Discussion: Federal Appeals Court Sides With Trump Camp In Ohio Voter Intimidation Case

Tuesday is going to be very interesting…in an era after all the cellphone videos of police shootings, we will get a real insight into what happens at polling places when people try to interfere. Prepare to be flooded with videos of Trump supporters trying to intimidate voters, hopefully followed by them being run off and arrested.

3 Likes

Oh hell why not send Democrats to watch the poll watchers? Intimidate the hell out of them

No voter intimidation going on here. Move along citizen.

A Guy In A Trump Shirt Carried A Gun Outside Of A Virginia Polling Place. Authorities Say That’s Fine.

But he’s a former Police Officer and a Veteran so Its OK If You’re A Republican.

1 Like

I hope the DoJ has all the US Attorneys on deck on Tuesday. I hope it doesn’t prove to be necessary, but I fear it may be needed.

ETA:

These court decisions come under Mrs. Strad’s principle: give them the rope they need to hang themselves.

2 Likes

Well if Trump was walking by and someone shouted “Gun!” then it’s a thwarted assassination attempt.

1 Like

On all this voting shit, exactly when have the Democrats been sided with?

1 Like

Only case I know of so far is the Cleveland case.

No one is willing to take my bet that there will be no apology from the 6th Circuit when the video evidence comes in?

No, courts rarely (if ever) apologize.

But I’ll predict that a restraining order is put in place post-haste, and I’ll settle for that.

1 Like

I am in Virginia. If I see a guy canvasing with a gun at my polling station, legal or not, I will call the police and report a man with a gun if for no other reasons than to a. have the guy checked out and b. have the guy harassed. Of course if the guy is white the police probably won’t respond. If the guy is black, they will. Because black.

1 Like

If there were proof of differential response, that could be useful.

When you call it in describe the dude with braids/ dreds that will get a response.

I don’t really get this reversal or for that matter the original order. The point of a restraining order is to restrain someone from doing an activity that would otherwise be legal, because they’ve shown a pattern of it being a prelude to illegal activity. Is the 6th Circuit saying that conspiring to intimidate, threaten, harass, or coerce voters is now okay? I mean, isn’t that stuff illegal already?

I was talking with a voter today who said she wasn’t going to take her daughter to the polls because she is afraid of this kind of incident.

I myself recall the awe that I felt when I was 5 or 6 years old and going with my mom into that voting booth and getting to watch her making her choices. Too bad - and yes, I know that’s what the R’s are going for - that this kid won’t have that same experience.

1 Like

They won’t be. You have to recognize that the US legal system allows for a lot of freedom, including the freedom to intimidate except for very specific circumstances. In many ways this is a good thing.

However, this was a terrible thing when Republicans were using it to intimidate voters, especially minority voters. As a result, the courts narrowly constrained these freedoms through the VRA and the limits on the Republican party. This was also the right thing.

Unfortunately our “both sides are the same” derived supreme Court eviscerated one of those protections (preclearence in states with known histories of voter suppression and intimidation ok n Shelby County). Add in the increased ability to use weapons and arms as tools of intimidation thanks to that same courts loosening of the definition of militias combined with the unequal execution of those rights by the police leads to a toxic situation where the intimidation is legal.