By now, it’s painfully obvious that Donald Trump and the Republicans are blatantly sabotaging the U.S. Postal Service in order to deliberately delay mail-in ballots for this upcoming election, despite an ongoing pandemic. Trump even admitted to it. His administration is literally collecting mailboxes. But they also have plans for those who want to vote in-person as well.
The 2020 election will be the first in almost 40 years where Republicans will be allowed to engage in a massive, nationwide coordinated effort for a so-called “ballot security” campaign. During those 40 years, Republicans were under a federal consent decree to curb their poll “monitoring” efforts because, back in 1981, Republicans sent armed, off-duty police officers to patrol the polls in minority neighborhoods for a gubernatorial race in New Jersey. The chief strategist for the Republican in that race was a man you might have heard of: convicted felon Roger Stone.
The Democrats sued and won, and the Republican National Committee (RNC) promised to behave. The courts kept the Republicans more or less in line, although the Republicans always tried to work around it. Unfortunately, 2020 will be much different. A federal judge allowed the federal consent decree to expire in 2018. Free from any judicial oversight, the RNC will be able to conduct their dream voter intimidation campaign, and the Republicans are already planning on taking full advantage of this in November.
It’s going to be very, very ugly.
How ugly? Well it would help to know what the GOP did to require decades-long oversight to begin with.
Roger Stone and conservative leaders at the time insisted that unregistered people of color were going to steal the New Jersey election. Sound familiar? A plan was hatched at the RNC to create a phony “task force” to patrol polling stations located near African American and Latino neighborhoods. The RNC said they would challenge voters whose names were not on a list of registered voters they’d obtained, despite the fact that election officials told them the list they were using was outdated.
A young Roger Stone with Reagan and Bush in 1982
The task force was made up of armed, off-duty law enforcement personnel who sported armbands with the words “National Ballot Security Task Force” on them; that official-sounding name was completely made up by the RNC. They also put up intimidating posters in certain polling places, and proceeded to harass and intimidate lawful voters.
Once the poll monitors had set up shop, they soon began, in the language of the complaint, “disrupting the operations of polling places, harassing poll workers, stopping and questioning prospective voters, refusing to permit prospective voters to enter the polling places, ripping down signs of one of the candidates, and forcibly restraining poll workers from assisting, as permitted by state laws, voters to cast their ballots.”
You have to see it to believe it.
As recently as 2016, Roger Stone was ready to “help” again with a Trump-supporting group called “Vote Protectors,” who planned to send volunteers into nine cities with large populations of color, purportedly to “monitor” polling places. Volunteers were encouraged to make fake badges, conduct fake exit polls, and even videotape voters as an intimidation tactic. The scheme fell apart when the Huffington Post found out about it and confronted Stone.
But now that the federal consent decree has been lifted, the Republicans are going all-in on voter intimidation.
Republicans are recruiting an estimated 50,000 volunteers to act as "poll watchers" in November, part of a multimillion-dollar effort to police who votes and how.
That effort, coordinated by the Republican National Committee and President Donald Trump's re-election campaign, includes a $20 million fund for legal battles as well as the GOP's first national poll-patrol operation in nearly 40 years.
Trump has a lot more to lose in this election than he did in 2016. He knows the shroud of protection from multiple lawsuits disappears once he leaves office, and that the GOP has no interest in protecting someone not in power. Do not anticipate Trump planning on making this election anything close to peaceful.
Disturbingly, Trump has really leaned into the message and imagery that his supporters are part of an “army” sworn to protect Trump and “go to battle” against their fellow Americans who want him defeated. “Your life depends on it,” as James Woods tweeted this week. Trump has infamously been encouraging violence among his more violent supporters and paramilitaries. Camouflage-clad military contractors were sent into cities to terrorize Black Lives Matter protesters with random violent assaults and literal kidnappings (referred to by invalid Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf as “proactive arrests.”) I have very little doubt that more than a few members of his gestapo will find themselves at polling stations this election.
