Watching the Trump Poll Watchers

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights has condemned the Trump campaign’s recently-announced poll watching plan.   According to the Leadership Conference, at a time when enforcement of the Voting Rights Act has been curtailed and the candidate himself repeats the myth that voter fraud is rampant, recruiting partisan supporters to “observe” at polls looks like an effort to intimate legitimate voters.

The Carter Center monitors elections around the world.  While it has no plans to engage in election observation in the United States, on August 10 the Center and its partner the National Conference of State Legislatures debuted a helpful guide to election observation laws in the 50 states.  The Center notes that partisan election observers are permitted by law in most states, but that credible nonpartisan observers can provide the biggest boost to voter trust and government transparency.  Importantly, even partisan observers are not generally allowed to operate without constraint.  The Center reports that “40 states and the District of Columbia have a formal accreditation/appointments process for partisan citizen observers (poll watchers and challengers). This appointment is led by local party chairs, candidates, or ballot issue groups and can require approval by election officials or the Secretary of State’s office.”

The issue of voter suppression in the US is of concern to the international community.  For example, in 2012, the NAACP and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund brought the issue of US voting rights and access to the polls to the UN Human Rights Council. 

Comedian and political commentator John Oliver is also watching, and recently reported on what happened after he signed up as a Trump poll watcher.