The North Carolina Democratic Party filed a lawsuit against its GOP counterpart, as well as the Donald Trump campaign in the state, in the latest front in what has become a multi-state legal battle claiming Republican voter intimidation. The lawsuit, like its equivalents in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Arizona and Nevada, also names former Trump adviser Roger Stone and his group, Stop the Steal, among the defendants.
The Democrats are pointing to comments Trump has made on the stump encouraging vigilante poll watching. They also cite the initiative led by Stone to recruit so called “Vote Protectors,” according to his website, to conduct amateur exit polls, which the North Carolina Dems said was a “phony” guise to “threaten lawful voters.” The North Carolina GOP, meanwhile, is accused of “providing financial, personnel, and other organizational support” to Trump’s and Stone’s efforts. Additionally, the complaint referenced a news story reporting that a Trump supporter with a baseball bat marked “TRUMP” was at a North Carolina polling place video taping and photographing cars while wearing a badge that said he was a “poll observer.”
The litigation around the four other state Democratic Party cases is ongoing. The Democratic National Committee, meanwhile, has brought separate legal action against the Republican National Committee in connection with Trump’s poll watcher call-to-arms for allegedly violating a consent decree the RNC agreed to in the 1980s limiting its so-called “ballot security” activities.
Read the North Carolina complaint below:
