Threat of stationing immigration agents around voting locations has become a concern as it can be a deterrent to legal residents of color who are concerned they may be harassed by federal agents

The White House refused to rule out following through on the threat of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents being sent out to “surround the polls” when voters cast ballots in this November’s midterm elections as a way of depressing Democratic turnout and boosting chances of Republican victories in the House of Representatives and Senate.

Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Thursday said she could offer “no guarantee” that ICE personnel would not be stationed at polling sites when Americans are in the process of choosing whether to extend the Republican stranglehold on power at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.

She had been asked about former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon’s recent call for Trump to deploy ICE around election sites on his War Room podcast on Tuesday, just days after Trump himself called for a Republican “takeover” of vote-counting in Democratic-led states and municipalities.

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[–] 95 points 9 months ago (2 children)

The very act of floating this idea is election fraud. Even if they don't do it, threatening to do it could discourage voters.

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  • [–] 25 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    We can offer no guarantee that democrat voters won't be harmed, detained or even murdered while voting.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago

    Republican voters are probably gonna get harassed, arrested, or killed too if they happen to not be white. Then there will be outcry from Republicans who were perfectly fine with it happening to democrats

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  • [–] 64 points 9 months ago (4 children)

    When Obama ran, local organizations rented vans and escorted people to and from polls.

    We can do it again if needed.

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  • [–] 20 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    Honestly, idk why it stopped. That shit enables better voter turnout…

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  • [–] 35 points 9 months ago (6 children)

    Republicans have stolen every presidential election they've won since 2000. There haven't been consequences yet, and the future won't be any different unless we stand up.

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  • [+] -2 points 9 months ago (4 children)
  • [–] 7 points 9 months ago* (3 children)

    Yes, but also I’m not convinced they haven’t done so by voter suppression. I’ve seen a lot fewer articles on that and that may not be part of voter fraud invests. There continue to be way too many attempts to suppress votes. How do you even count how many votes didn’t happen?

    And it only needs to happen in swing states. You combine that with gerrymandering and it doesn’t have to prevent many voters to make a difference

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  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    Exactly. Look back at the Jim Crow era. That's the goal. Jim Crow didn't work by white people stealing the vote. It worked by writing laws that openly made it so black people couldn't vote. Ultimately it's a lot more sustainable to simply write laws that serve your side than it is to try to hold onto power by repeated election fraud. With the latter, you ultimately have to worry about the military just refusing to acknowledge clearly fraudulent elections. But if the elections are crooked but entirely within the law? Much more difficult for the military to refuse to acknowledge those.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago

    you ultimately have to worry about the military just refusing to acknowledge clearly fraudulent elections

    You put too much faith in the military not being full of fascist sycophants and those going along to get along.

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  • [–] 112 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    Democratic leadership is sleepwalking us into a permanent state of authoritarian rule.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    I think it's open jealousy about how you can get away with practically anything from undermining constitutional amendments to profit personally - all without seemingly being held accountable.

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  • [+] 23 points 9 months ago (6 children)
  • [–] 6 points 9 months ago (5 children)

    I can definitely see ICE agents prowling around the voting places looking over people's shoulders at who they voted for.

    "I see you're voting for AOC. Time to die, friend."

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  • [–] 7 points 9 months ago (4 children)

    AOC somersaults out of the shadows and karate chops the agent in the throat so hard his head comes clean off

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  • [–] 20 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    How the fuck did we get to a point where it's normal for the government to say these things?

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  • [–] 9 points 9 months ago

    Conservatives stopped respecting our Constitution and our nation as a whole.

    But they're pretty good at showing up to vote, unlike many other Americans. That, combined with our electoral system being a joke and designed to allow a minority to have control, and you've got our current situation.

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  • [–] 20 points 9 months ago* (6 children)

    Let everyone you know that mail-in ballots are still an option... but educate them that they must bring the ballot to the post office IN PERSON, and ask the postal staff to post-mark it IN FRONT OF THEM. I have read (please correct me if I'm wrong!) that works around the recent regulation change that allows dropped-off post to be stamped when it's delivered, instead of when it's first dropped off, which is a rat-fucking tactic to increase the likelihood of ballots being marked late, knowing they'll probably take many days from drop-off to delivery.

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  • [–] 7 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

    That's effectively what's happening.

    The USPS, under DeJoy (who has long been trying to undermine the USPS from within), has posted this site, which attempts to debunk (i.e., gaslight) over what the change is. They claim the same process applies and only is being clarified, but that's false since now postmarks will use the process rather than the sending date and that's a major change. This is key:

    While we are not changing our postmarking practices, we have made adjustments to our transportation operations that will result in some mailpieces not arriving at our originating processing facilities on the same day that they are mailed. This means that the date on the postmarks applied at our processing facilities will not necessarily match the date on which the customer’s mailpiece was collected by a letter carrier or dropped off at a retail location. [emphasis added]

    This is entirely to help support GOP legal challenges that will claim that laws which allow election-day postmarked mail-in ballots to be counted can be struck down, because they will encompass votes that took place after election day, and therefore selectively invalidate mail-in ballots. It's essentially poisoning the reliability of postmarks to allow for ballot suppression.

    Here's a PBS story about it as well. It also notes that the staffing crunches at the USPS and closing processing facilities will exacerbate the issue since "processing" times will increase, especially for high-volume days like election day.

    Edit: David Steiner, not DeJoy, is the current postmaster general.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago

    Yes however I can attest that some states make it easier than others to do mail-in. For example: WA, automatic mail-in, no questions asked. NC, you need to request it, then have your voting observed and certified by either two witnesses or a notary. Every step of the way highly encourages using your driver’s license number or including a copy, otherwise you have to complete more paperwork. THEN you have to take it to the post office to get marked etc. You also go on a list of absentee voters after it is tallied — a nice little target. I used to do it out of spite until it was just too inconvenient compared to early voting.

