MAGA/QAnon Election Denier ‘Poll Observers’ Are Staking Out Ballot Drop Boxes

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Update to Warning! Beware The Trump Big Lie Election Denier GQP Poll Observers In Pima County (all 15 counties).

And then there are the GQP “insider” attacks on elections. The New York Times recently reported A Hidden New Threat to U.S. Elections:

It’s been more than nine weeks since the Pennsylvania primary. The election is still not certified.

The reason: Three counties — Berks, Fayette and Lancaster — are refusing to process absentee ballots that were received in a timely manner and are otherwise valid, except the voter did not write a date on the declaration printed on the ballot’s return envelope.

The Pennsylvania attorney general has argued in court amid a lawsuit against those three counties that the state will not certify results unless they “include every ballot lawfully cast in that election” (emphasis theirs).

The standoff in Pennsylvania is the latest attempt by conservative-leaning counties to disrupt, delay or otherwise meddle with the process of statewide election certification, a normally ceremonial administrative procedure that became a target of Donald Trump’s attempts to subvert the 2020 contest.

It’s happened in other states, too. Earlier this year, Otero County, a conservative rural area in southern New Mexico, refused to certify its primary election, citing conspiracy theories about voting machines, though no county commissioner produced evidence to legitimize their concerns.

Eventually, under threat of legal action from the state’s attorney general and an order from the state Supreme Court, the commissioners relented and certified the county’s roughly 7,300 votes.

Pro-democracy groups saw Otero County’s refusal to certify the results as a warning of potentially grave future crises, and expressed worries about how a state might be able to certify a presidential election under similar circumstances.

The showdown in Pennsylvania is most likely less severe. The number of undated ballots is quite small, and if they had to, state officials could certify the election without counting those ballots, disenfranchising a small number of voters but preserving the ability to certify and send presidential electors to Congress (or elect a governor, senator or local official from the area). For now, the attorney general’s argument is to simply force the counting of every legal ballot.

“It is imperative that every legal vote cast by a qualified voter is counted,” said Molly Stieber, a spokesperson for the attorney general, Josh Shapiro, who is now the state’s Democratic nominee for governor. “The 64 other counties in Pennsylvania have complied and accurately certified their election results. Counties cannot abuse their responsibility for running elections as an excuse to unlawfully disenfranchise voters.”

The battle over the undated envelopes in Pennsylvania also presages what is likely to be another litigious election season, in which partisans will look to contest as many ballots as possible to help their side win, seizing on technicalities and immaterial mistakes in an effort to cancel votes.

Election experts say that such sprawling legal challenges, combined with false accusations of fraud, could create chaos akin to the 2020 election aftermath.

“Had this unfolded on this kind of timeline in 2020, it really could have created problems, because there would have been questions about whether the state could have actually named a slate of electors,” said Robert Yablon, a law professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School. “You could imagine there being disputed slates of electors that were sent to Congress, and it could have been a big mess.”

The issue reached the courts last year, when the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in a dispute over a judicial election that ballots could not be discounted because voters had not dated the return envelope’s declaration. The Supreme Court upheld that decision in June.

In Pennsylvania’s tight Republican primary race for Senate between Mehmet Oz, now the nominee, and David McCormick, a state court again ruled that the undated ballots must be counted, but also instructed counties to report two separate tallies to state election officials — one including the undated ballots, and one without them — should there be a later decision on appeal going the other way.

So far, there has been no new opinion allowing counties to not count the ballots. Local officials in each county have declined to comment, citing the ongoing lawsuit.

Tuesday is Primary Election day. If you encounter election workers trying to disrupt the vote, or poll workers trying to disrupt the vote or to suppress the vote of voters, or people in line threatening or intimidating poll workers, or these yahoo MAGA/QAnon “poll observers” threatening or intimidating voters at the polls or even out in the parking lot, report them to election authorities.

If you see something, say something.

From the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office:

Reporting Voter Intimidation and Other Unlawful Conduct

If you witness voter intimidation or other unlawful conduct at the polls, we recommend the following steps:

  • First, inform a poll worker at the voting location, who will work to resolve any problems and call your county election officials and/or local law enforcement if needed. However, if you or anyone else is in immediate danger, call 911 first and then inform a poll worker if possible.
  • Document what you see as much as possible, including the who, what, when, and where of the incident. (But keep in mind that taking photos or video is prohibited inside the 75-foot limit of a voting location.)

