An increasingly desperate Donald Trump is aiming to win re-election not at the ballot box but through voter intimidation, courts and counting rooms, US activists have warned.
Trailing rival Joe Biden in every opinion poll, there are fears that Trump, who has now in hospital after testing positive for the coronavirus, is betting on tens of thousands of volunteer “poll watchers” – potentially including far-right militias and vigilantes – as well as loyal Republican politicians in battleground states to save his presidency.
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“He’s willing to do anything he can to fundamentally undermine democracy, any sense of integrity, any sense of decency, any sense of anything that any normal human being would think is acceptable in a real country,” said LaTosha Brown, a civil rights activist and co-founder of Black Voters Matter.
The threat prompted 12 Democratic state governors this week to issue an unprecedented joint statement defending American democracy and pledging that every valid ballot will be counted.
During Tuesday night’s first presidential debate, Trump told supporters to “go into the polls and watch very carefully”. He recycled false claims of widespread electoral fraud and added: “I am urging my people – I hope it’s going to be a fair election – if it’s a fair election I am 100% on board. But if I see tens of thousands of ballots being manipulated I can’t go along with it.”
The comments followed a recent video in which a puffy-eyed Donald Trump Jr warned darkly: “The radical left are laying the groundwork to steal this election from my father, President Donald Trump … We cannot let that happen. We need every able bodied man, woman to join army for Trump’s election security operation.”
To this end, the Trump campaign and Republican National Committee (RNC) are reportedly working to raise 50,000 volunteers. Yet most states have strict rules to prevent partisan election monitors interfering in the process.
Brown said: “This is another tactic to intimidate folks at the polls. He’s not interested in poll watchers; he wants poll intimidators. But it’s not going to work because the truth of the matter is there are more of us in this country that believe in democracy than there are of them.”
There have already been flash points. Last month Democrats accused Trump supporters of voter intimidation after they held a rally outside a voting centre in Fairfax county, Virginia. In Pennsylvania, a swing state, the Trump campaign is seeking to overturn a state law that requires partisan observers to be registered voters in the county.
Maxine Waters, a Democratic congresswoman from California, told the MSNBC network on Thursday: “They’re subtly targeting minority communities, targeting low income communities and making sure that they do everything possible to intimidate and frighten and keep people from voting. We’ve got to see to it that the local police are there when his hoodlums drive up on their motorcycles with their guns.”
Trump fuelled such concerns at the debate when he failed to denounce white supremacists, telling the rightwing Proud Boys group to “stand back and stand by”.
Katie Hill, a former Democratic congresswoman from California, said: “I certainly worry that the purpose of this is to stir up trouble and to scare people away from the polls because of a very real fear of the white supremacists that are enabled and encouraged by by Trump and his rhetoric.
“He just gave a call to action for the Proud Boys that are a known white supremacist group, that are known to carry weapons, that are known to be violent. If people are hearing that the Proud Boys are going to show up at the polls, some people are going to be afraid and that’s exactly what they want to have happen. They want them to not vote.”
The RNC insists that its poll watchers will be trained and abide by state laws. But Democrats have hired voter protection directors in 19 states and plan to mobilise thousands of volunteers and lawyers on election day.
Meanwhile demand for early and mail-in voting has risen sharply this year as people look for a way to cast their ballots without risk of infection by the coronavirus. Nearly 1.6 million Americans have already voted, according to the US Elections Project at the University of Florida.
But Trump openly admitted to withholding funding from the postal service as a way to curb mail-in voting, citing baseless allegations of fraud. Republicans are also waging court battles to purge voters from registration rolls and, even when the votes are in, Trump has political and legal tools at his disposal.
This week Republicans in Pennsylvania’s state house of representatives drew up a bill that would create a committee with the power “to investigate, review and make recommendations concerning the regulation and conduct of the 2020 election”.
The committee would be made up of five members, including three from the Republican majority in the House. Malcolm Kenyatta, a Democratic state congressman, warned a committee: “This bill is a fraud. Democracies die slowly, and I think this bill would be a fatal blow to our democracy.”
In addition, the Atlantic magazine reported last month that the Trump campaign has been discussing “contingency plans” with Republicans who control state legislatures in battleground states to override inconvenient results by appointing loyal “electors” to the all-important electoral college.
Such moves could run into challenges from lawyers and Democratic governors and prove a dramatic stress test for America’s system of checks and balances.
Tara Setmayer, a political analyst and former Republican communications director on Capitol Hill, said: “I think that there are still Republicans out there who are in positions like this that recognise the gravity of messing around with election integrity. In the states where we have to worry about that, I’m confident that the Biden campaign and the Democrats have identified who those potential problem officials would be.
“They are stocking up on election lawyer experts to challenge if any shenanigans take place. They are fully prepared and that’s where the courts, which are for the most part apolitical, and the judicial system come in, and may have to referee in places where shenanigans are pulled.”
Some analysts remain cautiously optimistic that the 2020 election will still be decided by the voters rather than by vigilantes, lawyers or state politicians. Myrna Pérez, director of the Brennan Center’s voting rights and elections programme, said: “We need to take these threats very seriously but I also think we need to remember there are lots of protections and lots more Americans that want free, fair and accessible elections than want to intimidate and discriminate against voters.”
She added: “We can’t let those folks win. We can’t let the intimidators and the discriminators deter the rest of us from exercising our fundamental right to vote. We need be prepared. We need to be ready. We need to do what we can to prevent it. We need to know what to do in case it happens. But the number one thing we need to do is make sure we still go out and vote.”
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