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  • [–] 18 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    This is what Hitler's SA did, so that's to be totally expected.

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  • [–] 15 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    You know Jan 6 rioters with guns and pipe bombs who attacked officers got pardon.

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  • [–] 14 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    Can't guarantee I won't communicate with my community to show up to the polling stations with a large group of armed citizens to ensure we can vote safely without the interference of terrorists.

    Doesn't stop them from ratfucking the votes after they're submitted, but hey, gotta do what we can.

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  • [–] 13 points 9 months ago (9 children)
  • [–] -5 points 9 months ago (8 children)

    How would that lead to a good outcome?

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  • [–] 11 points 9 months ago*

    But seriously, people giving their lives for democracy and so that others can enjoy the inalienable rights they were promised is a good outcome.

    It's the only possible good outcome from this scenario.

    If your take on this is genuinely "do nothing, give up democracy, because they might kill even more people than they already have" then you're a coward and your rights and democracy were always going to be taken from you anyway.

    ICE agents should not come to the polls on election day unless they are ready to die for it.

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  • [–] 13 points 9 months ago

    Can you imagine getting abducted when you try to vote? Now you don't have to!

    I am sure this will help the voter turnout and is definitely not a thinly veiled threat meant to cause voter suppression.

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  • [–] 41 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    Obviously.

    This is obviously where it was going.

    From day one, from the first lie, to the arming of his own private army, this has been the goal. Obviously.

    Americans will be surprised, of course. As always.

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  • [–] 7 points 9 months ago

    "Back when it was step 3, all the alarmists were warning me about how bad step 10 will be. Now that we're at step 7, the logical thing to do is continue to accuse people of being alarmist."

    • 9 out of 10 Americans (real Americans)
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  • [–] 20 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    Oh no what happens if ICE agents around polling locations are shot dead.

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  • [+] 27 points 9 months ago* (1 child)
  • [–] 10 points 9 months ago

    It goes beyond this. Voter intimidation is classified federally as an "active threat". This is basically a hostile crime that can be dealt with via lethal force. The constitution is built to deal with this. Camping outside poll locations and blocking entry is a crime, and it can be deal with as a crime.

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  • [–] 9 points 9 months ago*

    Gear up, the hopefools will learn too late.

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  • [–] 8 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    Why is she so obsessed with getting ICE agents killed?

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  • [–] 9 points 9 months ago (1 child)
  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago*

    Escalate how? They don't hold the flyover sovereign and they are actively losing control of territory. Their navy is spent and overspending, the national guard has its fucking jugular hanging open in every small town, and they're about to commit the army to Iran. If all they have is ICE and CPB they are going to have a very bad time.

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  • [–] 8 points 9 months ago (5 children)

    This is dicey. If it happens, there will be a lot of problems around the polling areas. The fascists will use that as an excuse to invalidate the results.

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  • [–] 13 points 9 months ago (4 children)

    They will have 100 different reasons to invalidate the results anyway.

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  • [–] 5 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    They will have 100 different reasons to invalidate the results anyway.

    It's crazy to think they don't already have them loaded up.

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  • [–] 8 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    I don't know what the conditions will be for my blue city in a red state come November. My plan is to vote early and spend election day seeking out ICE at any polling locations to film and heckle them. If they want to arrest me, my vote is already in and it will take them out of play for their role threatening voters. MN is showing us how we massively outnumber them and can stymie their tactics.

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  • [–] 14 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    It can't be guaranteed that an ICE jackass won't be shipped to the local junkyard.

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  • [–] 7 points 9 months ago (4 children)

    Weird. I didn't realise all the American polling stations are located so near the borders with other countries.

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  • [–] 5 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    I read somewhere that anywhere within 250 mile (I think this was the number) of an airport counts as a boarder

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago*

    i heard it was 100 from an international airport (not domestic, we have a domestic airport in my town but not an international. the difference is it's basically one of those little take your own plane airports. also full of explosives because it's run by raytheon but y'know) and because i'm on the internet and you're not my fact is more true

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  • [–] 7 points 9 months ago

    That's atrocious.

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  • [–] 7 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    Can't guarantee that antifa won't be around polling locations...

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  • [–] 7 points 9 months ago*

    Well I guess we’re going to be exercising our second amendment rights because that’s tyranny.

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  • [–] 5 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    Imagine the optics of these rabid dogs pepper spraying people in line to vote

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  • [–] 5 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    I got PTO, i don't mind protecting people and staying at the voting place all day to protect them from the ICE thugs taking them to a concentration camp.

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  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago

    "Can't guarantee we won't continue to violate the law with impunity."

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  • [–] 6 points 9 months ago

    Prominent Republicans have been saying this kind of thing, in various ways, since at least the 1980s. If people want to delude themselves and call standard Republican stuff "trumpism" or even more incoherent and nebulous things like "maga", I don't know what to tell them. This is stock conservative/Republican stuff.

    This is Paul Weyrich in 1980:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GBAsFwPglw

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  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago

    Fucking brown shirts

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  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago

    Thats not a warning intended to keep the public safe, it's a threat intended to get the public to give up on democracy

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago

    We the People of the United States can.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago

    Every voter come armed.

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  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    Honest question: there’s not that many of them to cover a substantial number of polling stations, are there? If memory serves, there like 16k agents.

    Seems like the WH is on its bullshit again.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago

    The threat of appearance will be enough for a not insignificant number of people. But also, they can use historical voting numbers to selectively target certain locations. No need to send anyone to the R+17 or the D+22 districts.

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