Trump wants new authority over polling places. Top election officials say no

[workinclasszero]

Trump wants new authority over polling places. Top election officials say no
By Annie Linskey GLOBE STAFF MARCH 09, 2018

WASHINGTON — President Trump would be able to dispatch Secret Service agents to polling places nationwide during a federal election, a vast expansion of executive authority, if a provision in a Homeland Security reauthorization bill remains intact.

The rider has prompted outrage from more than a dozen top elections officials around the country, including Massachusetts Secretary of State William F. Galvin, a Democrat, who says he’s worried that it could be used to intimidate voters and said there is “no basis” for providing Trump with this new authority.

“This is worthy of a Third World country,” said Galvin in an interview. “I’m not going to tolerate people showing up to our polling places. I would not want to have federal agents showing up in largely Hispanic areas.”

“The potential for mischief here is enormous,” Galvin added.

The White House didn’t respond to a question about the measure.

“There is no discernible need for federal secret service agents to intrude, at the direction of the president, who may also be a candidate in that election, into thousands of citadels where democracy is enshrined,” according to a letter opposing the provision that was signed by 19 bipartisan secretaries of state and elections commissioners.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2018/03/09/top-elections-officials-raise-alarm-over-allowing-trump-new-authority-over-polling-places/qvdmfTe7N7AFZXl0k4CwEO/story.html

[dlk]

1. Trump is a Dictator at Heart

Like his most of his fellow Republicans, he really doesn't believe in democracy.

[workinclasszero]

5. Yup this is a naked grab for power

That bastard wants to corrupt the vote at every polling place in America!

[malaise]

6. At heart?

Groper Don the Con has declared himself Emperor of the world

[poboy2]

48. Its as though he grew up in Eastern Europe as Ceausescu's son.

He has no idea what 'democracy' means.

Piece of shit.

[yuiyoshida]

58. He told the Chinese leader he would consider being

President for Life... let that sink in.

[forgotmylogin]

61. Boy, it's almost like he thinks he lost the election...

or something...

[milestogo]

2. Fuck you Donald Trump.

You have no clue what democracy is.

[pangaia]

3. Is any body keeping track? Keeping a list?

So that 10-20 30 years from now when this is over and sanity has returned, it can all be fixed?

[Frustratedlady]

4. Considering the Russian Election issue, Trump should not be allowed to be anywhere near making

election changes. We were doing fine without Trump. Problems arose when he got in the picture. He has cost us million$.

Hands off.

[sharedvalues]

7. GOP: has to cheat to win

[workinclasszero]

9. Yes and they are out front and bold about it now

The question is, are we going to sit back and watch them destroy freedom and democracy in this country?

I bet Twitler and his damned party wants this power put into his greasy paws before the midterm blue wave election eh?

[sharedvalues]

41. It's an opportunity for us - now it's public, we must use the opportunity to take the country back.

[workinclasszero]

46. Blue wave election in the fall

Or America is cooked IMO.

[yallerdawg]

8. Next we'll hear, "Arm the veterans, just like they should be in the schools!"

"Oh - the killer was a veteran - with PTSD."

"Hmmm. Let me check with no one to see what my final position on this matter should be."

"Get me Wayne what's-his-name on the phone..."

[sharedvalues]

42. Sure

For the NRA, it's all about selling more guns, since they are a marketing arm of gun corps and CEOs.

So any solution that involves selling more guns sounds great to them. Arm teachers! Arm veterans! Arm whoever! As long as more guns are sold, they are achieving their goal.

[Angry Dragon]

10. UNBALANCED TRUMP

[Hoyt]

11. Don't trust trump, but how do we reconcile opposition to calls for trump do something to ensure

integrity of elections?

To improve election integrity by November 2018, something is going to have to be done at state or federal level. Personally, I think it would be more transparent at federal level.

Long-term, we need a powerful, well-funded bipartisan fed/state effort, but that ain't gonna happen by November, 2018.

Again, I wish trump weren't in his position, but there is nothing we can do about that right now.

[workinclasszero]

12. There is no way in hell

That a sitting president running for re-election should have the power to invade every polling place in America and...what?

Shut it down? Seize the completed ballots? Do a secret recount behind closed doors?

You really want to give the present corrupt republican party and Trump this power? Really!?

[Hoyt]

14. Then, what do you suggest considering the situation we are in right now?

If nothing is the option while trump is Prez, so be it. But I’m OK giving authority to FBI, Secret Service, whoever, to monitor polling places, voting computers, etc., until a better program is developed. Otherwise, we have to leave it to states in November.

I get it’s not best option, but primary voting for 2018 is about to start. We aren’t going to get an optimal program for 2018, no matter how much we whine.