Click here to report the incident to the Secretary of State’s Office

You can also call 1-877-THE-VOTE. We will follow up with county election officials and federal, state, or local law enforcement entities if needed.

 

From the U.S. Attorney For Arizona:

Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA) Sean Lokey will lead the efforts of his Office in connection with the upcoming August 2, 2022, primary election. AUSA Lokey has been appointed to serve as the District Election Officer for the District of Arizona, and in that capacity is responsible for overseeing the District’s handling of complaints of voting rights violations and election fraud in consultation with Justice Department headquarters in Washington.

AUSA Lokey will be on duty on Primary Election Day on August 2, 2022, to respond to complaints of election fraud, voting rights violations, or intimidation. AUSA Lokey can be reached by the public at the following telephone number: 602-514-7516.

The FBI will also have special agents available in the Phoenix Field Division to receive allegations of election abuses on election day. FBI in Arizona can be reached by phone at 623-466-1999 or online at https://tips.fbi.gov/.

Complaints about possible violations of the federal voting rights laws can be made directly to the Civil Rights Division in Washington, D.C. by phone at 800-253-3931 or by complaint form at https://civilrights.justice.gov/ .

In the case of a crime of violence, call 911 immediately. State and local police have primary jurisdiction over polling places.

Finally there is the completely useless Election Integrity Unit (EIU) in the Arizona Attorney General’s office. They only take online complaints, and are of no assistance.





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4 thoughts on “MAGA/QAnon Election Denier ‘Poll Observers’ Are Staking Out Ballot Drop Boxes”

  1. The RNC’s Election Integriry Director who is doing these GQP “poll observer” training sessions shows up in subpoenas issued by the January 6 Committee. Politico reports, “The RNC ‘election integrity’ official appearing in DOJ’s Jan. 6 subpoenas”, https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/30/doj-jan-6-capitol-riot-joshua-findlay-00048809

    [T]he Justice Department’s Jan. 6 probe is seeking communications to and from a Republican National Committee staffer in a sensitive role.

    At least three witnesses in DOJ’s investigation of so-called alternate electors in the 2020 election — two in Arizona and another in Georgia — have received subpoenas demanding communications to and from Joshua Findlay, who is now the RNC’s national director for election integrity.

    POLITICO reviewed the subpoena sent to the Georgia witness after the Washington Post published copies of two Arizona subpoenas. Findlay’s appearance in the documents means the Justice Department has taken interest in his communications as part of its probe related to pro-Trump GOP officials and activists who presented themselves as legitimate electors from states where Joe Biden won.

    Findlay worked for Trump’s 2020 campaign in multiple capacities. In January 2019, the campaign announced he was joining the team that would handle the 2020 Republican National Convention. After the convention, he worked as an attorney on the Trump campaign’s legal team.

    The three subpoenas order the witnesses to share all documents and communications from October 2020 on, “[t]o, from, with, or including” a list of people, including Findlay.

    While Findlay is not a central figure in the Jan. 6 select committee’s investigation, the head of the Trump campaign’s legal team, Matt Morgan, mentioned him in testimony to the panel.

    Findlay’s visibility into plans regarding alternate electors didn’t end on Election Day. POLITICO reviewed an email sent to him on December 12, 2020, showing David Shafer — head of the Georgia Republican Party, and himself an alternate elector — directing one of his subordinates to contact Findlay about the alternate elector plans.

    Findlay started his job at the RNC after Biden’s inauguration and as its chair, Ronna McDaniel, announced a new “Committee on Election Integrity” with the stated purpose of “ensuring voters have confidence in future election processes.”

    In his role at the RNC, Findlay has discussed the party’s work scrutinizing election administration.

    In a video call hosted by Texas RNC Committeewoman Toni Anne Dashiell and posted on YouTube on July 26, 2021, Findlay said the party was gearing up to “train and build the largest, most well-prepared election integrity organization in the history of the Republican Party.”

    He also described “the first ever Republican Party National Election Integrity College,” which included twenty candidates and was held in Washington D.C. the week before the call.

    “We need to put eyes on every part of this election process,” he continued. “We’re going to have thousands and thousands of volunteers out there. So a big part of the curriculum at this college was recruiting and training and placing volunteers.”

