DENVER — A former Denver elections employee who says she was fired for talking out about her security issues on comic Jon Stewart’s present filed a federal lawsuit Monday, alleging election officers wished to silence her and violated her First Modification rights.
Virginia Chau, a lawyer who labored as a polling heart supervisor throughout elections, spoke in 2022 about threats made in opposition to election staff and the shortage of coaching for them throughout a panel dialogue on the short-lived streaming present “The Downside with Jon Stewart.”
Nationally, election officers have elevated safety within the lead-up to Election Day each to guard their staff and to guard voting procedures and ballots.
Election places of work and staff have been the goal of harassment and threats for the reason that 2020 presidential election, primarily by individuals supporting former President Donald Trump’s lies that the election was stolen from him due to fraud.
Based on Chau’s lawsuit, the Denver elections division director R. Todd Davidson advised her she was being eliminated as a supervisor due to her feedback on the present and stated she might be a hotline consultant as an alternative as a result of nobody from the general public would acknowledge her in that job.
The transfer would have been a demotion, the lawsuit stated, and Chau refused to simply accept the brand new place.
The lawsuit alleges that Denver clerk and recorder Paul Lopez didn’t reply to Chau’s request to rethink her termination.
“As a substitute of heeding Ms. Chau’s name for extra assets and coaching for election officers going through threats to their private security, Defendants determined as an alternative to retaliate in opposition to one among their finest, and most passionate, election staff,” the lawsuit says.
The swimsuit was filed in opposition to the town, its elections director and clerk and recorder.
It asks for Chau to be reinstated and for unspecified damages.
A spokesperson for Lopez’s workplace, Mikayla Ortega, and a consultant of the town lawyer’s workplace, Melissa Sisneros, stated their places of work don’t touch upon pending litigation.
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