John Oliver signs up to be a Trump election observer
by digby
Oh boy:
I’m laughing but it’s not really funny. There’s a long history of polling place intimidation going back to Jim Crow and some of it is quite recent. A Tea Party groups called True the Vote was all over the place in some recent elections:
A new threat emerged in 2010 when an organized and well-funded Texas-based organization with defined partisan interests, the King Street Patriots, through its project True the Vote, was observed intimidating voters at multiple polling locations serving communities of color during early voting in Harris County. Members of this Tea Party-affiliated group reportedly interfered with voters — allegedly watching them vote, “hovering over” voters, blocking lines, and engaging in confrontational conversations with election workers. Under Texas law, poll watchers are not allowed even to speak to a voter.
In a 2011 special election in Massachusetts, a Tea Party group was reported to have harassed Latino voters and others at the polls in Southbridge, Massachusetts. The Southbridge town clerk protested these actions, reporting that targeted voters left saying, “I’ll never vote again,” while a retired judge witnessed “citizens coming from their voting experience shaken or in tears.”