How Do I Fact Check Thee?

Created
Thu, 25/04/2024 - 00:30
Updated
Thu, 25/04/2024 - 00:30
Let me count the ways Good heavens, this garbled mess from RNC co-chair Lara Trump. “We now have the ability at the RNC not just to have poll watchers… but people who can physically handle the ballots… So there was a moratorium for about 40 years on the RNC actually training people to work in these polling locations and the tabulation centers where the mail-in ballots come in. And last year, the judge who implemented that passed away, so that was lifted.” “Poll observers are NEVER permitted to touch ballots,” tweets exasperated Democratic election protection attorney Marc Elias. “She is suggesting the RNC will infiltrate election offices.” Observers physically handling ballots is BS, as Elias points out. But she’s just getting started on the wrongness. First, some terminology. Poll watchers or observers are citizens pre-approved to be present inside a polling location as observers during voting. At most (at least in my state), they may bring to the attention of the chief judge any observed infractions or misapplication of voting rules, and that’s all. They are to sit quietly. No interactions with voters, verbal or physical. Poll workers are citizens approved and hired to administaer the actual election, issue ballots, check IDs, etc. Poll greeters or electioneers are political operatives who may interact with voters only outside the polling location’s marked electioneering boundaries. The “moratorium” Lara Trump mentions was a standing court order enforcing a 1982 consent decree between the RNC and DNC. It limited the RNC, its agents’ and…