Discussion: RNC Warns Against Poll Watching, Citing Decades-Old Court Decree

2 Likes

Why does RNC general counsel John Ryder hate America?

4 Likes

The exclusion needs to be extended even more so now.

13 Likes

“They are in it !”

2 Likes

The Trumpthumpers won’t listen to a fancy pants lawyer from the RNC. I would advise the GOP to anticipate extension of the court order.

24 Likes

As soon as the consent decree is lifted (if it is), I’m willing to bet they go right back to their shameful ways, and it’ll have to be reinstated.

If they had learned their lesson, they wouldn’t try so hard to suppress minority votes, as they continue to do.

9 Likes

I just wonder when the Southern Poverty Law Center is finally going to get around to identifying the GOP as a hate group?

After this GOP campaign season, it’s a no-brainer.

24 Likes

…so we see the what Trump is doing to intimidate voters is just good old fashioned Republican behavior.
The GOP (Grab Our Pussies) is just reinstating this integral component of their election strategy a year early.
To bad they have been caught. The consent decree must be extended.

6 Likes

If voter fraud is rare, fraud these poll watchers might detect by watching people vote is astronomically rare.

7 Likes

Trump will point to this as “Proof! Proof I Tell You!” that the RNC is part of the “Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy” against him.

8 Likes

I would have to say that their chances of getting the consent decree lifted are not very good.

6 Likes

Back during the 1989, 93 and 97 NYC mayoral races there were allegations that off duty police officers were acting as poll watchers for the Giuliani campaign. I don’t think there were any altercations but they could have been a intimidating presence in some precincts.

6 Likes

Um, the GOP’s own nominee calling for Republicans to engage in precisely the kind of behavior prohibited by the consent decree is pretty powerful evidence that the party is sanctioning the behavior, no?

15 Likes

“The letter comes as Trump has amped up his rhetoric about a ‘rigged election’ and urged his supporters to go monitor the polls themselves.”

Trump tweet claiming the RNC is rigging the election against him in 3, 2, 1…

(And you think I’m joking?)

24 Likes

Too late, Mr. Ryder. I’m pretty sure that when the Republican Party’s Presidential nominee exhorts his rally-goers to “watch the polls,” your consent decree has already been violated.

11 Likes

Election fraud is rare. Voter fraud is very rare. In-person voter fraud is practically non-existent. And, yes, the likelihood of a goon standing in the polling place legitimately detecting in-person voter fraud that the workers who are supposed to be there missed is astronomically rare to the point of not likely to happen even once in a million election cycles.

But of course that is not at all the point. The point is to intimidate voters, to slow down the vote in minority communities where the polls are already undersized, and to cast doubt on the election so that afterwards they can bully their way back into the national spotlight.

18 Likes

Perhaps the Donald is just confused. There’s nothing illegal about watching pole dancers, is there?

7 Likes

Voter intimidation works in concert with official voter suppression by republican officials. If you had enough polling places and enough poll workers in minority areas, then a bunch of yahoos challenging people wouldn’t hold up the whole line and force people to take many, many hours to vote.

4 Likes

How come in 2008 when the Tea Party had True the Vote groups forming this warning didn’t go out?

3 Likes

One of the few times you’re not.

1 Like