Of all the controversies that have cropped up during Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, his assertion that the general election may be “rigged” inspired one of the swiftest rebuttals.
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He said poll watchers are a standard part of the voting process, and many states permit campaigns to have credentialed observers.
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the RNC’s plea to remove the decree in 2013, but added an expiration date of December 1, 2017.
Some state legislatures have pushed voter ID laws in states as a way to prevent election fraud, while critics argue the regulations target and disenfranchise minority voters, who tend to vote for Democrats.
“To be clear, liberals love to throw out the voter intimidation card. What we’re advocating are open, fair and honest elections”.
He also added that poll watchers are “standard for professional campaigns” and pointed out poll watcher guides from around the country, including NY and Texas.
It’s notable that Trump made these remarks in Pennsylvania. According to a poll released by Public Policy Polling this week, 69 percent of Trump backers in North Carolina think a Hillary Clinton win would be the result of a rigged election.
The NBC’s map lists Florida, Iowa and OH as toss-ups, though recent NBC/Wall Street Journal polls have revealed Clinton was leading over her Republican rival in those states.
Many Republican-led states like Texas and Wisconsin have passed voter ID laws to allegedly avoid it.
In 2014, a Pennsylvania judge struck down a law requiring voters to produce state-approved photo ID in order to vote.
Voter ID laws have always been criticized as a masked strategy to discourage minorities from voting. The city has the largest concentration of Democratic voters in Pennsylvania, and conservative commentators have long pushed conspiracy theories about voter fraud in the area.
But voter fraud doesn’t really happen here. I saw it in Pennsylvania.
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Making matters worse for Trump supporters is that candidates trailing historically did not have to face today’s widespread absentee balloting, which are being mailed to voters as early as next month, meaning there is even less time than in the past for citizens to change their mind. During the 2008 election in Philadelphia, two members of the New Black Panther Movement were charged with voter intimidation after they stationed themselves outside of polling locations.
