing outlets The Gateway Pundit and One America News Network, two of the nation’s leading sources of pro-Trump misinformation.
The lawsuit, which was among the first to be filed by individual election workers who found themselves unwittingly dragged into the far-right media’s alternate universe that claimed, and still does, that Donald Trump won the 2020 Presidential Election.
“I want the defendants to know that my daughter and I are real people who deserve justice, and I never want them to do this to anyone else,” Ms. Freeman said in a statement at the time, according to the New York Times.
In April of this year, Reuters reported that the two Georgia election workers reached a settlement agreement with OAN. The result of the agreement resulted in Moss and Freeman’s asking Chief Judge Beryl Howell to dismiss the OAN defendants from the litigation, however terms of the settlement were not disclosed in a joint status report filed with the court.
Watch Shaye Moss’ full testimony from Tuesday afternoon below.
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