What do you do when you’re a both-sides kind of reporter and publication, but you find a story you can’t stretch hard enough to both sides? Here’s an answer, courtesy of The Washington Post and Josh Partlow: You just report a string of events without ever identifying what connects them.
"Shouting matches, partisan rallies, guns at polling places: Tensions high at early-voting sites," the headline reads. Okay … and there’s nothing more you can say about who’s doing these things?
The article offers example after example showing this is a Trump issue.
- Trump supporters rallied right by ballot drop boxes in Nevada City, California, forcing voters to make their way through or around the rally to vote, with some feeling intimidated
- In Hendersonville, Tennessee, a Trump supporter drove a truck and trailer around a polling place with Trump flags flying and loud music coming from speakers
- Trump supporters drove, honking, past a voting site on the first day of early voting in Albuquerque, New Mexico
- A Miami police officer went into a polling place in uniform and a Trump mask
- Republican volunteers took down Biden signs outside a Randolph County, North Carolina, voting location and one campaigned inside the 100-foot buffer zone within which no partisan activity—even wearing of campaign T-shirts—can be conducted
- In Craven County, North Carolina, a Trump supporter talked loudly about her Trump support and loudly played a Trump rally on her phone within the buffer zone
There are two stories in the article that are not about Trump supporters bombarding polling sites with the sights and sounds of Trump support. One is that sheriff’s deputies are protecting a satellite voter services office in Montgomery, Pennsylvania, in part due to “the president making statements that he’s not going to respect the results of the election.” The other involves maskless voters getting into a shouting match with others in line to vote in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and the maskless people being told to leave by police.
So “the first days of early voting have unfolded with dozens of accusations of inappropriate campaigning and possible voter intimidation in at least 14 states,” and what’s reported amounts to: Trump supporter intimidation, Trump supporter obnoxiousness, local elections officials and a local sheriff feeling that Trump’s attacks on the integrity of the election require deputies to protect a voting site, and a dispute seemingly over masks (when we know who belligerently rejects mask-wearing). But at no point does the Post draw any conclusions about who exactly is creating this atmosphere of intimidation. It just sort of … is, apparently.