    The RNC, he continued, was moving “to recruit and train and place volunteers to watch every aspect of every election to make sure that Democrats aren’t committing fraud, that election administrators are not abusing their position, and just to make sure that there’s no mistake in what’s happening across the board.”

    DOJ has not accused Findlay or any other people of crimes related to the alternate elector scheme. A spokesperson for the department declined to comment on the subpoenas.

    • UPDATE: Politico adds, “RNC links up with ‘Stop the Steal’ advocates to train poll workers”, https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/02/rnc-stop-the-steal-advocates-poll-workers-00049109?nname=playbook&nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&nrid=0000014e-f109-dd93-ad7f-f90d0def0000&nlid=630318

      The Republican National Committee has been relying on a stable of the party’s most prolific spreaders of false stolen-election theories to pilot a sweeping “election integrity” operation to recruit and coach thousands of poll workers in eight battleground states, according to new recordings of organizing summits held this spring in Florida and Pennsylvania obtained by POLITICO.

      On the tapes, RNC National Election Integrity Director Josh Findlay repeatedly characterizes the committee’s role as supporting in-state coalitions — delivering staff, organization and “muscle” in key states to the person they identify as the quarterback of the effort to create a permanent workforce: Conservative elections attorney Cleta Mitchell, who was a central figure in former President Donald Trump’s legal strategy to overturn the 2020 election.

      “Cleta Mitchell, she’s like the best election and election law expert out there. We’re not going to tell her what to do,” Findlay told a March 31 Pennsylvania session organized by Mitchell.

      Publicly, the RNC has insisted its goal is to ensure there are enough trained poll workers to protect the electoral process and ensure partisan parity at polling centers. The recordings, however, indicated that the RNC is relying heavily on people who have spread false or unproven claims of irregularities and conspiracies. The recordings feature Findlay speaking at a number of Mitchell’s “Election Integrity Network” summits, which her group has hosted in battleground states including Arizona, Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. The RNC is just “part of the team,” he told a Florida summit the same month.

      While Republicans have said the aim of their “election integrity” effort is to ensure there are well-trained poll workers during the next election, the recordings also feature Mitchell speaking openly about the need to challenge efforts by nonprofit groups aligned with Democrats to create a “new American majority” of young voters, people of color and unmarried women.

      “It’s a place the left sees as a great target of opportunity, and we have to make sure that doesn’t happen,” she said, referring to Democratic efforts to register voters from traditionally underrepresented voting blocs.

      Mitchell was on Trump’s post-election phone call directing a Georgia elections official to “find” him 11,700 votes after losing the state, and is she among those currently under subpoena in a criminal investigation by the Fulton County district attorney. Days after the 2020 election, she was exploring ways to keep Trump in power via a slate of fake electors from several battleground states. White House call logs show she is also among a handful of individuals with whom Trump spoke on Jan. 6, 2021, the day the Capitol was attacked, and she is suing to block the House Jan. 6 committee from obtaining her full phone records.

      The RNC says its poll watching and working program has been in place for recent primary elections in Georgia and Texas, where “turnout has risen, reported issues have been resolved and elections have run smoothly,” said RNC spokesperson Gates McGavick.

      “The RNC works with other groups who have an interest in promoting election integrity, but the party’s efforts are independent from any outside organization,” said McGavick. “Fearmongering stories like this undermine confidence in elections and unfairly smear Americans who are simply getting involved in the civic process,” he said.

      [T]he approach around placing partisan poll workers is similar: steering clear of any public statements expressly supporting the “Stop the Steal” wing of the party while collaborating with some of its leading advocates around what the RNC considers, according to minutes of a spring training meeting in Memphis provided by Documented, its “number one goal” of building a permanent army of 15,000 GOP poll workers.

      The RNC, in its email response, said Democrats also have a major Election Day operation through their national party and noted that the Democratic National Committee’s website features a webinar on how to become a poll worker. Yet the DNC’s “voter protection” program is different because it focuses on expanding voting access, including through more locations and through mail-in voting. The webinar does not train poll workers, rather informs them how to apply, and the DNC says it does not have a national initiative to train poll workers.

      In workshops hosted by the RNC, GOP activists behind the party’s “election integrity” drive have primarily emphasized rooting out voting fraud — including “ballot stuffing” through the mail for which no evidence exists — as their key goal.

