A former election worker is suing Denver, alleging city officials violated her First Amendment right to free speech by firing her after she appeared on Jon Stewart’s streaming show two years ago to talk about election safety.
Virginia Chau worked as a polling center supervisor in Denver for four years before she appeared on Apple TV+’s “The Problem with Jon Stewart” in 2022 to speak about the danger that angry, politicized voters pose to election workers and her experiences as an Asian-American woman working at a voting center, according to the lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Denver.
Chau told Stewart that she and her Denver polling center coworkers saw “increased hostility” from voters during the 2020 election and that they experienced “unprecedented racism,” the lawsuit stated.
Voters would call Chau the “China virus,” blame her for COVID-19, question whether she was a citizen and insist on having a “real citizen” or a “real American” help them, according to the lawsuit.
“The truth is there’s no structure, there’s no training for that,” Chau said during her appearance on comedian’s news commentary program, referencing the lack of policy explaining what staff should do when encountering aggressive or hostile voters. “You don’t know what to do until things happen.”
When Chau appeared on television, she “raised concerns about threats against elections officials and the lack of training provided to those who work hard to ensure that our elections are safe, fair and accurate,” the lawsuit stated.
Chau said the city fired her to punish her for speaking out and to “silence her,” according to the lawsuit against the city of Denver, the city’s clerk and recorder and the director of Denver’s election division..
Denver city officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday.
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A week after she appeared on Stewart’s show, city officials told Chau they were “disappointed” in her comments and offered to demote her to a hotline representative because they did not “want people to recognize (her) from the show,” the lawsuit stated. She alleges that when she refused the demotion, the city fired her.
The lawsuit alleges the city’s firing of Chau violates her First Amendment right and constitutes unlawful retaliation for exercising her right to free speech by speaking out “as a private citizen about issues of public concern regarding dangers to and mistreatment of election judges.”
Chau is asking for compensation for economic damages, attorney’s fees and costs, past and future monetary losses, physical and mental pain, humiliation, fear, anxiety, and more, the lawsuit stated.
She is also asking to be reinstated to her previous position as a polling center supervisor and for Denver to institute new policies and training to keep election workers safe at the polls.
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