The Republican who helps oversee elections in Philadelphia is prepared for a certain someone posting his name on Truth Social. Already the former president has pledged that people like him — “Corrupt Election Officials” who refuse to manufacture evidence of fraud for the GOP campaign — will be “sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country.”

That’s if he wins. If he loses? Donald Trump has demonstrated that, where the state won’t act, his supporters will. In fact, City Commissioner Seth Bluestein already experienced it firsthand.

“In 2020, we had to have police protection outside of my house to protect my wife and kids while I was at the Convention Center counting ballots,” he recounted in an interview with Salon. This time, again: “We have preparations in place to ensure that, if we do receive threats, that my family will be safe.”

Related

Last time around, Bluestein was working as a deputy to former City Commissioner Al Schmidt, the only Republican on Philadelphia’s Board of Elections, which by law is required to have one of its three members come from the non-majority party in a city where Democrats hold almost all the elected offices. Schmidt, now overseeing elections across Pennsylvania as secretary of the commonwealth, was singled out by the former president and blamed for this 2020 loss.

“A guy named Al Schmidt, a Philadelphia Commissioner and so-called Republican (RINO), is being used big time by the Fake News Media to explain how honest things were with respect to the Election in Philadelphia,” posted on Nov. 11, 2020. “He refuses to look at a mountain of corruption & dishonesty.”

“The window in time from when the polls close until when the race can be called is the biggest window where disinformation could spread."

Schmidt was then inundated with death threats from Trump supporters. “The threats became much more specific, much more graphic,” Schmidt testified before the congressional committee that investigated the Jan. 6 insurrection and Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 loss. Those threats “included not just me by name,” he noted, “but included members of my family, by name, ages, our address, pictures of our home — every bit of detail you can imagine.”

Bluestein, witnessing that ordeal and experiencing some of the blowback himself, decided to accept a promotion when Schmidt left.

“I did see it up close,” Bluestein said, but despite the threats he felt it was important “to have an experienced, bipartisan Board of Elections, especially in Philadelphia, which is the most populous county in the largest swing state in the country.” Counting votes, he said, “is not a Democratic value or a Republican value: It is an American value,........

© Salon