“Should I kill them one by one or should I blow the place up?” Joshua David Lubitz, 38, asked after counting poll workers at the Sunrise Senior Center during early voting last August, according to a federal indictment.
The Sunrise resident pleaded guilty in federal court on Wednesday to threatening election workers. He now faces up to five years in prison.
Lubitz had arrived at the polling center on West Oakland Park Boulevard on Aug. 17, 2022, during the early voting week leading up to the Aug. 23 Election Day, according to a motion filed by prosecutors. When he entered the center, he was directed to an Electronic Voter Identification operator to check in, but declined to go to the operator that officials had directed him towards, announcing with expletives that he would go to a different operator.
As the operator was checking Lubitz in, she saw him count the poll workers and make the threat to kill them or blow up the senior center, according to court documents. She sent him to the next station, where the poll worker heard him mumbling something to the effect of “my dad would love this. It would be easy” and “this would be nice and sweet.”
Lubitz then voted and exited the polling center. As he drove away, he reached out his arm and gestured shooting a handgun at the poll deputies stationed outside, court records show.
While Lubitz was voting, the poll site supervisor had called the Sunrise Police Department and provided officers his information, according to prosecutors. Officers went to Lubitz’s parents house, where his parents told them that Lubitz suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder. When Lubitz returned home, he denied making any of the statements that poll workers said they had heard.
Lubitz’s sentencing hearing is set for July 25.