When voters hit the polls on Election Day, Republican operatives will have no less than some 200,000 GOP-backed volunteers fanned out across the country observing them, and according to a new report, one in five of those poll watchers say Donald Trump should do “whatever it takes” to take back the presidency.
The startling figure of volunteer polls watchers came as part of a report in the New Yorker that delves into the details of the Republican National Committee’s campaign strategy “to use a giant grassroots group of Trump worshippers to question the integrity of the election.”
“In June, the RNC announced that the so-called ‘Protect the Vote’ tour would make a series of stops in swing states to ‘train volunteers to ensure it is easy to vote and hard to cheat this November,” according to a report in Mother Jones. The publication noted that research has established the rarity of voter fraud in elections.
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But, according to the report, “much of the RNC’s strategy relies on indulging supporters’ paranoia over conspiracy theories about a Democrat-coordinated campaign to steal the election — via the usual suspects, undocumented immigrants and dead people — and training volunteers to be ‘the eyes and the ears of the Trump campaign,’ as far-right Internet personality Jack Posobiec put it.”
Volunteers suspecting fraud are instructed to call the RNC’s “election integrity hotline,” where volunteer attorneys will reportedly answer. Experts are warning, according to Mother Jones, that this practice could lead to discord on Election Day.
It adds that the GOP is already taking a preemptive strike to stoke doubt in this year's election with the filing of dozens of “election integrity” legal challenges across the country to dispute absentee and mail-in ballots, “and try to make it easier to purge voter rolls and allow local officials to refuse to certify elections,” according to Mother Jones.
