In a major victory Tuesday for the Republican National Committee, a federal judge in New Jersey lifted a consent decree dating back from the 1980s that barred the RNC from conducting so-called “ballot security” measures — i.e. poll watching and other Election Day activities ostensibly aimed at monitoring for voter fraud.
While other state Republican parties could engage in poll monitoring, the RNC was extremely eager to get out from under the consent decree, which was set to expire last year. In the lead-up to the 2016 campaign, it issued memos urging RNC staff to avoid activities that could be considered poll watching, particularly after President Trump amped up his unsubstantiated claims that there would be mass voter fraud in the elections. The RNC and DNC engaged in a multi-front legal battle over whether Trump and his allies’ rhetoric amounted to a violation of the decree.
Election experts and civil rights advocates have expressed concern that, without the decree, the RNC would mount a vote suppression campaign under the guise of ballot security.
The 1982 consent decree was the result of a decades-old lawsuit the Democratic National Committee brought against the national GOP, as well as New Jersey’s Republican Party. They alleged that in a 1981 New Jersey election Republicans employed off duty cops to monitor polling places in minority neighborhoods and sent mailers to minority voters, that, if unreturned, were used to create lists of voters to challenge at polling places.
The decree had been extended multiple times over the years after Democrats surfaced evidence that the RNC had violated it. However, Democrats’ last ditch effort last year to extend it — citing Trump’s calls for vigilante poll watching, as well as then-RNC strategist Sean Spicer’s presence in an area of Trump Tower where campaign poll watching activities were being monitored — were unsuccessful.
The decree was set to expire on Dec. 1, 2017, and on Monday U.S. District Judge John Michael Vazquez said the DNC had failed to provide evidence of a violation that would prompt him to extend it. He also denied a DNC request for more discovery on whether Spicer violated the decree in his presence near the Trump campaign’s poll watching hub at Trump Tower on election night.
In a statement, RNC spokesperson Blair Ellis said the RNC was “gratified” with the judge’s order and that the judge “rejected the DNC’s baseless claims.”
“Today’s ruling will allow the RNC to work more closely with state parties and campaigns to do what we do best, ensure that more people vote through our unmatched field program,” she said.
Read the order below:
Run for office- the 2018 elections are 10 months away! And if Trump and Louie Gohmert and Steve King can get elected what’s to stop a qualified candidate?
Become a Precinct Committee Officer, sometimes it’s a Ward officer. You’ll meet with neighborhood Dems and get out the vote. Find good citizens willing to run for office.
Register people to vote. If you need to help people overcome the GOP-led Voter run-around help them do that.
Run for School Board. Make sure Civics is being properly taught. Think a majority of America knows how government works? Just 26% of eligible voters in America voted for Trump and half of eligible voters stayed home last November. Today’s 12-year olds will be voting for President in 8 years.
Run for Mayor, City Council, County Commissioner, Borough Assembly.
Get appointed to your Planning Commission. Know everything going on in your community.
Run for State Legislature or Congress. The next census is in 2020, just over 2 years from now, when we redraw Congressional Districts.
And get rid of GERRYMANDERING! Safe GOP seats gave us such intellectual giants as Louie Gohmert and Steve King. In most cases it’s the state Legislature that draws Congressional boundaries. Make it FAIR, OPEN and HONEST! We can do this!
Overturn Citizens United. Money is NOT speech and Corporations are NOT people- at least not until Texas executes one, and overturn any voter ID laws that are clearly an attempt to disenfranchise the poor and people of color.
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“Those who would purposely mislead or seek to confuse others are bad people. Worse, they are evil.”
-Kathleen Parker
You Got To Run!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5zb0WTSLsYI would really, really, REALLY like the RNC or the Kentucky Republican Party to DARE to pull this shit at my precinct, where I have been voting in every single election for 17 years and where I carry paper copies of the SoS rules for voting and have the ACLU of Kentucky on speed dial. In 2008, a repug poll worker there tried to stop an African-American woman in line in front of me from voting because she had a completely legal Obama shirt on (as did I), and I jumped on that poll worker so fast she just yelled “OK, OK, fine!” I bet the slimy assholes at the county repug meeting told her “the blacks” would slink away at any challenge.
Why the Spicer photo? What am I missing?
This is an important issue and needs to be fought furiously.
We need to record and publish the NAMES and IDENTITIES with all publicly identifiable information about the Republican poll watchers. We need names, addresses, phone numbers, workplace, photos and any background information on their crimes and activities.
They need to be followed and watched. They want to stalk polls? Let’s follow their asses and track their activities. Seems fair. Maybe send some Christmas cards to their kids… (the old Microsoft tactic).
The judge was nominated by Obama, no less. Interesting ruling, let’s allow the GOP thugs to try to prevent someone from voting, and then have them arrested/prosecuted. Don’t be intimidated by gangsters, it’s what they count on.