It could well be that Donald Trump is laying the groundwork for another claim — as false as the one he made four years ago — that the 2024 presidential race was rigged against him.
In January 2021, that utterly false claim led to thousands of his supporters to bust into the Capitol in a violent, destructive riot aimed at stopping the peaceful transfer of power that was the norm in this country for over 200 years.
Fortunately, in the end, it failed.
But what happened recently in a meeting room at Ohio Republican Party headquarters in Columbus has given Democrats and voting rights activists a worrisome sense of déjà vu.
It was a meeting of volunteers for a Republican National Committee (RNC) plan to place at least 5,000 “observers” in polling places in 18 states, including Ohio.
The Democrats and voting rights activists believe it is the first step in a Trump plan to lay the groundwork for another baseless claim that the election was rigged against him.
Michael Whatley, Trump’s handpicked RNC chairman who has parroted Trump’s untrue claim that the 2020 election was stolen, was in Columbus to give a pep talk to the Ohio volunteers — and to assure the news media people who were there that the object of the exercise is not to intimidate or interfere with voters casting their ballots.
After the meeting, Whatley told reporters these volunteer observers in the states will work with county officials to ensure election systems work properly.
“When they do, people are going to have more confidence and they're going to be more inclined to come out there," Whatley said. "If we have even 1% of voters stay home because they don't think their vote is going to be protected, that's a huge problem.”
The RNC chair said he doesn’t think voters will be intimidated by the presence of observers.
“I think one of the things that we focus on, in the training sessions, is making sure that we respect the process, we respect the poll workers, and we respect, most importantly, the voters," Whatley said.
The RNC is not saying where these observers will be placed, but if past deployments are any indication, most of them will end up in heavily Democratic urban polling places with a majority of minority voters.
Ohio election law has strict limits on what observers can and can not do inside polling places. They boil down to this: You are not to interfere, intimidate or approach any voter.
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Catherine Turcer, executive director of Common Cause Ohio, said the GOP is going through a totally unnecessary effort if the aim is to root out voter fraud.
“Ohio’s county election officials have a ‘Noah’s Ark’ system,’’ Turcer said. “For every job in a board of elections, there are two people doing it — one Democrat, one Republican. All the way down to who has the keys to unlock where they store ballots.
“We really do have people of both parties working together to produce fair and accurate elections,” Turcer said. “If the RNC wanted to do something worthwhile, they could have spent their energy registering people to vote.”
“I don’t know what it is they are looking for in polling places,’’ she said.
If what they are looking for is voter fraud, it is very rare, almost non-existent in Ohio, which has more than 8 million voters. A true needle in a haystack.
Anthony Gaughan, a visiting professor at the Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law, said Republicans and Democrats look for two different things in polling places — voter fraud for the former and voter intimidation for the latter.
“Both are exceedingly rare,’’ said Gaughan, an expert in election law.
If the aim is to intimidate voters, Gaughan said, it’s not working.
Voter turnout has been rising in every presidential election year since 2004.
“The 2020 presidential election had the highest turnout for both parties in over 100 years,’’ Gaughan said. “Our democracy is a lot healthier than we realize.”
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Still, Democrats look at the GOP observer plan and see nothing but trouble.
“It’s just another attempt to intimidate Democrats, especially in minority areas, and convince them not to vote at all,’’ said Gwen McFarlin, chairwoman of the Hamilton County Democratic Party.
Turcer said she believes the political parties should be encouraging people to become involved rather than scaring them away.
“If the Republican plan is to make Americans more distrustful of each other, then this harms democracy,’’ Turcer said. “I hope I am wrong about their motives, but I don’t think so.”
