Donald Trump told his supporters today that the only way he could lose Pennsylvania is if “cheating goes on,” and encouraged them to serve as “election observers” on November 8. While his “rigged election” conspiracy has always been ridiculous, dangerous, and irresponsible, his newest remarks on the subject go even further by implicitly calling for voter intimidation that would overwhelmingly suppress minority voters.
http://twitter.com/SopanDeb/status/764245337867427842
Though voter fraud is essentially non-existent in the United States, it has been an obsession of the Republican Party. The Republican National Committee even argued that the Constitution advocates for voter identification laws in the 2016 Republican Platform. Despite the hard evidence proving that voter ID laws do nothing but disenfranchise poor and minority voters, the GOP nonetheless insists on instituting this legislation because said poor and minority voters overwhelming vote Democrat.
Recently, lower courts have been striking down voter suppression laws as discriminatory, unconstitutional, and partisan, but Republicans are still fighting to keep their methods of voter suppression intact. After North Carolina’s racist voter ID law was struck down for violating the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act, NC Governor Pat McCrory vowed that he would bring his fight for voter suppression all the way to the Supreme Court.
And just earlier this week, conservative judges in Wisconsin restored the state’s voter ID law, which was found by a federal judge to be discriminatory against poor, elderly, and disabled people.
As Donald Trump’s poll numbers have continued to plummet, he has become more and more fond of these voter suppression laws, which would be massively helpful to him given how poorly he does with minorities.
Hillary Clinton has been beating Donald Trump in Pennsylvania since polling began in March. She currently has a lead of 9.2 points.
Whether he genuinely believes it or not, Trump is claiming that the polls are simply wrong and that he can only lose if the election is rigged. Saying this about Pennsylvania in particular is significant, as it has been a battleground state for voter suppression laws. As Rep. Mike Turzai admitted, Pennsylvania’s voter ID law was meant to guarantee a Mitt Romney win in the state. It failed, and was struck down in 2014, but 59 voting divisions in Philadelphia have remained a key talking point for voter fraud-obsessed conservatives. Mitt Romney won zero votes in any of these predominantly black divisions in the 2012 election, and though claims of a rigged elections were debunked just days after the election, conservatives such as Fox News host Sean Hannity have recently revived the racially charged conspiracy about these divisions to justify Donald Trump’s “rigged election” theory.
Trump went even further today than just saying that Hillary Clinton can only win Pennsylvania by cheating. Today, he made voter intimidation an official part of his campaign. Through his website, he is now actively recruiting supporters to serve as “Trump Election Observers.”
http://twitter.com/graywolf/status/764313379414609920
Though his website does not explain what explain a “Trump Election Observer” is expected to do, the language his team uses is terrifying: “We are going to do everything that we are legally allowed to do to stop crooked Hillary from rigging this election.”
The keyword here is “legally.” That word shouldn’t even have to be there, but the fact that it is proves that the campaign is very much aware of the extremism it has harnessed. And time and time again, it has refused to denounce that extremism, even refusing to apologize for Trump’s comment encouraging his supporters to assassinate Hillary Clinton.
There have been accusations of voter fraud by both Democrats and Republicans before. But it is unprecedented for a presidential candidate to claim that the election is rigged and call for voter intimidation.
And we are still 86 days away from November 8.
