Michigan Democrats Sue Trump for Voter Intimidation; GOP Reacts

Updated. DETROIT, MI — The Michigan Democratic Party on Friday filed a lawsuit against Republican Donald Trump’s campaign, a preemptive strike against what party leaders worry will be Election Day efforts by the candidate’s supporters to disrupt voters in heavily minority precincts. Democrats in six other states have filed similar lawsuits.

The lawsuit claims that Trump and his supporters, along with the Michigan Republican Party, plan to “threaten, intimidate and thereby prevent” minorities in urban neighborhoods from voting in Tuesday’s historic election. The lawsuit seeks a restraining order to stop the named parties from interfering with Michiganders’ right to vote.

“There are only five days left until Election Day. Trump’s calls for unlawful intimidation have grown louder and louder, and the conspiracy to harass and threaten voters on Election Day already has resulted in numerous acts that threaten the voting rights of registered Michigan voters,” the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court states.

"The Michigan Democratic party, and untold numbers of Michigan voters, will suffer irreparable harm if the right to vote is imperiled by the same forms of virulent harassment that federal law has prohibited since shortly after the Civil War,” the complaint continued.

The lawsuit claims Trump has made “racially tinged” statements in exhortations to supporters that he could lose certain precincts due to “imagined voter fraud” and that they should “go to particular precincts on Election Day and intimidate voters” to prevent that from happening.

The lawsuit cites an August rally in Altoona, Pennsylvania, where Trump called on his supporters to “not just vote” on Nov. 8, but also “go around and look and watch other polling places and make sure that it's 100 percent fine. We're going to watch Pennsylvania — go down to certain areas and watch ... The only way we can lose, in my opinion — and I really mean this, Pennsylvania — is if cheating goes on.’ ”

On Monday, the Michigan Republican Party Executive Director Steven Ostrow said in a statement that the lawsuit is “nothing more than a blatant attempt to improperly use the federal courts to garner PR.”

“The Democrats are watching Michigan slip through their fingers, and this is a last ditch effort to try to motivate voters in minority communities to turn out.” Ostrow said.

Ostrow said the lawsuit is "so frivolous, egregious, and ridiculous" that similar lawsuits have been dismissed in four other states and the Michigan Republican Party has served the Michigan Democratic Party with a motion for monetary sanctions.

“This publicity stunt is an attempt to distract from the issues because Democrats in Michigan know that, if the election is about issues, Republicans win,” Ostrow continued. “Since there has been no further request for action, we are anticipating another PR stunt by Michigan Democrats tomorrow, with phony claims of intimidation somewhere in Michigan.”

“The Michigan Republican Party will not intimidate voters, and will not allow Democrats to falsely smear our name or our efforts to ensure honest and fair elections. We would never want to improperly stop Michiganders from voting because we know that Republicans will carry Michigan if every eligible voter participates in tomorrow’s election.”

“Rigged Election” Claims

Trump’s call on supporters to monitor activity at the polls and has made numerous “rigged election” complaints, which coupled with an erosion of protections in the Voting Rights Act, create what civil and voting rights groups have called a “perfect storm for voter intimidation.”

The first such lawsuit was filed by the Democratic National Committee, which wants a New Jersey federal court to enforce a decades old order that bars Republicans from engaging in voter intimidation. In that lawsuit, the DNC said Trump has tried to rally supporters to monitor voting “based upon fabricated claims of voter fraud in ‘certain areas’ or ‘certain sections’ of key states.”

The lawsuit claims “those ‘certain areas’ ” are without exception communities where large minority voting populations live, and that poll watchers’ mission is to deter registered voters from casting ballots.

The Republican National Committee brushed off the claims in the lawsuit and called it “meritless,” and RNC spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said the party doesn’t coordinate with Trump’s or any other candidate’s recruitment of poll watchers, which would breach consent decrees that date back to 1982 that forbid political parties from engaging in ballot-security policing. Those consent decrees were issued in response to efforts by the RNC the early 1980s to interrogate and intimidate registered voters in mainly African-American precincts in New Jersey, according to the court filing.

State Democratic parties in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Arizona have filed lawsuits similar to the ones filed in Michigan and New Jersey. On Friday, a federal judge in Ohio blocked Trump supporters from conducting exit polls.

Photo by Gage Skidmore via Flickr Commons