A Nebraska man was sentenced Thursday to 18 months in prison for online threats he made against Colorado’s top elections official, in one of the first cases brought by a federal task force devoted to protecting elections workers nationwide from rising threats.
Travis Ford was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Lincoln, where he lives, after pleading guilty earlier this year to sending threats to Secretary of State Jena Griswold on social media. It was the first guilty plea obtained by the U.S. Justice Department’s Election Threats Task Force, which was launched last year after the 2020 presidential election, citing the potential effect on democracy of threats against election officials and workers.
