Trump 2020: Suppress Voting; Harass Voters; Block Valid Voters; Even Use Armed Force

Trump’s way to stop mythical voter fraud

(Voter fraud is practically non-existent)

Trump's new approach to handle protesting voters

(Voters resist being denied right to legally vote)

Major Update (July 20) – Trump announces “Storm Troops” (unmarked, unidentified riot-type “police” et al) will be sent to major DEM cities … another WTF moment in American history that is very troublesome to say the least – with this scary headline:

“Trump plans to send federal law enforcement personnel to Democratic-led U.S. cities”

The lead-in to the story:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — Trump on Monday (July 20) said he plans to send law enforcement personnel to some major U.S. cities, as a federal crackdown on anti-racism protests including use of unmarked cars and unidentified officers in camouflage was seen in Portland, OR, and that which angers people across the country. Trump told reporters at the W/H: “We're sending law enforcement. We can’t let this happen to the cities.”

He also noted that those city Mayors are “liberal Democrats.”

Trump went on to point out and mention specifically: New York City; Chicago; Philadelphia; Detroit; Baltimore; and Oakland (CA) as possible places for sending in those “Federal forces.”

My 2 cents and I hope you, too: This smacks of a dictator-in-action – North Korean or former USSR or Chinese/Hong Kong tactics. 

We apparently now have a thug in the White House posing as President – one who is supposed to be a rational, level-headed man we all expect to be charge for the nation’s safety and welfare. Trump is not that by any standard. 

This man is totally disgraceful … where in the hell is the high court – they need to step in now whether asked to or not. 

Trump is 100% out of control and the U.S. is in great danger right now.

Trump in essence is advocating Civil War II with his pre-war statement for action – which BTW is illegal for anyone including him to incite like this.

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ORIGINAL POST FROM HERE:

The main article from AlterNet.org here with this headline that is damn scary:

“Here are 6 signs Trump may use DHS Stormtroopers to stop Democrats from voting”

My note on the use of term “Stormtrooper:” Regardless of the variation in spelling and usage, Stormtroopers are bad guys and serve the “Empire” – in the case described below it refers to the growing “Trump Inc. Empire” (or so he thinks) as shown at many of his rally appearances, his word, his actions, and far too many harsh statements.

Oh, yeah, any “Stormtrooper” or similar actions by Trump or his minions are restricted and unlawful IAW Federal law that states quite clearly (from Cornell Law center): 

“Whoever intimidates, threatens, coerces, or attempts to intimidate, threaten, or coerce, any other person for the purpose of interfering with the right of such other person to vote or to vote as he may choose, or of causing such other person to vote for, or not to vote for, any candidate for the office of President, Vice President, Presidential elector, Member of the Senate, Member of the House of Representatives, Delegate from the District of Columbia, or Resident Commissioner, at any election held solely or in part for the purpose of electing such candidate, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.”

The word “Stormtrooper, BTW as most commonly used today refers to WWII and Nazi Germany. That word “Stormtrooper” is translated from the German word: “Sturmtruppen.”

The photo above seems to show pretty clearly Trump’s Stormtroopers all lined up as he walks from the White House (Monday evening, June 1, 2020) on his way to St. John’s Episcopal Church where he held up the Bible (upside down, BTW) and made a political speech about his anger at protestors.

This is an excellent article and it makes reference to another related article from Rolling Stone piece (see below).

That also address the Trump plan to head off, in his way of thinking, voter fraud this cycle via mail-in ballots – which by all expert opinion and facts is NOT an issue – it is simply his red herring and scare tactics.

Read this one first and then the more detailed Rolling Stone article – both are excellent, a bit long, but very detailed.

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Scary Headline from Rolling Stone (July 16, 2020) referenced above:

“The Plot Against America: The GOP Plan to Suppress the Vote and Sabotage the 2020 Election”

Sub-heading: Blocking ballots, intimidating voters, and spreading misinformation — undermining democracy is at the heart of Trump’s 2020 campaign

Introduction and Highlights: In June, President Trump sat in the Oval Office for one of his periodic interviews-turned into-airing-of-grievances.

When the conversation turned to the 2020 election, Trump singled out what he called the “biggest risk” to his bid for a second term. 

It was not the mounting death toll from COVID-19, or further economic damage inflicted by the pandemic, or anything else a reality-dwelling president might fret about.

Trump told the Politico reporter he’d invited that: “My biggest risk is that we don’t win lawsuits.”

He was referring to the series of lawsuits filed by his campaign and the RNC that fight the expansion of mail-in voting and to seek to limit access to the ballot box in November, he added: “We have many lawsuits going all over. And if we don’t win those lawsuits, I think — I think it puts the election at risk.”

Going into 2020, Trump had the political winds at his back with a strong economy, roaring stock market, and historically low unemployment. Then came COVID-19.

As of this writing, more than 135,000 Americans are dead from the virus, more than 3 million have gotten infected, and the economy has tipped into Great Depression territory. With Trump at the helm, the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic has ranked as one of the worst anywhere in the world.

