The Justice Department ruled that “vigilante” poll watchers stationed at ballot drop boxes in Arizona are unlawful.
Kristen Clarke, the assistant attorney general for civil rights, wrote on Monday that the First Amendment “affords no protection for threats of harm directed at voters” taking the side of the League of Women Voters on Monday in a lawsuit related to alleged voter intimidation in the state.
“The First Amendment does not protect individuals’ right to assemble to engage in voter intimidation or coercion,” Clarke wrote. “Nor does it transform an unlawful activity for one individual – voter intimidation — into a permissible activity simply because multiple individuals have assembled to engage in it.”
The League of Women Voters has accused several organizations, including some armed groups, with trying to intimidate voters during surveillance at ballot drop boxes in the state. Supporters of former President Donald Trump have claimed without evidence that the drop boxes are a source of widespread voter fraud.
The Justice Department on Monday said that “vigilante ballot security efforts that threaten to subject voters to adverse consequences, including harassment, ‘public opprobrium’ and baseless allegations of felonious conduct for voting or attempting to vote can run afoul” of the Constitution.
Maricopa County, Arizona’s most populous county and one of its most diverse has been an intense target for Trump supporters since it helped trip Arizona to President Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
The county, which is controlled by Republicans, has made for an unusual intra-party fight in Arizona between GOP county officials who have vigorously defended election officials and the voting process there and Trump supporters who have repeatedly said the county is the source of ballot fraud.
“To have folks standing outside of drop boxes, armed in tactical gear, with body armor, that is unprecedented,” said Bill Gates, the chair of the Republican-led Maricopa County Board of Supervisors.
“There’s a balance between the First Amendment rights that people have and also the right that people have to not feel intimidated when voting. That point was made very strongly.”
U.S. District Judge Michael Liburdi, a Trump appointee and a longtime member of the Federalists Society, ruled in a parallel case last Friday that the U.S. Constitution protected the activities of citizens who wish to gather near ballot boxes.
The league’s lawsuit asking Liburdi for a temporary injunction to end drop box monitoring by the Lions of Liberty and the Clean Elections USA is still pending.
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watching is not discriminating against any one white,black ,male or female everyone knows the doj is corrupt to the hilt with
socialist trash.
The Democrat League of Women Voters has accused several organizations, including some armed groups, with trying to intimidate voters during surveillance at ballot drop boxes in the state.
“There’s a balance between the First Amendment rights that people have and also the right that people have to not feel intimidated when voting.”
It appears that the only people who feel intimated are the Drop Box monitors…… and maybe the Democrat Party’s multiple ballet stuffers.
“The Lions of Liberty is halting its Operation Drop Box monitoring operation in Yavapai County. The move on Thursday comes just days after the organization was named in a lawsuit seeking a federal court order to restrain its activities.”
“Ask ten people to explain a clean election and there is sure to be ten different responses. Themes such as honesty and fairness are likely to surface, so it begs the question: what is needed for an honest and fair election? For the Citizens Clean Elections Commission (CCEC), the answer is really simple: it is one where everyone who is eligible to participate, does.”
Vote in person, and show your picture I.D.
Vote early, vote often!!
-dem mantra
If it was demon rats watching ,it would be legal.
DIDN’T a judge, ALREADY RULE that these guys are OK! So why the hell is the Dept of injustice, ruling like this? DO THEY THINK THEY can overrule judges now>?
What a crock.
There were any number of possibly armed people stationed in parking lot when I went to early voting location in my state which allows open carry.
How can it be intimidating or “scary” much less illegal to just sit around a drop box location if they aren’t bothering anyone?
Maybe DOJ should investigate the people caught on camera in the 2000 Mules documentary who were stuffing multi ballots in various drop boxes & who were wearing surgical type gloves no less, presumably to prevent fingerprints.
Seems to me there should be monitoring at drop.box locations otherwise all kinds of nefarious actions can take place.
If LWV / DOJ doesn’t like citizen volunteers to monitor drop boxes then they should demand police do so.
Unsupervised voting is just asking for voting fraud.
IF ANYTHING, every damn ‘drop box’ needs to be MONITORED and live streamed 24/7… TO ENSURE There is no funny business.
So just who watches the chain of custody of the remote Drop Boxes to prevent destruction of the evidence of stolen election evil? Probably the same type that refuse to lock up former convicted criminals or charge them with Bail. If there were a Constitutional law passed eliminating early voting, mail-in voting and remote voting drop boxes, the Democrats would never win an election in America again. Just watch newly ID required Georgia, which Schumer was already caught on camera telling Biden that Walker was winning in a cake walk. No show up in person, no ID, no vote,,, would clean up and clean out the Democrats once and for all, and they know it. If their government party people can break into the home of a former President and leave it a mess, they can certainly break into remote lock boxes and clean out an opponent’s election votes. It’s the O.J. lost chain of custody all over again where it is the Heads of Conservative candidates that get off, not walk-by ex boyfriends.
WE already saw them do that in 2020, what with the # of news articles about POSTAL WORKERS< in some cases, Literally burning REPUBLICAN VOTES…
YET TO this day, i have still not heard of a SINGLE postal worker, JAILED Or otherwise criminally held liable for that mail fraud AND vote fraud..
So trying to do the job the government fails to do by monitoring cheats who seek to deny First Amendment Rights of others by illegally cancelling out their vote is a violation of the First Amendment???? This ruling speaks exactly to the judicial bias problem we have in this country.
ITS just like the go after florida and texas/az, FOR DOING THE FEDS JOB IN regards to the border.. “RHEE HOW DARE YOU!”
Yeah like under O’bama’s first election, with the black panthers hanging around polling sites.
The DOJ ruled that it was OK for them to be there because the Voting Rights act was written to keep “people of color” from being intimidated at the polls. It did not apply to keeping white people safe at the polls. In fact, the Panthers were armed with iron clubs. That was OK. preventing ballot stuffing is not. What a crock!
The Black Panthers were in uniform with clubs in front of the polls. They were charged and did not show up in court. The new Zer0bama DOJ had an open and shut case, but dropped it.
THAT’s cause HOLDER obozo’s buttbuddy, was in charge.
And the panthers intimidated Pennsylvania voters in 2012, and in 2020, a white poll observer with a city authorized certificate that allowed him to go to any polling place to observe, was denied access by persons at the polling place. “Not at this polling place”, he was told. Descriptions of the poll workers isn’t necessary.
WHAT Justice Department? For all intents and purposes, we have none. THIS is what Biden voters said they wanted and voted for.
They got what they voted for, the rest of us got ……!
They wonder why conservative voters/people are getting angry?
AND why so many of us, have NO TRUST what so bloody ever, in our govt.
The DOJ is an arm of the DNC. Make no mistake about that. They prove it every day. Anyhow a federal judge has ruled the pole watchers are OK so this can only be show. Unfortunately the FBI will come down hard on the poll watchers regardless. They are the palace guard for the DNC now. Poll watchers will be disappeared by the FBI. Just watch. No greater corruption has ever existed in our government than Biden and friends.
Supporters of former President Donald Trump have claimed without evidence that the drop boxes are a source of widespread voter fraud.
There is ‘no evidence’ due to the Spineless Never-Trumper Republican Establishment along with their Radical Left Allies
refusing to properly investigate the mounting evidence of voter fraud across this country.
AND THE cowardly courts also refusing to see MOUNTAINS Of evidence..