BTW, I don’t think the proposal includes trump directing SS to seize ballots.

Again, what is you workable proposal for primaries starting in 1 month, and general election in 8 months?

At some point, we have to stop whining and come up with the best workable plan for the immediate situation.

[bucolic_frolic]

18. Bipartisan election monitors committed to integrity

Trained and educated in spotting irregularities. Each serve as a check on the other party, each reports to
a higher-up. Totals are counted and recounted. League of Women Voters is a presence in many communities
around here at election time. We don't need Trump's shock troops. Each party also runs hotlines, and has
attorney's ready to roll. It's not a system of swiss cheese. It needs computer integrity improvement in many
states for sure, or paper ballots definitely, but we do have a framework that has worked well, though I still
don't think we know a lot about the 2016 election and are not being told a lot.

[Hoyt]

29. Good. Seems FBI or similar would be about as good as we are going to get in one month.

[Delmette2.0]

40. You are right.

We have to be our own election monitors, at every precinct. Our local efforts don't end the day before the election.

[workinclasszero]

20. My plan is to GOTV democratic HUGE Blue Wave!!!!!

And flood each precinct with so many dem votes that any Republican/Russian dirty pool is destroyed and we save freedom and democracy in this country!

If people will not leave the couch and TV this fall to save themselves and their kids from Trump fascism, its all over anyway.

[Hoyt]

30. Agree completely. We won in Alabama and Maryland because we voted.

[bucolic_frolic]

34. We are winning in specific elections held at special times

That enables us to blitz a location with out of state GOTV organizations and support.

In a general election, the ability to draw from out of state people will be limited because GOTV
are needed everywhere. We would need to draw from safe states and districts to marginal or hotly contested races.

That worries me.

[workinclasszero]

23. BTW imagine if President Obama would have pushed for this when he was in office

The fucking republicans would have has a nuclear meltdown of epic proportions!!

[Hoyt]

31. Love Obama, but wish he had done that in 2016, and exposed Ruskie tampering.

[Sophia4]

43. Send election protection lawyers, one representing each party, to the polls

and also to the places where votes are counted.

Make sure all votes are cast by paper ballot and then inserted into the machines. That way the paper votes can be recounted if necessary.

Police officers of any kind touching ballots is fascistic. That may sound extreme. But it is how fascism starts.

In Austria, when Austrians voted for the Anschluss in 1938, I was told by oldtimers, the ballots were marked with numbers in milk. I don't know whether that was true, but the oldtimers who voted in that election believed it to be true and were afraid to vote for anything but the Anschluss and Hitler.

Fascism can be started on the streets OR EVEN IN THE BALLOT BOX.

We do not want federal agents in our polling places in California -- except to cast their own ballots.

No thanks. Fascism writ large. That's what this idea is. Intimidation.

We can manage our own elections. I have registered many voters. They have to state where they were born and, under penalty of perjury, affirm that they are American citizens. That is the law in California.

Trump is a fool who does not realize that California voter rolls have so many Spanish-reading names because we have many citizens with Spanish-sounding names. We were originally a Spanish colony and many people who move to America from Latin America settle in California.

Get over it, Republicans. You lost the popular vote in 2016. You lost.

It's only because of the unfairness of the electoral college that we have to put up with Trump in the White House.

[Hoyt]

55. I think most states have observers representing both parties. I'd trust federal agents before

someone appointed by someone supposedly representing the Democratic Party. I saw enough Ruskies who were supposedly Democrats during the primaries and elections.

[sinkingfeeling]

45. And exactly what would federal agents do at polling places? If we are

being hacked, are these agents going to be techies? Or does he want them there to intimidate voters and hunt for those non-citizen voters his 'commission' was supposed to find?

[Hoyt]

54. That's the thing, computer experts aren't going to be much good at the polls. Yet, folks are

calling for them like that is where the hack is going to take place. I don't think, if it were to occur, it will be through some individual voting machine.

[Corgigal]

13. Secret Service

has a tough enough job as it is. They are not your private army, nor do they work for you. He will never understand this point, they work for the office. To protect anyone in the office, not to run around on your whim and take care of things.

Too stupid to read job descriptions.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

47. Isn't the Secret Service stretched to limit protecting Trump and his family

as they jet around the world doing business deals that benefit Donnie Two Scoops?

In the 80s a Southern California Republican congressman (Bob "B-1" Dornan) hired armed guards, dressed them in costumes which resembled Border Patrol uniforms, and put them in front of polling places in predominantly Hispanic areas. The idea was to intimidate even legal citizens and keep them away from the polls.

It didn't work.

He lost to the Democratic candidate, Loretta Sanchez, despite his efforts at voter intimidation.

