The Republican National Committee (RNC) is recruiting suburbanites to monitor the polls in largely Democrat-leaning cities for Election Day.
RNC Chairman Michael Whatley told NBC News that "if there's a statewide ability to" recruit election monitors from suburban areas, "then obviously we will deploy" them to the cities. Additionally, RNC spokesman Gates McGavick said, "In states where it makes sense for us to allocate our bodies to bigger cities, then, yes, they might come from areas outside of bigger cities."
Critics have said the Republicans' strategy — to monitor polls on Election Day — could be used as a means for voter intimidation. Jonathan Diaz, the director of voting advocacy at the Campaign Legal Center, stated that while the strategy looks good on paper, in reality, it could deter registered voters from participating in the election process.
"In addition to voter intimidation risks," Diaz said, "I think that the strategy also poses the potential to be just disruptive to the election process in general."
"In the abstract," he added, "it's a good thing to have representatives from every political party and from the campaigns observing election processes. That's normal. The problem comes when you have an effort like this that seems to be aiming to recruit people for the express purpose of uncovering the fraud that doesn't exist."
The RNC's Protect the Vote project seeks to recruit a mix of 100,000 volunteers and attorneys to monitor polls in key states.
Events for the campaign have so far been held, according to NBC News, in Oakland County, Michigan; Bucks County, Pennsylvania; Nassau County, New York; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Atlanta.
The RNC said it is slated to hold events in Phoenix and Las Vegas early next week.
Nick Koutsobinas ✉
Nick Koutsobinas, a Newsmax writer, has years of news reporting experience. A graduate from Missouri State University’s philosophy program, he focuses on exposing corruption and censorship.
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