voting rights

Democrats sue Trump to prevent voter intimidation in four states (including Arizona)

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Law Newz blog reports that the Democratic Party has Sued Donald Trump, Roger Stone for Voter Intimidation in 4 States:

trumpintimidationLeaders from state Democratic parties in four states have filed federal lawsuits against Donald Trump, Trump advisor [and GOP ratfucker] Roger Stone, and state Republican parties for “conspiring to threaten, intimidate, and thereby prevent minority voters in urban neighborhoods from voting in the 2016 election.” The legal effort is lead by Marc Elias, the general counsel for the Hillary Clinton campaign.

The lawsuits filed in Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Ohio (h/t Election Law Blog) are asking a judge to stop the defendants from monitoring polls, verbally harassing voters, and following them around to take pictures.

In one of the lawsuits, filed by the Nevada Democratic Party, against Stone, Trump, and the Nevada Republican Party, the plaintiffs point to a statement given by an unnamed Trump official that “[w]e have three major voter suppression operations under way” (Bloomberg Business Week) as evidence. The complaint further alleges:

Trump’s supporters have responded with pledges to descend upon polling places in “certain areas” where many minority voters live in order to interfere with their efforts to exercise the franchise…

Immediate relief is necessary. There are only 8 days left until Election Day, and early in-person voting in Nevada is well underway. Trump’s calls for unlawful intimidation have grown louder and louder, and the conspiracy to harass and threaten voters on Election Day has already resulted in numerous acts that threaten to interfere with the voting rights of registered Nevada voters.

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9th Circuit upholds discriminatory AZ ballot collection law for this election

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The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals late Friday upheld Arizona’s discriminatory ballot collection law, which has a disparate impact on Native American and Latino communities. It is the final word for this election, but will not be the final word on this law. Divided Ninth Circuit panel upholds Arizona ballot harvesting ban:

Voting-RightsSaying there was no proof of racial discrimination, a federal appeals court ruled (.pdf) late Friday upheld the state’s new law against “ballot harvesting.”

Judge Sandra Ikuta, writing for the divided three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, acknowledged there was evidence that the law which took effect in August could make it more difficult for residents of rural communities, particularly those with limited or no mail service. The same is true, she said, of voters who are homebound and the elderly.

But Ikuta said there was “no evidence that these categories of voters were more likely to be minorities than non-minorities.”

That failure is significant: Federal courts can void state laws for violating the Voting Rights Act only if judges conclude that the statute has a disparate effect on minorities. Without that, Ikuta said, this challenge fails.

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Donald Trump is at war with democracy itself

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trumpintimidationDonald Trump’s call for his supporters to be vigilante poll observers on election day — remember, RNC warns its members not to engage in poll watching or any other so-called ‘ballot security’ measures — is all about depressing Democratic voter turnout among “those people” with the prospect of voter intimidation.

Already, “Many of the schools across America that house polling booths will not be open on Election Day for the first time after parents raised fears over violence.” Election Day Safety Fears See Schools Cancel Classes or Move Polling Places.

A USA Today/Suffolk University poll conducted this month finds that Half of likely U.S. voters say they are concerned about violence on Election Day:

Half of likely voters say they are at least somewhat concerned about violence either on Election Day or after.

One in five likely voters say they are very concerned, about the same number who said they were not terribly confident that the United States would “have a peaceful transfer of power after the election.”

And then there were the Trump supporters, i.e., potential vigilante poll observers:

[T]wo out of three Trump supporters said they thought the election’s results would be manipulated rather than be accurate. Trump supporters were also more likely to say that if he lost, it would be due to corruption and therefore the outcome would not be legitimate.

Exactly what Donald Trump has been programming his supporters to believe for months.

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GOP war on voting: the GOP myth of rampant voter fraud

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“Oh, what a tangled web we weave. When first we practise to deceive!”

The Republican Party has for years perpetuated the myth of rampant voter fraud for two purposes: (1) to suppress voter turnout, and (2) to delegitimize Democratic voters.

This GOP mythology has been so pernicious that Greg Sargent at the Washington Post writes today, Trump will claim the election was stolen. This new poll shows GOP voters may believe him.

There’s a simple reason Donald Trump keeps claiming that rampant voter fraud ensures a rigged election whose outcome will be illegitimate, if he loses: Republican voters, and Trump supporters, are inclined to believe him.

Screenshot from 2016-01-26 06:42:51The Public Religion Research Institute released a remarkable new poll this morning that confirms the point. It finds that a huge majority of Republican respondents say voter fraud is a bigger problem than restricted access to voting is. And there is a striking racial divide on this question as well — more on that in a moment.

The poll finds that among Americans overall, only 43 percent have a great deal of confidence that their votes will be counted accurately. That’s unfortunate, to be sure. Meanwhile, the partisan divide is notable: 55 percent of Democrats have a great deal of confidence in the vote counting, while 44 percent of Republicans and 41 percent of Trump supporters feel the same way.

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The GOP’s worst nightmare: boycott the election

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Question: If Trump supporters actually believe that this election is “rigged” like “The Donald” claims, why bother voting?  Wouldn’t the appropriate response be to boycott the election because the outcome is “rigged”? This is what happens in other countries.

This is the scenario that Brian Beutler raises at The New Republic. Republicans’ Worst Nightmare Isn’t What They Think It Is:

It’s a fool’s errand to search for method in Donald Trump’s campaign tactics, but if you were tasked with ascribing method to his behavior in recent weeks, you’d have to conclude his aim is to further divide his own party and unite the opposition.

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Trump’s ongoing claim that the election is being “rigged” through voter fraud in minority communities, and his threat to reject the validity of the election result, are no exceptions. “I’ll look at it at the time,” Trump told Chris Wallace, the moderator of last week’s debate in Las Vegas, later adding, “I’ll keep you in suspense, OK?”

cartoon_64Republicans were reportedly despondent. A handful of GOP officeholders, and a number of conservative commentators, have since come forward to condemn Trump for vandalizing the underpinnings of democracy. The others who have remained silent, for fear of running afoul of his supporters, must nonetheless be concerned that Trump is undercutting his own turnout efforts by increasing the perception among those supporters that voting is pointless. By contrast, Trump’s efforts to incite voter intimidation and accuse minority voters of ballot-stuffing is at least correlated with, if not causing, an increase in early voting among Democrats.

Trump’s antics are forcing Republicans to confront a nightmare scenario in which they underperform the polls, which are already ominous for down-ballot GOP candidates. But the truly horrifying scenario for them is one they probably haven’t thought of yet, and it isn’t that Trump refuses to concede when Clinton defeats him.

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