They're echoing thoughts expressed by Trump himself. "I'm afraid the election's gonna be rigged," Trump said at a Columbus, OH, campaign event this summer, according to Talking Points Memo. "It’s a rigged system," he echoed at a rally in Bangor, ME, Time reported. The belief among Trump supporters that he deserves to be in the White House and a Democrat win would be unjust is extreme. "If [Hillary is] in office, I hope we can start a coup. She should be in prison or shot," one Trump supporter told The Globe. "We’re going to have a revolution and take them out of office if that’s what it takes. There’s going to be a lot of bloodshed." Some supporters think Democrats are attempting to secure a Hillary win by getting undocumented immigrants to vote multiple times. A few even plan on going to the ballots to identify people who "look like" immigrants and stop them. Trump is encouraging this by letting people sign up to be "Trump Election Observers" on his website. The Washington Post reports that those who sign up get an email thanking them for helping "stop crooked Hillary from rigging this election." "Trump said to watch your precincts. I’m going to go, for sure," one supporter told The Globe. "I’ll look for...well, it’s called racial profiling. Mexicans. Syrians. People who can’t speak American...I’m going to go right up behind them." In a viral Twitter thread, the political law firm Ashby Law explained why the election is not, in fact, rigged.
Let’s dispense with this notion that the election is rigged, shall we? -1
— Ashby Law (@ashbylaw) October 15, 2016
First, US elections are held in public places, in open rooms, in plain view of all assembled. No back rooms, no secret doors or hallways. -2
— Ashby Law (@ashbylaw) October 15, 2016
Ordinary citizens, not gov’t b'crats, serve as election officials & conduct the elex. They check in voters, confirm IDs, keep records. -3
— Ashby Law (@ashbylaw) October 15, 2016
Laws require these election officials to be Rs and Ds, drawn from lists provided by local political parties. -4
— Ashby Law (@ashbylaw) October 15, 2016
Laws also permit parties & cands to place watchers in each polling place to stand over the election offs & monitor them as they work. -5
— Ashby Law (@ashbylaw) October 15, 2016
Political parties can (and should) train their watchers so they understand how the election is supposed to be conducted. -6
— Ashby Law (@ashbylaw) October 15, 2016
Watchers can challenge the conduct of the elex by pointing out errors & irregularities to elex offs and asking to have them corrected. -7
— Ashby Law (@ashbylaw) October 15, 2016
If elex offs refuse to correct errors, party lawyers are standing by to intercede with state elex admins and courts if necessary. -8
— Ashby Law (@ashbylaw) October 15, 2016
Our elections are conducted on equipment that has been tested, in a public proceeding, that is observed by party and candidate reps. -9
— Ashby Law (@ashbylaw) October 15, 2016
So any candidate who implies that his/her followers need to take the law into their own hands on E Day is horribly manipulating them… -26
— Ashby Law (@ashbylaw) October 15, 2016
inciting them to disrupt the election, setting them up to break laws and be arrested. Which may be exactly what he/she wants. -27
— Ashby Law (@ashbylaw) October 15, 2016
Rick Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, writes in the Election Law Blog that Trump supporters' poll-watching could actually be illegal. A consent decree prohibits tactics to intimidate voters, he pointed out, including "any ballot security activities in polling places or election districts where the racial or ethnic composition of such districts is a factor in the decision to conduct, or the actual conduct of, such activities there and where a purpose or significant effect of such activities is to deter qualified voters from voting." According to Politico, Trump's call to "have the sheriffs and the police chiefs and everybody watching" the polls, as he said in a speech in Altoona, PA, may break state law, which says police and sheriffs can't come within 100 feet of the polls on Election Day. Additionally, The Washington Post notes that the case that led to the consent decree included sheriffs and police coming to polling places