海角大神

Donald Trump renewed calls this weekend for supporters to travel to precincts outside their own Nov. 8 to keep a vigilant eye out for voter fraud.

鈥淲e don鈥檛 want to lose an election because you know what I鈥檓 talking about,鈥� the Republican presidential candidate told an overwhelmingly white crowd in Manheim, Pa. on Saturday. 鈥淏ecause you know what? That鈥檚 a big, big problem, and nobody wants to talk about it. Nobody has the guts to talk about it. So go and watch these polling places.鈥�

Saturday was the second night in a row Mr. Trump urged supporters to poll watch, adding on to his repeated warnings in August that the election is 鈥渞igged鈥� because of voter fraud. But Trump鈥檚 exhortations concern voters鈥� rights advocates who fear amateur poll watchers could intimidate and even harass minority voters.

The conflict, then, shows the difficulty with the practice: can Republican poll watchers 鈥渟afeguard democracy,鈥� as one exponent in Louisville said in 2004, without reverting to voter intimidation, particularly if they raise challenges at polls based on voters鈥� race, religion, or ethnicity?

鈥淭here鈥檚 actually a risk that, in a more disorganized way, people are going to be showing up to the polls, they won鈥檛 know the law, and they鈥檒l be engaging in discriminatory challenges,鈥� Adam Gatlin, counsel for the Democracy Program at New York University鈥檚 Brennan Center for Justice, told ProPublica earlier this month. 鈥淭hat can create the potential for a lot of disruption, longer lines because each voter takes longer to vote, and potentially discouraging and intimidating voters from coming to the polls.鈥�

Poll watchers can鈥檛 go near voters as they vote, but they can watch them check-in, according to Politico. Indeed, partisan poll watchers alert their parties who hasn鈥檛 voted so they can encourage loyalists to get to the polls.

But Trump appears to have encouraged crowds in rural Pennsylvania this weekend to become polling station watchdogs. But he didn鈥檛 elaborate on what they should watch for, only that they should 鈥渨atch carefully, because we鈥檙e going to win the state of Pennsylvania,鈥� according to The Washington Post.

In August, Trump repeatedly said that without tougher voter ID laws like the one a federal appeals court struck down in North Carolina because they found it discriminatory, voters could vote 10 or 15 times for his opponent, a claim Politifact, a project that fact-checks political statements, labeled "pants on fire."

He has also claimed dead voters handed President Obama the 2012 election, and suggested undocumented immigrants 鈥渏ust walk in and vote鈥� in some polling places.

Voting rights advocates took Trump鈥檚 message this weekend as a 鈥渟ubtle menacing call for his supports to intimidate at the polls,鈥� according to the Washington Post鈥檚 Jenna Johnson.

US Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey told the Star-Ledger calling fraud at the polls a serious problem was 鈥渁 patent lie.鈥�

鈥淵ou have a better chance of being struck by lightning,鈥� said Mr. Booker in an interview published Sunday. 鈥淧eople don鈥檛 just get up in the morning and suddenly think to themselves, 鈥業鈥檓 going to commit voter fraud.鈥� It is a rare, rare occurrence.鈥�

鈥淎ctions are being taken that are consciously being done to suppress the voting of poor folks, of minorities, and others,鈥� he said. 聽聽

Several studies have found American voter fraud is minuscule. A national study by News 21 found only 10 cases of fraud by misrepresentation from 2000 to 2012. That鈥檚 1 in every 15 million eligible voters, wrote Politico. A 2014 study by Justin Levitt, then a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, and now the Obama administration鈥檚 top voting rights lawyer in the Justice Department, found 31 credible allegations of voter fraud from 2000 to 2014 out of more than one billion total votes cast.

But a majority of Trump supporters remain distrustful of elections. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs poll released Friday found only about one-third of respondents who identify as Republicans have confidence in the vote count. Of Hillary Clinton supporters, 59 percent said they have quite a bit or a great deal of confidence in the election.

An ABC News/Washington Post poll released earlier in September found of the 46 percent who said voter fraud often occurred, 61 percent were Trump supporters. Of the 50 percent who said it was rare, 67 percent supported Clinton.

But poll watching is a way for some to feel they are safeguarding democracy, as the 海角大神 Science Monitor鈥檚 Patrik Jonsson reported when he wrote about the Kentucky governor race in 2004. Jay O鈥橞rien, a Lousiville money manager, told Mr. Jonsson he poll watches because he is 鈥渓ooking, after all, for felons, foreigners, or anyone else not eligible to vote.鈥�

Mr. O鈥橞rien also said he is helping correct a wrong, the lack of GOP poll workers, especially in mostly-black neighborhoods by the Ohio River.

"This is not a covert designation," he said. "It's as much a part of the election process as ... any other official. In my view, this whole challenge role is being really twisted."

Poll watching by private citizens is legal in 46 states, according to a 2012 survey by the Brennan Center, as ProPublica reported. At least 32 states and the District of Columbia also allow political party designees to raise challenges on Election Day, according to a ProPublica review of state statutes. The problem is many of these states don鈥檛 need much evidence to bring a challenge forward.

This conflicted has created an arms race of sorts between the two sides.

The Lawyers鈥� Committee for Civil Rights Under Law plans to recruit as many as 5,000 nonpartisan poll watchers and call center volunteers, Kristen Clarke, the executive director, told ProPublica. The group runs the largest nonpartisan election-monitoring program in the country, she said.

True the Vote, another organization that bills itself as nonpartisan, but is an offshoot of a Houston Tea Party group, conducts in-person and online poll-watching training sessions, and has even created a smartphone app that allows users to send in reports of election irregularities.聽