Fuck the GOP........

Election workers prepare for poll watchers who could disrupt vote

From CNN's Sara Murray and Jeremy Herb

During a special election in Wisconsin over the summer, a group of partisan poll watchers showed up at a handful of precincts in Glendale, a suburb of Milwaukee, and created chaos by contesting every absentee ballot that was cast.

After they were reminded repeatedly about the rules against making meritless ballot challenges, the groups of poll watchers “turned disruptive,” according to Glendale Mayor Bryan Kennedy.

“They refused to stop challenging, then they were asked to leave. They didn’t, and the police were called,” Kennedy told CNN, adding that once police arrived, the observers left peacefully. “It certainly gave us pause about what we’ll see later.”

Turning what are supposed to be routine scenes of counting ballots into tense standoffs that require police intervention is exactly the sort of thing that election officials across the country are hoping to avoid when Americans go to the polls next month.

After conspiracy theories about voting spread rampantly in 2020 — as Trump and his allies tried to reverse his loss to Joe Biden — officials are preparing for a possible wave of misinformation this election season and hoping it won’t be fueled by volunteers acting as observers.

Some context: Poll watchers are a key component of election transparency, and both Democrats and Republicans have built out their ranks of volunteers and lawyers to observe polling places and vote counting centers. But while Democrats have publicly focused on get-out-the-vote efforts, Republicans have made “election integrity” a centerpiece of their campaign messaging, vowing to deploy tens of thousands of people to monitor the vote across battlegrounds.