Meanwhile, Republican propaganda, like this BS website, is promoting Trump’s delusional vision that millions of undocumented immigrants will be voting this year and must be stopped. Despite no evidence at all of widespread voter fraud, Trump’s racist supporters will be looking hard at every brown and Black person voting in person, and try their best to intimidate them. Meanwhile, conservative advocacy groups, like the ironically-named Honest Elections Project, are helping spread disinformation and fear among conservatives. In Texas, another right-wing group called True the Vote is already recruiting military veterans to aggressively challenge voters.
“You get some (Navy) SEALs in those polls and they’re going to say, ‘No, no, this is what it says. This is how we’re going to play this show,’” said Catherine Engelbrecht, founder of True the Vote, a group that lobbies for voting restrictions and organizes volunteers to go into precincts and aggressively challenge voters who they believe are improperly registered. “That’s what we need. We need people who are unafraid to call it like they see it.”
What’s worse is that Republican state officials aren’t just encouraging this behavior, but setting up their own intimidation groups. In Georgia, which is set to be a major swing state this cycle for both the presidency and the Senate races, the state’s elections chief, Brad Raffensperger, is gathering “a group of law enforcement officials” to organize a state-sponsored voter suppression group. This new body will be setting up “rules for investigating cases of signature mismatches on absentee ballots and instances when multiple votes are mailed from a single address.”
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Raffensperger could not point to any voter fraud in the 2020 primary to justify this action. However, they are refusing to address the actual issues they did have during that election. Georgia’s primary, as you may recall, was a complete disaster. Millions of voters were missing their absentee ballots. and were then forced to stand in ridiculously long lines for several hours, in blazing heat.
Some Peach State polling stations had no working voting machines; a large location in Atlanta had just three machines for the entire place. At some stations, African Americans stayed after midnight to vote. At one polling location in Georgia, the police were called on them because they refused to leave until they cast their ballot.
Unfortunately, we are battling election interference on many fronts. Gerrymandering, voting purges, Russian interference (openly welcomed by the Republican Party), poll station closures in minority areas, and Trump’s blatant sabotage of the USPS in order to delay mail-in ballots are all problems we shouldn’t have to deal with in a healthy, functioning democracy—yet, here we are. The good news is that Joe Biden is taking the threats to our free elections seriously with hundreds of lawyers prepared to do battle. The bad news is that the agency entrusted with preventing voter harassment and intimidation is the Department of Justice, led by Bill Barr.
In my corner of Central Florida, Republicans are already gearing up for battle at the polls. At one local repair shop I recently visited, the owner has hung a ton of Trump paraphernalia, which is not that uncommon here. Yet there was one uncommon thing I noticed: Behind the counter, the owner had a large, orange placard displayed, which I assume he is supposed to wear around his neck on Election Day. In large bold lettering, the placard states that the wearer is “not a poll worker” but had the “right to challenge” your vote and give the elections supervisor the accosted voter’s identifying information, which included race. I wasn’t able to get a picture of it, but I have a feeling I won’t need to. We will likely be seeing plenty of them on Election Day.
That encounter inspired me to write this story. We know the GOP is prepared to suppress the vote to include polling intimidation, but are Democrats ready to fight back? There are things the Party needs to do to protect voter rights, but there are also things YOU can do.
Democratic leaders need to prioritize voting over campaigning
Can we be real for a second? There are very few fence-sitters this election—about 2.4%. If people don’t know who and what Trump is by now, pouring millions into ads that these flakes may or may not see is simply flushing good money down the toilet. What will make a difference is ensuring the people who want to vote for Biden can actually vote.
Here’s just one example: Florida citizens voted overwhelmingly to give former felons the right to vote. Gov. Ron DeSantis tried to undermine his constituents by requiring astronomical court fees be paid before these reenfranchised people can vote. Democratic cities and counties, like Miami, have created a “rocket docket” to forgive these debts en masse. That’s more productive than any Facebook or YouTube ad targeting the fabled “undecided voter.” That’s how you get things done.
Democrats should invest in getting people identification if they need it to vote but can’t afford it; in contacting people who have been purged from voter rolls to get it corrected; and in encouraging voters to vote as early as they can.
Prepare for the inevitable legal battles
We already know that Trump is going to challenge the results when he loses. Democratic legal teams need to prepare briefs right now for multiple scenarios they should be gaming out so they can file them as soon as they arise. Our leadership must be unified and prepared. There is no excuse not to be!