The impact of Trump’s planned strategy in recent months, the central theme, has come into clear, unmistakable focus: Trump and his Republican enablers are putting voter suppression front and center — fear-mongering about voting by mail, escalating their Election Day poll watching and so-called ballot-security operations, and blocking funding to prepare the country for a pandemic-era election.

A view from Trump lawyers:

One appearing recently on 60 Minutes: “The president views vote-by-mail as a threat to his election.”

Justin Clark, a senior lawyer on the Trump 2020 campaign, had a message for the group of Republican lawyers gathered at a members-only club in Madison, Wisconsin, last November. Every time he met with President Trump, Clark told the group, Trump asked: “What are we doing about voter fraud? What are we doing about voter fraud?”

Clark said: “Traditionally, it’s always been Republicans suppressing votes in places.”

He later explained that he was referring to what Democrats say about Republicans, but it was all part of a larger point — namely, to ensure the president’s election, the Trump campaign, and the RNC were stepping up their efforts to root out the supposed scourge of “voter fraud.” 

He added: “It’s going to be a much bigger program, much more aggressive program, a better funded program. The president, believes in it, and he will do whatever it takes to make sure it’s successful.”

AG Barr on Fox: “Vote-by-mail absolutely opens the floodgates to fraud.”

Memo for AG Barr: From the Washington Post post 2016 election: 

Number of voter fraud cases since 2000:  44 cases out of 1 billion votes cast. (Note: 8 cases involved more than one ballot) 

Rate of voter fraud: 0.0000044%

Trump himself blasted out in a May tweet: “MAIL-IN VOTING WILL LEAD TO MASSIVE FRAUD AND ABUSE. IT WILL ALSO LEAD TO THE END OF OUR GREAT REPUBLICAN PARTY. WE CAN NEVER LET THIS TRAGEDY BEFALL OUR NATION.”

The Democratic Party’s response from Marc Elias, a top DNC election lawyer: “They’re shouting the quiet part out loud. They’re not whispering it. They’re shouting it.”

To be clear, rampant voter fraud is a myth, a fantasy dreamed up by those who need a pretext to make it harder for certain people to exercise their right to vote. Instances of in-person and mail-in voter fraud are extremely rare, according to decades of data and academic research. 

The conservative Heritage Foundation — whose co-founder Paul Weyrich once told a group of evangelical leaders: “I don’t want everybody to vote because our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.” He is now one of the loudest proponents of the voter-fraud myth.

According to Heritage’s own research, in the past 20 years, 0.00006 percent of all mail-in ballots cast were fraudulent.

Lorraine Minnite, a political-science professor at Rutgers University and author of “The Myth of Voter Fraud” said: “There is no support for the argument that mail-in voting is a problem.”

In February, the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee announced that they would spend $10 million on voting-related lawsuits in 2020 — a figure that has since doubled to $20 million.

The RNC has so far filed lawsuits in more than a dozen states, including the battlegrounds of CO, MN, MI, WI, PA, and FL. These suits are a mix of offense and defense: Some attempt to block litigation brought by Democratic groups to expand mail-in voting in response to the coronavirus pandemic. 

Others seek to invalidate state-level policies by saying that expanding access to mail-in ballots invites fraud.

But the uniting theme of the RNC’s suits, says Rick Hasen, a University of California, Irvine law professor and author of Election Meltdown, is simple: “Casting doubt on the legitimacy of the election. Raising spurious fraud claims.”

Imagine this were you on Election Day, November 3, 1981. That was the day that Lynette Monroe, who lived in northwest Trenton, NJ headed out to her polling place. She is a Democrat and when she arrived at the polling site, she was stopped outside by a member of a group calling themselves the “National Ballot Security Task Force.”

Ms. Monroe was asked if she had her voter-registration card with her and when she said did not but that it didn’t matter since she was a registered voter there. But the “National Ballot Security Task Force” members turned her away, preventing her from casting her ballot.”

That according to a lawsuit later filed by the Democratic Party, Ms. Monroe, and several other in the same fix that day.

When she was turned away, Ms. Monroe had no way of knowing that the “National Ballot Security Task Force” was in fact a massive voter-suppression project funded and carried out by the RNC and the NJ GOP.

Republicans there had hired county deputy sheriffs and local policemen with revolvers, two-way radios, and wearing “National Ballot Security Task Force” armbands to patrol predominantly black and Hispanic precincts in NJ. 

They also posted large warning signs outside polling places saying that it was “a crime to falsify a ballot or to violate election laws.”

Continue his long and detailed article at the Rolling Stone site.

My 2 cents: This article is a keeper for sure for this cycle based on what to expect from Trump’s detailed plan.

So, stay alert and vigilant. This upcoming presidential election as far as anyone can now surmise is going to be nasty, ugly, mean, and yes, maybe even violent. Stay on your toes and help all you can peacefully and lawfully.

Thanks for stopping by.