4/3/2023 0 Comments Car hidden camera recorder![]() ![]() “When you have a weapon, and then you have camouflage on, and then you make a statement like ‘I’m out here hunting mules’ – all of a sudden now, we’re reaching voter intimidation.” ![]() “There’s nothing in and of itself that’s unlawful to sit and film a drop box – it’s odd behavior in my opinion,” Bill Gates, the Republican chairman of the Maricopa county board of supervisors, said in an interview. Arizona voters extensively use no-excuse mail-in voting, and early voting at the polls and via mail and drop boxes begins 27 days before election day. ‘We will be watching ’Īrizona became a sort of ground zero for drop box watching during early voting in October. In response to concerns over such intimidation and efforts by election deniers to recruit and train poll observers and workers, the faith community in Philadelphia is encouraging people to become poll monitors. In Michigan, a local offshoot of a group called the America Project is training volunteers to set up hidden cameras to monitor drop boxes and to carry guns in case they encounter criminals while watching the boxes, the Detroit Free Press reported.Ī pastor in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, told PennLive he had seen increased traffic in his community, where trucks with Maga flags drive through regularly, which he sees as an attempt to intimidate the largely Black community. The department also filed a “statement of interest” in one of the Arizona drop box lawsuits, saying that the behavior probably violates federal voting rights law. The US attorney general, Merrick Garland, said in recent days that the justice department “has an obligation to guarantee a free and fair vote by everyone who’s qualified to vote and will not permit voters to be intimidated”. One of the groups, Clean Elections USA, intends to send the photos, videos and information it collects to True the Vote, the organization behind 2000 Mules, Votebeat reported. In recent months, drop box watchers spread the word on rightwing-friendly social media platforms like Truth Social and Telegram. ![]() “I certainly hope it doesn’t and I hope that a win in our case will send a strong deterrent effect to folks who are organizing in other places.” ‘All of a sudden now, we’re reaching voter intimidation’ĭrop box watching efforts have been largely coordinated by election deniers belonging to several different groups across the country, usually inspired by the viral movie 2000 Mules, which makes false, debunked claims about so-called “mules” stuffing drop boxes with ballots in a widespread spree of fraudulent voting during the 2020 presidential election. ![]() “I think that this drop box monitoring could very likely take hold in a number of different states,” said Jared Davidson, an attorney with Protect Democracy, a non-profit, non-partisan organization involved in one legal challenge against the drop box watchers. But though Arizona has become a hotbed for these tactics, it is also a sign of the mounting national threats to security that voters are facing as the 8 November elections near – part of an orchestrated countrywide strategy pushed by rightwing groups who believe baseless conspiracy theories that the 2020 presidential election was rife with fraud and irregularities. These activities have led to calls from Maricopa county officials to “decrease the temperature” of heated rhetoric and actions in advance of Tuesday’s midterm elections. Photograph: Maricopa county elections department/AFP/Getty Images A handout photo provided by the Maricopa county elections department shows two armed individuals dressed in tactical gear at the site of a ballot drop box in Mesa, Arizona, on 21 October 2022. ![]()
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