Allies in the private sector need to step up!
People of color are always the ones targeted for poll closures. In Georgia, the cycle of poll closures in such areas continues. However, at least in Atlanta, the NBA’s Hawks offered their arena as a poll site, which is not only large enough to hold the crowd, but big enough to ensure social distancing. Just this week, LeBron James and MLB’s Dodgers announced Dodger Stadium would follow suit! How about other teams in other states? How about every team?
Companies can and should create programs to provide technological assistance in areas such as election security and combating disinformation. Take a cue from Microsoft’s Defending Democracy program or Google’s digital security initiative to protect emails. Where are the rest of the nation’s good corporate citizens?
Individuals can also do quite a bit to help.
Sign up to be a poll monitor
Contact your local Democratic party and volunteer. I’ve done this before here in Florida. The Democrats color-code the poll sites where there are issues of challenges and intimidation, on a scale of green, yellow, and red, like a traffic light. There were quite a few sites marked red, as I recall. Election lawyers, if available, are sent to the worst ones. Democrats are there to protect people’s fundamental right to vote. Republicans, not so much. Unfortunately, we were often short-staffed. When I volunteered in 2004, two monitors were allowed by each party for each site, but I was the only one who showed up on the Democratic side.
Work the damn polls
Most poll workers are over 60 and thousands are not expected to work the polls this cycle due to the dangers of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is causing a massive shortage that will contribute to huge wait times.
Are you over 15? Do you want to get paid? Sign up for a shift. I’ve decided that this is where I need to be this election. Please consider doing this.
Protect drop boxes
Voting early and in-person is probably the best way to do your part to unseat Trump (and usher in Democrats down-ticket). If you do vote by mail, the second-best thing is to personally deliver your completed ballot to an elections office. DO NOT trust the USPS to deliver your ballot on time. If you must mail your ballot, mail it as EARLY as possible.
I would trust a drop box before I would trust the mail at this point, but The Washington Post pointed out multiple issues with theft, paint attacks, fakes, and tampering. If there is emerging concern for shenanigans in your area, your community can take small shifts in monitoring the drop boxes. Urge elections officials to empty the drop boxes regularly.
Give comfort to the poll lines
Are you able to provide food or drink? Lines at polling stations serving communities of color in Republican states are going to be at least a mile long. Milwaukee went from having 160 polling stations to five for the entire city. Atlanta’s polling stations had few working machines. You might not be able to change that reality, but you help make the line more bearable for the ones being suppressed.
Ensure you are eligible to vote, and encourage your friends and family to check
Check your registration status here. Send the link to your family and friends so they can check theirs. Spread this message to everyone you know in person, and on your social media. You still have time to get on the rolls … if you act now.
Do not be intimidated into accepting a provisional ballot
Again, ensure you are registered NOW. Provisional ballots are rarely counted. It’s an epidemic in this nation that provisional ballots are treated this way. A poll monitoring lawyer told me that every time a voter is given a provisional ballot, it's a victory for the GOP. States vary, of course: In Pennsylvania, an on-site judge of elections will decide to accept the vote or not based on good faith, or require you to get another qualified elector to sign an affidavit vouching for you. Only accept a provisional ballot after all other options are exhausted.
Report acts of voter intimidation
Call the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) at 1-866-OUR-VOTE or 1-888-VE-Y-VOTA (en Español) first. Then report the intimidation to your local election officials. Finally, report it to your local Democratic Party apparatus. In Florida, the state party has a voter protection department residents can call; challenging votes frivolously is a first-class misdemeanor here.
These are just some of the ideas and tools in our arsenal to fight back. No, we shouldn’t have to do this in a healthy, functioning democracy, but that’s exactly what we are fighting to restore. We can’t prevent the Republicans from trying to assault our elections, but we can damn sure not make it easy for them to succeed.
Effective Get Out the Vote can change an election. With Turnout2020, you call Democratic-leaning swing state voters & help them request an absentee ballot. During the COVID-19 pandemic, this is needed now more than ever. Sign up to volunteer, and you can make these phone calls from the privacy & comfort of your own home.
