On the eve of a primary runoff election in June, a Republican candidate for secretary of state of South Carolina sent out a message to his supporters on Telegram.
“For all of you on the team tomorrow observing the polls, Good Hunting,” wrote Keith Blandford, a candidate who promoted the falsehood that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald J. Trump. “You know what you are looking for. We have the enemy on their back foot, press the attack.”
The next day, activists fanned out to polling places in Charleston, S.C., demanding to inspect election equipment and to take photographs and video. When election workers denied their requests, some returned with police officers to file reports about broken or missing seals on the machines, according emails sent from local officials to the state election commission. There were no broken or missing seals.
After Mr. Blandford lost, the activists posted online a list of more than 60 “anomalies” they observed, enough to have changed the outcome of races, they said. They called the operation a “pilot program.”
The episode is one of many warning signs that has election officials on alert as voting begins for midterm elections, the biggest test of the American election system since Mr. Trump’s lies about the 2020 results launched an assault on the democratic process.
In the two years since, groups of right-wing activists have banded together, spreading false claims of widespread fraud and misconduct in elections. Now those activists are inserting themselves in the vote count, with a broad and aggressive effort to monitor voting in search of evidence that confirms their theories.
Many of the activists have been mobilized by some of the same people who tried to overturn Mr. Trump’s defeat in 2020.
Their tactics in primary elections have officials braced for a range of new challenges, including disruptive poll watchers and workers, aggressive litigation strategies, voter and ballot challenges and vigilante searches for fraud.
Both Republican and Democratic election officials say the efforts are unlikely to cause widespread disorder or disruptions. They are prepared to accurately count the tens of millions of votes expected to be cast in the coming weeks, they said. But episodes such as the one in South Carolina come with consequences, spawning misinformation and spreading doubt about results, particularly in close races.
“In a way, it’s the manifestation of a self-fulfilling prophecy,” said Tammy Patrick, who works with election officials as a senior adviser at the Democracy Fund. Activists primed to see misconduct are more likely to blow minor errors out of proportion and cause disruptions “that will just bolster their claims,” she said.
Interviews with election officials and activists, public records and planning emails obtained by The New York Times show that the extensive network of organizers includes Republican Party officials, mainstream conservative groups and the most conspiracist corners of the election denial movement.
The groups appear to be building on the tactics used two years ago: compiling testimony from G.O.P.-allied poll workers, the temporary employees who run polling places, and poll watchers, the volunteers who monitor operations, to build challenges and contest results.
“We are 100 times more prepared now,” said Stephen K. Bannon, a former adviser to Mr. Trump who was involved in efforts to overturn the 2020 election, in an interview. Mr. Bannon now hosts a podcast that has become a clearinghouse for right-wing election activists. “We’re going to adjudicate every battle. That’s the difference.”
Both Democrats and Republicans have long enlisted poll watchers and poll workers to oversee voting and always plan ahead for disputes ahead of major elections. But this year, officials are grappling with the prospect that those efforts may be driven by activists who spread fantastical or debunked theories.
Officials saw evidence of the new organizing in primary elections. In Michigan, a poll worker was charged with tampering with an election computer. In Texas, activists followed election officials back to their offices and tried to enter secured areas. In Alabama, activists tried to insert fake ballots into a machine during a public testing process ahead of the primary.
In Kansas, activists funded a recount of a ballot measure on abortion rights that required Johnson County to count a quarter million ballots by hand, even though the measure failed by 18 percentage points. Fred Sherman, the county’s elections chief, said that some of the workers involved in the count appeared to be election deniers. He called the police to remove one who breached security, he said. The recount went smoothly, he added, but was “terrifying.”
“We have to be mindful we may have people who may not have the best of intentions from an election integrity standpoint,” Mr. Sherman said.
How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.
Election officials have spent months preparing for the new challenges. Some have participated in exercises organized by the F.B.I. on how to handle threats, including physical aggression toward election workers. They have held “de-escalation” training for their staff. Some have changed the layout of their offices, adding fences and other barriers that can protect workers.
“When people see everyone working hard and ethically and toward the same goal — who wants to disrupt that?” said Stephen Richer, the recorder of Maricopa County in Arizona, whose county election offices were surrounded by protesters following the 2020 election.
