White House ‘can’t guarantee’ ICE won’t send agents to midterm voting sites
www.independent.co.uk
Threat of stationing immigration agents around voting locations has become a concern as it can be a deterrent to legal residents of color who are concerned they may be harassed by federal agents

Threat of stationing immigration agents around voting locations has become a concern as it can be a deterrent to legal residents of color who are concerned they may be harassed by federal agents

The White House refused to rule out following through on the threat of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents being sent out to “surround the polls” when voters cast ballots in this November’s midterm elections as a way of depressing Democratic turnout and boosting chances of Republican victories in the House of Representatives and Senate.

Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Thursday said she could offer “no guarantee” that ICE personnel would not be stationed at polling sites when Americans are in the process of choosing whether to extend the Republican stranglehold on power at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.

She had been asked about former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon’s recent call for Trump to deploy ICE around election sites on his War Room podcast on Tuesday, just days after Trump himself called for a Republican “takeover” of vote-counting in Democratic-led states and municipalities.

  • Anna@lemmy.ml
    2·
    1 hour ago

    You know Jan 6 rioters with guns and pipe bombs who attacked officers got pardon.

  • TemplaerDude@sh.itjust.works
    21·
    6 hours ago

    Obviously.

    This is obviously where it was going.

    From day one, from the first lie, to the arming of his own private army, this has been the goal. Obviously.

    Americans will be surprised, of course. As always.

  • DaddleDew@lemmy.world
    43·
    7 hours ago

    The very act of floating this idea is election fraud. Even if they don’t do it, threatening to do it could discourage voters.

    • French75@slrpnk.net
      195·
      8 hours ago

      That’s not fair. They are still working super hard to disarm the people in blue states.

    • varnia@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      2·
      5 hours ago

      I think it’s open jealousy about how you can get away with practically anything from undermining constitutional amendments to profit personally - all without seemingly being held accountable.

  • daannii@lemmy.worldEnglish
    46·
    9 hours ago

    When Obama ran, local organizations rented vans and escorted people to and from polls.

    We can do it again if needed.

    • Wilco@lemmy.zip
      5·
      5 hours ago

      It goes beyond this. Voter intimidation is classified federally as an “active threat”. This is basically a hostile crime that can be dealt with via lethal force. The constitution is built to deal with this. Camping outside poll locations and blocking entry is a crime, and it can be deal with as a crime.

  • Arghblarg@lemmy.ca
    13·
    8 hours ago

    Let everyone you know that mail-in ballots are still an option… but educate them that they must bring the ballot to the post office IN PERSON, and ask the postal staff to post-mark it IN FRONT OF THEM. I have read (please correct me if I’m wrong!) that works around the recent regulation change that allows dropped-off post to be stamped when it’s delivered, instead of when it’s first dropped off, which is a rat-fucking tactic to increase the likelihood of ballots being marked late, knowing they’ll probably take many days from drop-off to delivery.

    • thesohoriots@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      6 hours ago

      Yes however I can attest that some states make it easier than others to do mail-in. For example: WA, automatic mail-in, no questions asked. NC, you need to request it, then have your voting observed and certified by either two witnesses or a notary. Every step of the way highly encourages using your driver’s license number or including a copy, otherwise you have to complete more paperwork. THEN you have to take it to the post office to get marked etc. You also go on a list of absentee voters after it is tallied — a nice little target. I used to do it out of spite until it was just too inconvenient compared to early voting.

    • CorrectAlias@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      1·
      6 hours ago

      I live in WA and just drop them off at the county provided ballot boxes, no post office required. There are more of the drop boxes than post offices too.

    • ReallyActuallyFrankenstein@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
      1·
      5 hours ago

      That’s effectively what’s happening.

      The USPS, under DeJoy (who has long been trying to undermine the USPS from within), has posted this site, which attempts to debunk (i.e., gaslight) over what the change is. They claim the same process applies and only is being clarified, but that’s false since now postmarks will use the process rather than the sending date and that’s a major change. This is key:

      While we are not changing our postmarking practices, we have made adjustments to our transportation operations that will result in some mailpieces not arriving at our originating processing facilities on the same day that they are mailed. This means that the date on the postmarks applied at our processing facilities will not necessarily match the date on which the customer’s mailpiece was collected by a letter carrier or dropped off at a retail location. [emphasis added]

      This is entirely to help support GOP legal challenges that will claim that laws which allow election-day postmarked mail-in ballots to be counted can be struck down, because they will encompass votes that took place after election day, and therefore selectively invalidate mail-in ballots. It’s essentially poisoning the reliability of postmarks to allow for ballot suppression.

      Here’s a PBS story about it as well. It also notes that the staffing crunches at the USPS and closing processing facilities will exacerbate the issue since “processing” times will increase, especially for high-volume days like election day.

      Edit: David Steiner, not DeJoy, is the current postmaster general.

  • Doomsider@lemmy.world
    11·
    8 hours ago

    Can you imagine getting abducted when you try to vote? Now you don’t have to!

    I am sure this will help the voter turnout and is definitely not a thinly veiled threat meant to cause voter suppression.

  • UncleArthur@lemmy.world
    4·
    6 hours ago

    Weird. I didn’t realise all the American polling stations are located so near the borders with other countries.

      • theunknownmuncher@lemmy.world
        8·
        7 hours ago

        But seriously, people giving their lives for democracy and so that others can enjoy the inalienable rights they were promised is a good outcome.

        It’s the only possible good outcome from this scenario.

        If your take on this is genuinely “do nothing, give up democracy, because they might kill even more people than they already have” then you’re a coward and your rights and democracy were always going to be taken from you anyway.

        ICE agents should not come to the polls on election day unless they are ready to die for it.

      • I_Jedi@lemmy.todayEnglish
        2·
        6 hours ago

        ICE agents would get to ask God firsthand about whether what they’re doing is right.

  • Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works
    8·
    8 hours ago

    This is dicey. If it happens, there will be a lot of problems around the polling areas. The fascists will use that as an excuse to invalidate the results.

      • kbobabob@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        2·
        3 hours ago

        They will have 100 different reasons to invalidate the results anyway.

        It’s crazy to think they don’t already have them loaded up.