Serious question. How many federal agents would it take to prevent voting? States operated 116,990 polling places in the 2016 election.
It would take the entire U.S. Army to stand with drawn guns at every polling place, or even the ones in the big cities of blue states. It couldn’t be done secretly. It couldn’t be done without opposition. It couldn’t be done and still leave a country after it happened. (And would that shut down voting? No. That number above doesn’t count early voting sites. Nor does it include all the votes that will be sent in by mail, a number an order of magnitude larger than in 2016.)
This question is exactly as bad as the right-wingers who under Obama were talking about him confiscating guns from everybody. It’s ridiculous. And so are the wise-ass answers. Yes, what’s happening in Portland is bad, but it does not scale up to this. It literally cannot.
It is said that Trump’s re-election success or failure will turn on the outcome in just a few swing states. He only needs to disrupt just enough polling places in enough swing states to assure that he will win those states, and then he wins the election.
The legal pretense for the presence of those federal officers is that they are protecting federal property from rioters. Polling places tend to be set up in churches, school auditoriums, and civic buildings, not in federal courthouses.
I think a more likely scenario than trump sending federal agents to prevent elections is this: he blows his dog whistle and trumpers in camo carrying AR-15s, the same ones who’ve shown up to try to intimidate BLM protesters, show up at key voting locations to try to intimidate voters. I don’t know if enough of them exist to affect the outcome of the election.
They don’t need to shut down voting in the areas that will vote “correctly”
And most of the areas that vote for democrats are already concentrated into fewer poling places per person than those that vote for republicans.
And you don’t have to do all the polling places, just the ones that are likely to have a heavy D turnout.
The chilling effect of knowing that there are some armed people at some polling places may make voters reluctant to venture out, even if their polling place is not currently occupied.
And then with the long lines, if the crowd is ordered to disperse after the polls close, even if they haven’t voted yet, what is their remedy?
I am always told on these boards that the time to argue with law enforcement is not at the place of interaction, but in a court of law. Well, if we wait for a court of law to decide whether or not the order to disperse a crowd of people waiting to vote is legal, the vote is already over.
And as far as numbers go. It is not just the military that may show up to intimidate voters. There have been calls for civilian “election monitors” to make their presence known.
My OP posited only shutting down the elections in Philadelphia, Detroit, and Milwaukee. They can certainly do that. I did not suggest preventing the election from taking place. Rural PA will support Trump and I assume the same of Michigan and Wisconsin. SCOTUS will call it “political” and won’t interfere
It is likely that the regular army would refuse to participate. But Homeland Security is not the army and has shown itself ready and willing to follow orders enthusiastically. Where are all those Republicans who thing it an infringement of their civil liberties to be ordered to wear a mask, but apparently don’t object to an attack on the American people?
Sorry, I essentially restated your OP, with more detailed paranoia. I not only agree that it could happen, I’ve managed to convince myself to the point where I’ll be surprised if it doesn’t.
The brownshirts in Portland kidnapped people off the streets blocks away from the federal building. They used the pretense that the people were suspected of (mumble mumble) earlier at the federal building. If they are motivated to do so, it is trivially easy to come up with a reason to disrupt activities away from federal properties.
“I was monitoring the crowds, I think some of them were previously in front of the courthouse, and it appeared they planned further violence and property damage, so I deployed tear gas. It is unfortunate that the tear gas drifted into the voting line.”
No, actually, it’s not ridiculous. Previous claims about the President “taking away our guns” or “cancelling the election” or whatever only ever came from fringe idiots, and were based on nothing more than paranoid fantasizing about an imagined threat from the President. When challenged to produce anything the President ever said to support their fantasies, the idiots would always come up empty.
But with Trump? He has made “jokes” about screwing with elections on multiple occasions, and then, just this week, he refused to say he’d accept the results of the election if he lost:
“Are you suggesting that you might not accept the results of the election?” Wallace asked.
Trump responded, “No. I have to see.”
Later in the interview, pressed on whether he will accept the results of the November election, Trump again declined to say.
“I have to see,” he said. “Look, you — I have to see. No, I’m not going to just say ‘yes.’ I’m not going to say ‘no.’ And I didn’t last time, either.”
This may not come to pass, but claiming that concerns about Trump and the election are exactly as ridiculous as concerns about Obama and guns is itself ridiculous.
Trump will unquestionably take to twitter and cry FRAUD and RIGGED in all caps. Probably even before the election when he sees it going badly.
But if he were planning on sending armed troops to intimidate voters, he should have left it a surprise and not done it early. He has every Democratic governor primed and ready to take action if they see action. And local officials as well.
In Philadelphia, the district attorney likened the clash to the fight against fascism in World War II and threatened to criminally charge federal agents sent to his city if they exceeded their authority. “Anyone, including federal law enforcement, who unlawfully assaults and kidnaps people will face criminal charges from my office,” said the district attorney, Larry Krasner. “At trial, they will face a Philadelphia jury.”
Trump cannot do what he pleases in American cities. He’s already under attack for his actions. Trying to shut down voting is an act of war. Whatever his wish fulfillment dreams are, nobody will let him do that. He is not Putin, much as he’d like to be.
It is simple and already in play. Barr sends feds in. He is hoping some idiot tries arresting them, or failing that that some other type of idiot shoots one or two. Trump then declares insurrection, martial law, suspends habeas corpus, and then delays the elections.
And many people have suggested that the Governor try calling in the National Gd (who answer to trump) or the police to arrest the feds. Worst idea ever.
The Republicans don’t want to stop the election . (Let’s drop the illusion that Trump is involved in the planning. Other people in the party are doing all of the plotting and then they’ll tell Trump where to sign the paperwork and what to read off the teleprompter.)
They want to stop about twenty percent of the voting. And then they’ll claim that the other eighty percent that they allowed was enough to be a valid election and its results count. They want to preserve the illusion that they were legally elected.
If he sent troops in explicitly to stop voting, then probably even most Republicans would complain (mildly, perhaps). He can’t do it as a surprise. But if he sets the precedent now, it gives plausible deniability if circumstances “require” him to send them again in early November. The proximity to Election Day will be an unfortunate coincidence.
As a Portland resident, I’m getting messages daily from out-of-town friends and family - “are you OK? Is your house at risk? How do get food when the city is overrun by violence?” Despite no connection to reality, the narrative is set, and many people believe the feds are necessary to squelch a growing rebellion that threatens democracy. If he wanted, Trump could certainly create the same narrative in November, and many people would believe that tear gas around voting sites was actually necessary to protect voting rights.
A week ago, I would have dismissed this as paranoia. It is more difficult to do so when unidentified paramilitary forces are grabbing peaceful protesters and blindfolding them in your own town.