Ku Klux Klan law used to stop Trump voting interference
A federal judge in swing state Ohio slammed a temporary restraining order on the Donald Trump campaign advising them not to resort to practices used by the Ku Klux Klan. But Trump supporters see it as a plot to cover up Democratic vote rigging. Jan van der Made reports.
Issued on: Modified:
The Ohio Democratic Party accused Trump of violating Section 2 of the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by “conspiring to prevent minority voters from voting in the 2016 election.”
Restraining Trump
Judge James S. Gwin of the Northern District Court of Ohio on Friday ruled that the Donald Trump campaign and affiliated organizations [but also including the “Clinton for Presidency campaign”] “are restrained and enjoined from engaging in voter intimidation activity.”
This may include “hindering a prospective voter from reaching or leaving the polling place,”, “Engaging in any unauthorized poll watching,” and “following, taking photos of .. voters or protective voters … at or around the polling place.”
Gwin based his judgment on evidence suggesting that Trump may send helpers to polling stations to try and influence their voting behavior.
“Trump told a crowd in Altoona, Pennsylvania, in August, that ‘I hope you people can not just vote on the 8th [but also] go around and look and watch other polling places and make sure that it’s 100 percent fine,” the ruling cites as evidence in a footnote.
The court order restraining the Trump campaign from interferring in voting
It also quotes an Ohio resident saying that “I’ll look for - well it’s called racial profiling. Mexicans, Syrians. People who can’t speak American,” he said. “I’m going to go right up behind them. I’ll do everything legally. I want to see if they are accountable. I’m going to make them a little bit nervous.”
Trump supporters
The 19th century anti Ku Klux Klan legislation was adopted to curb excesse, such as KKK members intimidating black voters or the white candidates sympathetic to them, burning their houses, torturing or even killing them.
Some African American voters already started worrying.
“I personally see the way some Trump supporters are acting,” says Dianne Walker, a Philadelphia volunteer for the Clinton campaign.
“It reminds me very much when I was younger and we were going through the civil rights movement. Very similar,” she says.
“They stand around polling places, when you go in, this threatening, the standing around outside to make it difficult for you to get in.”
“The people who are easily intimidated, women in particular they are going to have an issue with this,” she says.
Trump supporters flatly reject the ruling.
“This system is rigged,” says Bill Breen, a Pittsburg-based Trump supporter, who claims he has evidence for fraudulent voting in Philadelphia, where, back in 2008, Democrats won 100 percent of the votes, and Republicans nothing.
“Even Fidel Castro didn’t do that well,” adding it is only logical that the Trump campaign may want to have a closer look at polling places, without this being called “intimidation.”
Trumps criticism of vote rigging got support from an unexpected corner: some Bernie Sanders supporters are convinced that Clinton will win.
“I’ve seen the way the Clinton campaign has stolen the vote from Sanders during the primaries in California, says one Bernie Sanders supporter contacted in the Pittsburg region.
“They will do the same to Donald Trump”.
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