Alarming stories

Things are coming down to the wire.  Signs point to a blue wave.  Thus far there have been no open disruptions of the voting process.  But there are also some very alarming undercurrents.  The cover picture here is an obvious one -- National Guard troops were photographs standing around a ballot drop box in Washington, DC.  There have been other disturbing developments as well.

Federal investigation of the 2020 election continues in Fulton County, Georgia, with investigators even seeking contact information for ALL election officials and poll volunteers.  The judge denied the request, but there is no way to interpret this other than an attempt ant intimidation -- and certainly not the last.

Brendan Carr's FCC has attacked the licenses of broadcasting stations that run stories Trump objections to.  Since it is stations, not networks, that are licensed, Carr has ordered all eight ABC-owned stations to apply for license renewal ahead of the usual date -- a thing that has not happened in 50 years.  And he has given the stations 30 days to prepare applications -- a thing that usually takes months.  It is harassing the stations with pretextual investigations of equal employment law as a way of creating pressure to modify content.*

In New York, ICE officers showed up at a polling place to confront an election worker over a social media post that named an ICE officer.  The officers were from ICE's Office of Professional Responsibility, whose primary mission is investigating allegations of misconduct by ICE personnel and contractors.  Admittedly, no voters were present when the encounter took place.  The poll worker even appears to have chosen the location in the belief that she would be safer if it took place in a public area.  But this was, nonetheless, a meeting with intimidating figures in an election place during an election (the primary).

California is, thus far, the only place where Trump has called an election fraudulent during this election cycle.  Part of this is no doubt because California takes so long to count ballots, which really is a problem.  But I do not believe it is too much to suspect that another reason is California's open primary system, which makes it one of the few places where Democrats and Republicans have actually run against each other in this cycle.  Nor has Trump's hostility to California elections been limited to words.  Some 20 FBI agents have been harassing homeless people in Los Angeles with accusations that they were bribed to vote in the primary.  The fact that the Republican candidate lost out to the Democratic incumbent and a DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) challenger was no doubt a factor in the decision.

But the most alarming development has been in Ohio, where FBI agents raided a voting rights group and seized its financial records and communications equipment.  Hundreds of members have been stopped by the FBI for "interviews" that sound very much like harassment.  The same story reports that election-related prosecutions have increased by 40% since 2022.  Even in Wyoming -- Wyoming! -- there have been complaints about aggressive and harassing behavior by federal investigation observers.

Donald Trump has made clear that he not only opposes voting by mail, he opposes early voting and wants all voting to take place on a single election day.  He has not addressed the issue, perhaps because doesn't know about it, but it seems probable that he would also like to go back to the days when everyone voted in their own precinct and no other alternative was available.  Part of this is no doubt simply an old man complaining that things have changed since he was young.  But I am inclined to think there is a method to Trump's madness.

Consider:  If all voting takes place on one day, with everyone going to an assigned precinct, it would be a simple matter to send ICE to specific strategic precincts to disrupt voting.  Even allowing people to vote in any precinct disrupts such attempts -- it allows people to leave a precinct with intimidating officers and vote somewhere else.  Allowing voting to be spread out over a longer period of time makes it even easier to evade intimidation and harder for the feds to be everywhere at all times.  (Of course, when no one knows where they will show up, the fear remains).  Ballot drop boxes give people time to think through their voting at home and mark their ballots, but the offer easy sites for intimidation.  (See above).  But if everyone can fill out their ballots at home and drop them in the mail, harassment and intimidation become impossible.  

No wonder Trump hates mail-in voting so much!

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*This very much matches with my worst fears.  Abuse of the criminal justice system would be limited by an independent judiciary and trial by jury.  But regulatory actions are much less protected.  I feared abuse of the regulatory process as a means of harassing enemies.