      The recordings suggest the goals are broader. At an April 5 Arizona summit, Mitchell spoke mostly about an emerging “new American majority” of people of color, young people and unmarried women that could make conservatives “obsolete.” Her private comments are significant because Democrats have long insisted it is these fears of displacement — and not legitimate election administration concerns — behind the GOP drive to tighten access to voting for certain groups, including through mail.

      POLITICO obtained the recordings from Documented, a non-partisan investigative watchdog that says it believes “corporations and wealthy donors have far too much power and influence” and that “democracy itself is under attack.” Documented got the tapes from attendees.

      Other major summit partners include conservative grassroots organizations Heritage Action for America and Tea Party Patriots co-founder Jenny Beth Martin, who became part of Trump’s legal team in Georgia, where there is a criminal investigation into Trump and his top legal advisers. Toni Shuppe, who led a far-right effort to “audit the vote” in search of fraud in Pennsylvania, is leading that state’s coalition. In Arizona, Gina Swoboda, a former Trump campaign official who runs the Voter Reference Foundation, is heading the effort. Her group has continued to spread claims about voting discrepancies and published millions of voters’ names, birthdates and addresses.

      [T]he recordings feature keynote speakers continuing to push Trump’s false election claims.

      “They [Democrats] know they can’t win unless they cheat,” Jim DeMint, a former Republican senator who chairs the Conservative Partnership Institute, the activist group that houses Mitchell’s initiative, said at the Florida gathering.

      POLITICO previously documented the RNC’s efforts to build “an army” of poll workers prepared to challenge elections clerks in primarily Democrat-dominated precincts in Michigan and keep them in constant contact with roving party attorneys.

      [T]he summits, organized by Mitchell’s “Election Integrity Network,” are largely kick-off events. They are followed by regular calls, meetings, and other organizing efforts involving several grassroots conservative groups.

      CPI is a conservative think tank funded in part by Trump’s political action committee and run by DeMint and Mark Meadows, Trump’s former chief of staff. In its annual report, CPI states that it is aiming to create “permanent election integrity coalitions” in eight target states. “Cleta, her full time job at CPI is to do nothing but this,” Meadows told a Georgia summit in February.

      A former associate general counsel for the Trump campaign, Findlay has also been caught up in investigations around the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. In late July, the Washington Post reported Findlay is among those for whom the Department of Justice has issued subpoenas seeking any communications regarding a scheme for GOP state lawmakers to overturn the will of the voters by submitting slates of alternate electors.

      [W]hile training sessions previously published by POLITICO show Republican recruits overwhelmingly concerned about election fraud, Mitchell’s remarks in Arizona focused primarily on what many Democrats have long insisted is the real motive behind the entire GOP effort: targeting certain groups.

      She made extended remarks about Democrats’ goal, since former Rev. Jesse Jackson’s “Rainbow Push” coalition of the 1980s, to register more people in minority communities to vote and create a new American majority of young people, people of color and unmarried women. “There was a book ‘Brown Is the New White’ talking about changing demographics in America was going to render conservatives obsolete,” she said.

      “That is their goal,” she said of Democrats and outside groups aligned with them like unions. “They believe you can expand access to democracy by underrepresented populations.” Mitchell said they “target the most vulnerable people of our society,” citing the story of an allegedly elderly woman with dementia who allegedly obtained a voter registration form at a health clinic.

      “You see it all over,” she said, as she decried the availability of information on voter registration at public venues like health clinics and universities. “We see people who are in need, who are hurting, who need help,” she said, referring to elderly, disabled, low-income Americans and students in need of financial aid receiving “education” on how to vote from outside groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and the availability of voter registration information on government websites or venues serving the needy.

      In her response to POLITICO, Mitchell said: “I showed the attendees the language taken from left-wing sources,” adding that President Joe Biden and “left-wing” groups are conspiring to use federal resources to “register and turn out the vote of the most vulnerable people in our society and pressure them to vote for Democrats.”

      “That sort of enterprise should be paid for by candidates or political parties,” Mitchell said, without offering evidence any agency is pressuring individuals to vote for a particular party by providing them with registration materials.

      In the tapes, Mitchell also disparaged the Democrats’ recent warnings about threats to democracy.

      “They bring democracy to your doorstep. I wanna pause right here. We don’t live in a democracy,” Mitchell said, to a round of applause from the crowd. “But to the left, everything is about democracy, the democracy fund, the democracy this, the democracy that.”