Activists say they are trying to ensure that all rules are followed and only eligible voters cast ballots.
“We have people trained in the law so they can then observe and document and report when things are not being conducted according to the law,” Cleta Mitchell, an organizer of one of the national groups involved in training activists and a lawyer who assisted Mr. Trump in his failed 2020 challenges, said recently on Mr. Bannon’s podcast. Ms. Mitchell said her network had trained more than 20,000 people into what she has described as a “citizens’ detective agency.”
She did not respond to requests for comment.
In many places, political parties have a direct role in recruiting poll workers and monitors. The Republican National Committee said it has placed more than 56,000 workers and monitors in primary and special elections this year. Emma Vaughn, an R.N.C. spokeswoman, said the committee was expecting more for the general election, but did not have a precise number. In several battleground states, the committee has also hired “election integrity” officials.
The Democratic National Committee has also expanded its operations, hiring 25 “voter protection” directors and 129 staff members in states across the country. The committee did not provide the total number of poll workers or monitors it recruited.
Ninety-six election lawsuits have been filed, according to a tally by Democracy Docket, a left-leaning election legal group.
In a replay of 2020, much of the litigation is focused on absentee ballots: More than half of the lawsuits filed by Republican-aligned groups are disputes over mail voting rules, such as how to fix errors on a ballot, whether ballots with small errors should be counted or when a ballot comes too late to count, according to Democracy Docket.
Some voting rights advocates and Democratic groups say they are also watching for a replay of 2020, when Mr. Trump and his allies tried to stop the results from being certified.
“There’s the underlying concern about in some of these places, where you’ve got political people certifying the election, whether they’ll certify the election and then what the crisis will be,” said Jonathan Greenbaum, chief counsel for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a nonpartisan group.
Some of the people involved in the 2020 challenges are now leading organizers.
Patrick Byrne, the former chief executive of Overstock.com and a prominent purveyor of election conspiracy theories, is recruiting activists through his group, the America Project. Michael Flynn, Mr. Trump’s first national security adviser, is a co-founder and is advising the group. (Both men attended a December 2020 meeting at the White House, where Mr. Flynn urged Mr. Trump to seize voting machines.)
In Michigan, a state party official is identified as the state director of America Project’s effort — called Operation Eagles Wings — in documents. That official also coordinates with Ms. Mitchell’s Election Integrity Network, which hosts strategy calls and training sessions, according to emails obtained by The Times.
On his “War Room” podcast, Mr. Bannon tells listeners that Democrats will only win elections if they steal them. He and his allies can prevent that “by taking over the election apparatus,” he said on his show earlier this month.
Mr. Bannon has been directing followers to websites that encourage a sort of election vigilantism. The Gateway Pundit, a right-wing website, urges activists to demand that observers be allowed to watch as ballots are loaded onto trucks at post offices and to insist that they get closer to the ballot counting than the rules allow.
Mr. Bannon has also urged his listeners to take over local parties, which in some states have a role in selecting poll workers.
In El Paso County, Colo., the head of the local G.O.P., who has aligned with influential election deniers, asked the county clerk to remove several longtime poll workers whom she described in an email as “unfaithful” to the party. The clerk, Chuck Broerman, said he reluctantly fulfilled the request because he was required to by law.
“The individuals they are removing have been longstanding dedicated hard-working Republicans,” said Mr. Broerman, who is also a former county party chairman.
In North Carolina, a right-wing group dedicated to “election integrity” said it trained 1,000 poll watchers in the state, with help from Ms. Mitchell’s network. Some became the subject of dozens of complaints during the primary.
In Pasquotank County, one was “intimidating poll workers, leaving the enclosure several times to ‘report to headquarters,’” according to complaints obtained by The Times.
To address the complaints, the state drafted a proposal of changes that would have made it easier to remove a poll watcher for misbehavior. These were rejected by the Republican-controlled rules commission after a torrent of emails and public testimony from local activists to the commission.
Ms. Mitchell was among those who chimed in. The changes were trying to curb “the enthusiastic interest” that citizens had in the election process, she said.
Source: Elections - nytimes.com
