Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is asking supporters to become election monitors, warning voters Friday night that “cheating” might rob him of a win.
At the same time, outside groups are readying to help the campaign watch the polls. Donald F. McGahn II, the Trump campaign’s attorney, stopped by the Denver meeting of the Republican National Lawyers Association to plot the strategy and explain how the campaign could help the lawyers build a sophisticated election-protection network.
“What they want to do is create a pretty select, Navy SEAL-type operation that takes the data we’re able to provide and deploy resources of the highest caliber,” said Randy Evans, the chairman of the lawyers group, which he said does not coordinate its work with the campaign. “If you have 7,000 lawyers on the ground, and 200 sophisticated election attorneys on call, you can move quickly. The message was: This ain’t your father’s Cadillac.”
And “it helps a lot” not to have federal monitors:
The Trump campaign’s push for election monitors also comes at a time of weakness for independent poll watchers. A 2013 Supreme Court ruling limited the Department of Justice’s ability to deploy election observers with full access to polling places. Since the 1965 passage of the Voting Rights Act, Justice had sent hundreds of observers to states where tensions over elections seemed high. Now, observers may be sent only to five states where court rulings will allow election monitors. None of those states — Alabama, Alaska, California, Louisiana and New York — is seen as competitive in November.
“That helps a lot,” Evans said of the reduced Justice Department role. “It takes away the suggestion that the Democrat machine is being supplemented by government officials.”