      “We live in a constitutional republic,” she said.

      -This Coup Plotter treasonous traitor needs to be indicted and prosecuted.

  2. “Mules, Cyber Ninjas, and Sharpies”.

    Fixed the order of the wording to make it better fit the song “Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves”, by American singer and actress Cher, from her 1971 seventh studio album Chér.

    A song about an unwanted pregnancy, human trafficking of an underage girl, phony preachers, and snake oil salesmen.

    Yeah, that works.

    The song was written by songwriter Bob Stone as a story-song and originally called “Gypsys, Tramps and White Trash”.

    Still works.

    Maybe I’ll rework it with something about Matt Gaetz.

  3. Arizona Secrtary of State Katie Hobbs recently wrote, “Enough with the election conspiracies. People’s lives are at stake”, https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/2022/07/29/election-deniers-threats-officials-poll-workers/10187085002/

    With the primary election just days away, Arizonans’ constitutional right to vote is facing the fiercest assault we’ve seen in decades.

    Regardless of your political party, it should startle you that candidates running for governor and other offices have done everything in their power to cast our election processes in a disparaging light.

    Talk of mules, Sharpies and Cyber Ninjas may come across as just nonsensical political chatter, but it’s a much graver offense when taking into account how dire – and deadly – these kinds of lies have proven before.

    Don’t let disinformation silence your vote

    Look no further than the Jan. 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol that Donald Trump was instrumental in inciting. His election lies and incendiary language cost people their lives, and yet my opponents are increasingly using this same rhetoric to gin up their far-right base.

    Already we’re seeing reports of threats and intimidation against election officials such as Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer.

    That’s why I cannot underscore how important it is to not let these scare tactics and disinformation silence our voice in our democracy. We need people in office who will stand up for our democracy, not actively seek to undermine it.

    The coordinated effort to undermine our democratic systems didn’t stop on Jan. 6. Trump’s “Big Lie” disinformation campaign led to a flurry of death threats targeted at election officials just doing their job, including myself.

    Meanwhile, these lies have resulted in Arizona passing one of the worst voter-suppression laws in the nation requiring proof of citizenship to vote by mail or in-person.

    Election workers have quit, police on high alert

    When I heard Kari Lake this week make threats about “going after” people who are trying to “steal the election,” or when Karrin Taylor Robson refuses to say whether she’d certify the 2020 election or that she supports sham audits that call its integrity into question, I know who will be at the frontlines fielding the consequences of their reckless rhetoric and policies: Election workers and historically disenfranchised voters, many of whom live in communities of color.

    The risk of would-be election vigilantes, equipped with the assortment of conspiracy theories peddled by Trump and his ilk, have already spurred a wave of election workers to quit and departments remain understaffed.

    It’s led law enforcement to be on high-alert and the Maricopa County sheriff to take the extraordinary step of restricting days off for deputies during the week of the primary and general elections.

    Adding fuel to the fire is the Republican National Committee’s cross-country effort to recruit election poll observers in droves and have them ”trained” by known election deniers.

    At the same time, Arizona already has a long history of voter suppression, including literacy tests for voter registration targeting Black and brown communities and our state’s Indigenous population. This new wave of intimidation tactics and recently proposed voter suppression policies – such as eliminating early voting – only set our state back further from expanding voting access to all Arizonans.

    Both parties must work to reform election law

    This is not a partisan issue. These attacks are happening because radical conspiracy theorists have spotted the gaps in our voting rights and election laws and are using loopholes like the Civil War-era Electoral Count Act to manipulate our democracy to their will.

    It will take the work of both parties to reform these antiquated laws so that fake elector schemes, pressure campaigns on election officials and sham audits don’t destroy American democracy.

    We need to make sure all levels of government have the resources to monitor threats against election workers and make sure those who do cause harm are held accountable. We need to pass commonsense measures like making Election Day a state holiday, so every registered voter has equal access to vote.

    Access to early voting should be expanded, not taken away.

    These are things both parties should be able to agree on so that every Arizonan can exercise their right to vote. There should be no reason why anyone gets left out of our democracy, especially on the basis of hogwash conspiracy theories.

    As secretary of state, I faced death threats, stalking and protests outside my home to defend your right to vote. The more we can do to shore up our election laws and ensure voting is accessible to all, the better our democracy will be for all Arizonans.

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