PRO-TRUMP WHITE NATIONALISTS PLAN MASS VOTER-SUPPRESSION EFFORTA legion of Donald Trump’s most deplorable fans are readying a series of voter-intimidation and poll-watching tactics.
For months, Donald Trump has stoked fears that Hillary Clinton and her co-conspirators—The New York Times, Paul Ryan, Mexican billionaires, and more—will steal the election. While some political commentators have speculated that Trump’s paranoia-soaked nightmare may ultimately discourage his own supporters from voting—what’s the point if you’re outnumbered by an army of dead Democrats?—Trump’s most ardent fans appear to have been galvanized by his claims that the media, the polls, and the U.S. electoral system are all “rigged.” In response to the G.O.P. nominee’s unsubstantiated fearmongering, a slew of fringe-right, white-nationalist groups reportedly intend to deploy thousands of people to engage in ballot-box intimidation and voter suppression
Politico reports that a motley crew of alt-right and militia groups, Ku Klux Klan members, and Neo-Nazis are all planning to come out in droves on November 8 to suppress the minority vote and “monitor” the democratic process. “The possibility of violence on or around Election Day is very real,” Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center told Politico. “Donald Trump has been telling his supporters for weeks and weeks and weeks now that they are about to have the election stolen from them by evil forces on behalf of the elites.” Politico reports that the list of organizations plotting Election Day efforts includes—but is not limited to—the American Freedom Party, a white-nationalist group; various factions of the K.K.K.; the National Socialist Movement; and the vigilante militia group, the Oath Keepers.
“We are organizing poll watchers in urban areas to cut down on the most traditional type of voter fraud. We also will have stationary cameras hidden at polling locations in Philadelphia, to monitor anyone that comes in to vote and make sure that the same people are not voting at multiple locations. If we see people voting in multiple locations the footage will be submitted to the FEC as well as put out on social media to undermine the legitimacy of Clinton should she steal the election,” an anonymous representative of alt-right Web site, TheRightStuff.biz, told Politico in an e-mail, adding that some people will also be “going in to the ghettos in Philly with 40s and weed to give out to the local residents” in order to depress minority voter turnout.
Andrew Anglin, the editor of the neo-Nazi Web site Daily Stormer, who is working in conjunction with TheRightStuff.biz on Election Day efforts, told Politico in an e-mail that he is sending “an army of alt-right nationalists to watch the polls.” Similarly, former K.K.K. grand wizard David Duke, a Trump supporter and Louisiana Senate hopeful, said that he is mobilizing his supporters to monitor polling locations with a focus on “some of the more inner-city areas,” but added to Politico that the his and his supporters efforts won’t be confined to black neighborhoods, because, “It’s good to watch everywhere because there always can be major mistakes.” Under the guidance of Thomas Robb, the national director of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, the K.K.K. will also launch efforts on a national level to get Trump voters to the polls.
The Oath Keepers, a militia group primarily consisting of former members of the military and law enforcement that rose to prominence during the Ferguson riots, will also be deploying poll-watchers on Election Day. The group issued a statement last month encouraging its members “to form up incognito intelligence-gathering and crime spotting teams and go out into public on Election Day, dressed to blend in with the public,” Politico reports.
Fringe groups aren’t the only ones heeding Trump’s call to “go around and watch other polling places.” Longtime Trump ally Roger Stone is planning to launch a widespread exit-polling operation to reportedly ensure that the results of the election are accurate. Stone, who has come under scrutiny this election, is targeting 7,000 precincts, most of which are located in Philadelphia, with others in Ohio. Hedge-fund manager Robert Mercer, one of Trump’s biggest donors, is also backing major poll-watching efforts. In September, the billionaire reportedly gave the Republican National Lawyers Association $500,000 to empower 1,000 lawyers to monitor and potentially challenge poll results across the country.
Democrats have rushed to counter what they characterize as Republican efforts to intimidate minority voters. Over the past week, Democratic officials have filed lawsuits against the Trump campaign in Ohio, Arizona, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. The Washington Post reports that the suit filed in Ohio specifically names Stone as an agitator and calls on “a federal judge to stop the Trump campaign, state party officials and a group associated with Trump supporter Roger Stone from sending people not officially appointed as poll watchers to voting locations.” The Ohio state Republican Party dismissed the lawsuit as “a publicity stunt” and added, “in no way would we ever be involved in the intimidation of voters.” Stone asserted that his operation is “not coordinating with the Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee or the individual Republican state committees” and only seeks to “determine if the election is honestly and fairly conducted and to provide an evidentiary basis for a challenge to the election if that is not the case.”
