SANDPOINT — The Idaho Democratic Party is pulling a volunteer organizer from the field due to several instances of alleged harassment and intimidation.

In one recent incident, the employee was confronted outside a Sandpoint grocery store and warned to be careful, said party spokesman Dean Ferguson.

“He was wearing a Heather Scott cap and basically ended the conversation by telling him that he needed to watch his back,” Ferguson said.

In another instance, the employee was leaving his downtown office and found several people in Scott campaign paraphernalia leaning on his vehicle.

Scott, an incumbent Republican in Idaho’s House of Representatives, is being challenged by Democrat Kate McAlister in the Nov. 8 general election.

“All these guys, by the way, know his name, which is weird because he doesn’t know them,” said Ferguson.

Ferguson said the employee cracked a joke to try and ease the tension and moved on.

The employee relocated to unincorporated portion of Bonner County in a bid to keep a lower profile, but it proved fruitless. In the pre-dawn hours of Sept. 30, Ferguson said a man driving a white Dodge Cummins diesel pickup truck drove up the employee’s quarter-mile driveway and took pictures of the home and the license plates on his vehicle.

Ferguson said the employee must have been stalked in order determine where he was living.

The incidents were reported to the Sandpoint Police Department and the Bonner County Sheriff’s Office. Ferguson said both agencies were responsive, although a sheriff’s deputy was dismissive of the harassment claims.

Ferguson said the deputy indicated that the employee could be fabricating the harassment claims for political gain because he is a Democrat. Moreover, the deputy allegedly advised the employee that Democrats are not a protected class of citizen and therefore nothing could be done.

Lacking assurances that the employee would be protected from further harassment and intimidation, the party opted to remove him from field work.

“Out of caution we had to pull our employee out of the community,” said Ferguson. “We couldn’t keep him there after the sheriff’s office didn’t give us any reason to believe that they were going to be taken seriously.”

Bonner County Sheriff Daryl Wheeler said the matter is being investigated.

“I am looking into it,” Wheeler said.

Scott did not respond to a request for comment when asked about her awareness of the allegations.

The Idaho Democratic Party, meanwhile, is calling on Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden to investigate. Party Chairman Bert Marley said the employee faced harassment in Boundary County as well and that the intimidation raises serious concerns under Idaho law. In addition to state law prohibitions against assault and stalking, it’s also a crime in Idaho to threaten or menace a voter in order to influence or deter their willingness to vote.

“The threatening conduct of the group in Bonner and Boundary counties presents serious questions of illegal interference with the right to vote. These questions are not limited to the employee who faced intimidation because local groups may target other electors and because news of harassment may influence other electors’ willingness to vote,” Marley said in an Oct. 5 letter to Wasden.