Constraints gone, Republicans ramp up effort to monitor voting
WASHINGTON » For years, the state of Pennsylvania has had strict rules about who can stand in polling stations and challenge the eligibility of voters. The restrictions are meant to limit the use of “poll monitors” long sent by both parties to look out for voting mishaps but at times used to intimidate voters.
In June, the Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign sued to ease those rules, saying they imposed arbitrary limits on the party’s ability to keep tabs on the voting process no matter where it occurs.
The Pennsylvania lawsuit over an obscure slice of election law is just one piece of the party’s sweeping plan to expand poll monitoring this election year. Thanks to a federal court ruling that freed the party from restrictions, the GOP is mounting a broad effort to keep a close watch on who casts ballots.
The GOP is recruiting 50,000 monitors, typically party activists and specially appointed volunteers, across 15 battleground states. Meanwhile, the party has filed, or intervened in, lawsuits challenging election rules across the country, including cases in battleground states like Nevada, Wisconsin and Florida over laws related to absentee ballots and voting by mail.
Republicans say they are focused on preventing the fraud they have long maintained, without evidence, is rampant in U.S. elections. Democrats and voting rights groups fear the planned influx of poll watchers under the imprimatur of the RNC is a veiled effort to suppress Democratic turnout, particularly in minority communities.
The issue is especially contentious for two parties already clashing over how to protect the right to vote during a pandemic. As election officials prepare for an unprecedented surge of mailed ballots, both parties are gearing up for the possibility of protracted legal battles over how those votes are tallied, giving new weight to the question of who can monitor the count.
“By and large, these kinds of ballot security operations, especially in a heated partisan and polarizing environment and with the emotions surrounding elections — they risk crossing lines, causing disruptions,” said Wendy Weiser, who directs the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice.
Republicans say the monitors they’re recruiting will receive training to ensure they follow state laws. The real reason Democrats are objecting is because Republicans know that “the playing field has been leveled,” said RNC spokesperson Mandi Merritt.
“We can do what Democrats and other Republican groups have been able to do for decades,” Merritt said in a statement. “This is about getting more people to vote, certainly not less.”
Democrats say they, too, have spent millions of dollars building up staff. They say the goal on their side is to support voters who need questions answered and to combat what they say is a misinformation campaign aimed at suppressing turnout.
Former Vice President Joe Biden told those attending a July fundraiser that his campaign has 600 attorneys and 10,000 volunteers ready to ensure voters can cast ballots.
Traditionally, poll watchers monitor polling locations and can alert campaigns and party lawyers about perceived irregularities, including people being unfairly blocked from voting, identification laws not being followed or poor signage. In some states, citizen observers can lodge challenges against individual voters, kicking ballots to a review board or forcing them to be counted provisionally until the complaint is settled.
In 2020, when as many as half of ballots may be cast by mail, poll watching may extend to mail balloting, where boards that include observers from both parties often review individual ballots to determine whether they should be counted.
The Pennsylvania lawsuit seeks to overturn state law that says poll watchers may serve only in the counties where they live. Republicans are asking a judge to allow monitors to be present in all locations where votes are cast, including any locations where absentee or mail ballots are returned.
Even before the coronavirus reconfigured the election, both parties were bracing for a titanic battle over voting in courts and at the polls.
Intensifying the conflict was a judge’s 2018 decision to lift a consent decree, in place for nearly 40 years, that required the RNC to have court approval for organized poll monitoring activities, such as interrogating prospective voters about their qualifications before they cast ballots or deputizing civilians as law enforcement officials.