🚨 Critical Read - Election Integrity Consent Decree between DNC & RNC Expired

[Tommymac]

Please read the whole twitter thread if possible, it's very long.

I've tried to include most of the relevant tweets to outline the issue for those that do not twitter.

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I'm in my 60's and NEVER knew this existed, or it's importance in making Elections free and Fair.

We will have only ONE chance to save Our Democracy and Our Constitution, November 2022.

Let's get to work and GOTV - it is what we on the ground can do to help out. The pols and lawyers will need to do the heavy lifting.



#GOTV2022

[Achilleaze]

1. GOTV

k and r

[niyad]

2. KNR and bookmarking.

[Takket]

3. i'm not trying to discount what looks like a very serious problem...

but don't most states/citites have laws on the books about who can be at the polls? Who can be "watchers"? How close you can be to the entrance of the voting place, who can challenge a voter and on what grounds, etc??? I know my location does. So just because this decree expired doesn't mean the GOP can just flood the polls with storm troopers to menacingly stand over black people in line until they leave in fear......

Am I right? Or is it open season?

[Sympthsical]

6. The first question I had reading this

What are the laws about this in New Jersey?

Without that information, it's difficult to understand what the actual situation is. As you noted, each state has wildly varying laws about this.

So I suppose my question is, "What can Republicans legally do now that they could not do before in the state of New Jersey?"

[Tickle]

7. I work the

polls in my state because I have the time. I’m not sure there’s any law about who works the polls

[Tickle]

8. I work the

polls in my state because I have the time. I’m not sure there’s any law about who works the polls

[Tommymac]

9. I presume Pols and/or Lawyers will need to answer that question definitively.

but from the way I read it it means that the RNC has open season on harassing voters and polls in all states, since there is no overarching Federal aggreement between the parties now.

It is definitely a can of zombie worms.

'All' we can do is take heart and continue the #GOTV2022 efforts and build the biggest turnout of voters EVER.

[LeftInTX]

11. Even Texas has poll watcher laws

Most Election Judges and Clerks must be registered voters. They take an oath. Election Judges are supposed to take training (Although I don't know if it's mandatory)
Poll Watchers are required to take training.
They cannot interfere with Clerks and Judges unless they see a violation.
They cannot talk unless they see a violation.
They sit there all day.
There is alot of bruh ha ha about Election Judges, but in the end, the job is like watching paint dry.
These are all laws that are on the Texas books.


I was a clerk once and took the training. We are sworn in when we go to work.
It's pretty much "by the book" work. No electioneering is allowed within the 100 ft marker. Turn off your phone. You can have a list, but can't flash campaign lit. The clerk/judge checks the ID, signs the voter in and the voter votes. The main problem is, sometimes the voter is not registered. (Usually in these cases, the voter is a commuter who is registered in a surrounding county or another county etc. We can't allow them to vote.)

In Texas, the drama seems to happen outside the polls! We have the 100 ft marker, where no campaigning is allowed.
The 100 ft marker is on the Texas books.

Then we have the poll grounds outside the 100 ft marker, where the campaigns have set up shop. Things are pretty much unregulated. However, if it gets excessive, we contact an election judge. One site will not allow you to approach voters standing in long lines (outside the 100 ft marker) One site does. I personally do not, because they are "stuck in line".

We do have campaigns which can get loud and in voters faces. Sometimes a judge is contacted. One time a judge came out when a campaign person was spreading voting disinformation. We have noise and firearm ordinances. In 2020, someone was flying a drone and the election judges came running out and prohibited it.

Then we have the area outside the poll grounds which is also unregulated.

[Kid Berwyn]

4. Tradition. Take Just-us Rehnquist.

Crooks Nixon and Mitchell appointed this guy to lead SCOTUS.



Just our Bill

by Dennis Roddy, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Saturday, December 02, 2000

Lito Pena is sure of his memory. Thirty-six years ago he, then a Democratic Party poll watcher, got into a shoving match with a Republican who had spent the opening hours of the 1964 election doing his damnedest to keep people from voting in south Phoenix.

"He was holding up minority voters because he knew they were going to vote Democratic," said Pena.

The guy called himself Bill. He knew the law and applied it with the precision of a swordsman. He sat at the table at the Bethune School, a polling place brimming with black citizens, and quizzed voters ad nauseam about where they were from, how long they'd lived there -- every question in the book. A passage of the Constitution was read and people who spoke broken English were ordered to interpret it to prove they had the language skills to vote.

Snip…

The guy Pena remembers tossing out of Bethune School prospered, too. Bill Rehnquist, now better known as William H. Rehnquist, chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, presided yesterday over a case that centers on whether every vote for president was properly recorded in the state of Florida.

In his confirmation hearings for the court in 1971, Rehnquist denied personally intimidating voters and gave the explanation that he might have been called to polling places on Election Day to arbitrate disputes over voter qualifications. Fifteen years later, three more witnesses, including a deputy U.S. attorney, told of being called to polling places and having angry voters point to Rehnquist as their tormentor. His defenders suggested it was a case of mistaken identity.

Continues…

http://old.post-gazette.com/columnists/20001202roddy.asp

[intheflow]

5. Very important read. Thank you for sharing! n/t

[Tommymac]

10. Thanks for reading. Not sure of the actual impact but I know it ain't good if the RNC is involved.

That is why I posted, as an alert and hoping some of the legal eagles here on DU can expound on this.