THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN
TYPES OF TARGETED VIOLENCE
What is the relationship between election violence, political violence, and identity-based violence? This document seeks to define these terms and briefly explore their relationship to one another. It borrows largely from Over Zero’s 2020 Building a Resiliency Network toolkit.
ELECTION VIOLENCE:
The International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) defines election or electoral violence as “any harm or threat of harm to any person or property involved in the election process, or the process itself, during the election period.” This spans “intimidation, to destruction of property, to violent clashes resulting in loss of life” that influence who participates in and benefits from the election process.
POLITICAL VIOLENCE:
Electoral violence is a subset of political violence—violence, threats, and harassment aimed at controlling or changing who benefits from, and participates fully in, U.S. political, economic, and socio-cultural life.
IDENTITY-BASED VIOLENCE:
Political and electoral violence are deeply intertwined with and build on a third, broader form of violence: identity-based violence. Identity-based violence is any act of violence that targets a victim based on their perceived identity—whether their race, gender, sexuality, religion, or political affiliation.
THREATS, HARASSMENT, AND INTIMIDATION:
We consider threats, harassment, and intimidation—in addition to physical violence—as part of our definitions of targeted violence. Why? Because threats, intimidation, and harassment can have the same impact as physical violence in creating an atmosphere of fear and chaos that ultimately chills participation in the political process. Like physical violence, threats and harassment can lead individuals and communities to refrain from expressing their political views, attending political rallies or events, and/or even showing up to vote. Threats and intimidation, like physical violence, can also impact elected officials’ support for different legislation or policies, and their rhetoric toward different groups and issues.
*For a brief overview of these instances of historical violence, see the Appendix.
ELECTION, POLITICAL, AND IDENTITY-BASED VIOLENCE ARE INTERCONNECTED:
Political and election violence are not new. They have been a pervasive, if often forgotten, feature of America’s national story. Such violence has often sought to suppress the vote of marginalized groups. Examples include Louisville's Bloody Monday in 1855, the 1873 Colfax Massacre in Louisiana, Florida’s 1920 Ocoee Massacre, 1965’s Bloody Sunday during the Selma to Montgomery marches, and the January 6, 2021, Capitol Insurrection.* Across these examples, violence has targeted people on the basis of their identities to prevent them from participating in and benefiting from political life in the United States.
Elections interact with and amplify deeper, more structural risks of violence—from identity-based divisions and polarization to a rise in inflammatory rhetoric to an increase in democratic distrust and weakened institutions. In environments with these dynamics—such as the United States today—elections to determine who holds power at the highest levels of government can easily become flashpoints for violence.
In threatening free and fair elections, such violence impacts the country at a national level, but its effects are also felt locally. This is particularly true for communities that have historically been disenfranchised and targeted with violence, threats, intimidation, and harassment, such as Black, Latinx, LGBTQ+, Muslim, Arab, Sikh, Middle Eastern, South Asian, and Jewish communities.
NARRATIVE PATTERNS:
As with other forms of targeted violence, election violence interacts with narratives and communications patterns that tap into and amplify existing intergroup divisions, tensions, and any histories of conflict. These narratives often seek to:
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR ADDRESSING RISKS?
Efforts to prevent and defuse risks of group-targeted violence spans building community resilience, developing narrative and communications strategies, and applying nonviolent action tactics to make violence backfire, among others. In responding, we must directly consider and address how the particular risk intersects with other forms of targeted harm, including the country’s deep history of identity-based violence.
APPENDIX: A BRIEF LOOK AT HISTORICAL EXAMPLES
Bloody Monday: In 1855 in Louisville, Kentucky, armed local members of the Know-Nothing party, a xenophobic, nativist political movement that regularly engaged in dangerous rhetoric, descended upon voting booths, targeting recent German and Irish immigrants. Before long, intimidation turned to outright violence that left 22 people dead and many more injured.
The Colfax Massacre: In 1873, amid Reconstruction, a mob of white insurgents attacked the courthouse in Colfax, Louisiana’s Grant Parish, seeking to overturn the recent Republican gubernatorial victory. The mob targeted the Black population of Colfax, who had organized to defend the courthouse and the election results after learning of the mob. The ensuing violence resulted in between 60 and 150 fatalities among Black residents and three fatalities among participants in the attacking white mob.
Ocoee Massacre: In 1920, a white mob murdered as many as 50 Black people in Ocoee, Florida. This began when July Perry, a Black man and leader in local voter registration efforts for Black residents, was turned away from voting and subsequently chased by a white mob. The mob began targeting other members of the Black community, and was joined by Klan members from neighboring towns. Ultimately, the entire northern quarter—where most of the Black community lived—was destroyed.
Bloody Sunday: On March 7, 1965, at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, over 500 protestors took to the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, as part of the marches organized to call for equal voting rights for Black Americans. The march was met with horrific violence perpetrated by local law enforcement and recently deputized white locals.
The Capitol Insurrection: On January 6, 2021, following months of former President Trump’s baseless claims that the 2020 election had been “stolen,” a mob of his supporters violently broke into the Capitol in an effort to prevent the certification of then-President elect Biden’s victory and overturn the election. Trump’s claims rested on false and racist conspiracy theories that voter fraud had occurred in predominantly Black cities, including Philadelphia, Milwaukee, and Atlanta. At least seven died in connection with the attack, approximately 150 police officers were injured, and hundreds more traumatized. Over 1,400 have been criminally charged for their involvement in the attack.
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TYPES OF TARGETED VIOLENCE | OVER ZERO