May 22, 2023

He was an election official in 2020. Now he has PTSD.

He was an election official in 2020. Now he has PTSD.
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He was an election official in 2020. Now he has PTSD.

The PTSD diagnosis came as a surprise for Bill Gates, an election official in Arizona’s Maricopa County. But ever since 2020, Gates has struggled with the trauma of the presidential election and the threats he endured, as well as the loneliness he felt as a Republican willing to say Donald Trump lost.

Ever since the 2020 election, Arizona election official Bill Gates has struggled with PTSD. He’s one of many election workers who are still coping with the barrage of death threats and harassment they endured in the wake of former president Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the election. 


As the country braces for another presidential election cycle, in which Trump is the Republican front-runner, Gates is coming forward with his story about the psychological toll disinformation about the last election has taken on him and other elections officials. 


Reporter Yvonne Wingett-Sanchez joins us to explain. 


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