Where does Trump expect to find the money to fund his authoritarian scheme?

[fescuerescue]

56. The protective side of the SS certainly is

But there is a huge part of the SS that does other things (investigative services), like cybercrime, network intrusions, identity theft, access device fraud, credit card fraud, and intellectual property crimes.

Whether it is the SS or any other Federal agency, it will still always roll up to the President.

That's the rub. If we want election oversight with teeth, it's going to roll up to the President, and 50% of the time, that President is going to be one we don't trust.

On the other hand, we can keep oversight at the state level, which is where we are now.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

57. All good points. n/t

[not fooled]

49. donnie thinks Secret Service "SS"

= Schutzstaffel

[link:|]

[bucolic_frolic]

15. Election Day Gestapo

The bad news just keeps on coming

[workinclasszero]

27. It's sickening

Can this country survive four years of Trump and the republicans working daily to kill off democracy and the rule of law?

[lindysalsagal]

16. Like I'm not traumatized enough....

[dalton99a]

17. Kick

[Ace Rothstein]

19. Any Democrat that votes for this bill, as is, needs to be voted out.

[world wide wally]

21. An example of GOP smaller government?

[workinclasszero]

25. Right

Like Dump's tax giveaway for billionaires showed their fiscal responsibility!

Fucken lyin republican hypocrites!

[StarryNite]

22. Oh hell NO!

[Blue_Adept]

24. I know they said Secret Service, but I imagine they'd station ICE agents all around

polling places, just to intimidate those that are there legally (which, you know, is 99.999999% of those who vote). It's a way to dampen those that they'd have suspicion of going.

[workinclasszero]

26. Oh yeah

And all brown skinned folks would have to produce their papers before being allowed to vote.

Yup that's what this is all about for sure!

[Javaman]

28. effectively putting armed guards at polling places.

so how are you going to vote comrade? for fearless leader or for the sniveling no account traitorous toad opposition?

yeah, that just drips democracy.

[Xipe Totec]

32. I'm surprised he didn't propose deputizing ICE nt

[smirkymonkey]

33. Anyone still think he doesn't want to be dictator for life?

If he can get away with it, he will do it. And the republicans in congress will allow it as long as they hold on to power. VOTE THEM OUT!!

[ProudLib72]

35. What would happen if

I went to the local polling place wearing my Auntie Maxine t-shirt with an assault rifle over my shoulder so I could "patrol" for potential mischief? How long would it take for them to call in the authorities? And yet these assholes get away with it.

[bitterross]

36. 45 Isn't In Congress - Who the hell slipped that into the bill?

We need to find out who put that in the bill for him. They need to pay a price for that.

[Iliyah]

37. Like what Putin does for Russia.

And the GOP's welcomes it.

[lark]

38. Putin's giving orders again.

drumpf isn't smart enough to think of this, it's Putin's plan to further ensure the theft of all elections for rw fascist russian repugs.

[workinclasszero]

39. Would not doubt that

a bit!

[Historic NY]

44. He's a fucking idiot, does he even know how many polling places there are?

It an expanse of Secret Service Authority.

[Cha]

50. Yeah, because we know if trumputin

wants to do it.. it's BAD for America and the Planet.

[Nitram]

51. Wow! Der Gropenfuhrer wants to send the brownshirts in to insure that the electorate

votes "correctly?" The guy isn't very subtle, is he?

[workinclasszero]

52. Trump: "He's now president for life. President for life."

"He's now president for life. President for life. No, he's great. And look, he was able to do that. I think it's great. Maybe we'll have to give that a shot some day."

Hey America, Trump and his party are giving it a shot now! Someday is NOW!

[onecent]

53. I JUST HOPE THEY REALLY SAID "no"......

[Progressive dog]

59. Trump wants absolute power,

and his worshipers will help him get it.

[YOHABLO]

60. Unless we can rid our country of this brand of RW influence. Nothing can stop their corruption.

[Honeycombe8]

62. Who's going to stop him? Looks like he's on his way to a dictatorship. Really.

Who's to stop him? The Repubs?

RESIST.

[dflprincess]

63. Federal agents? - No way.

U.N. observers to monitor a fair and open election, we may need them.

[DFW]

64. This is the action of someone who KNOWS something, namely:

This is the action of someone who KNOWS that if the popular will were to be honored, he and his party would go down in flames. This is the action of people who have tasted power, and want to keep it, knowing full well that a majority of the people of their country do NOT want them to keep it.

[MrModerate]

65. If he tries this, it's time for a nationwide strike, marches on Washington . . .

And any extreme measure needed to prevent his privatized army from stealing the country. State Police and perhaps National Guard units would need to arrest the federal agents.