Trump campaign launches drive to recruit 'election observers'

[Virginiá]

Isn't this voter intimidation?

In context, yes. He wants his supporters to stand in/outside polling places in Democratic areas to "keep an eye on things", which in this situation is surely going to boil down to harassing/intimidating voters in one way or another.

This is complete and utter bullsh**t, and reckless to boot. Now we have to send our own people where his goes just to make sure they don't get away with scumbag tactics.

This guy is f'ing terrible.

[Virginiá]

People should not be voting 15 times a day.

That doesn't happen, though. In-person voter fraud (what you are referring to) is by far the most inefficient way to steal an election, and it's harder to commit this kind of fraud than it seems. You actually need to be registered, you can't keep going back to the same polls, and post-election audits would reveal malfeasance if the state has no system to verify whether a registrant has voted or not, which itself would prevent double-voting.

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This isn't the 60s. Dead people aren't voting by the tens of thousands and stealing elections. It may happen on a much smaller scale in some races, but again, this is not hard to catch after the fact (or even beforehand, at that). There are ways to prevent this from ever happening without voter ID laws as well.

Trump is just whining about fraud because he knows he is going to lose. Republicans know there is little fraud going on, but they cry about it non-stop so they can justify voter suppression. The only people who are having an illegitimate effect on elections right now are Republicans with their voter suppression laws, which are disenfranchising far more people than those even trying to commit voter fraud.

[Virginiá]

All major elections and some local elections will use some number of election observers, or pollwatchers as they are often called. Both parties have a healthy supply of pollwatchers they can call upon. In IL there's an official form one uses to identify oneself as a pollwatcher to the election judges at a polling place. Pollwatchers can check voter lists at precincts to insure that the proper voters are casting ballots there, but they also can check on a number of other polling place procedures.

I've been a pollwatcher a number of times. I've even flagged some irregularities a few times. I've pointed out voters who came to the wrong precinct, and they were in turn informed where they needed to go instead. Most irregularities were due to lack of knowledge of the detailed election rules by the election judges, and they usually corrected their procedures when they were informed. Sometimes they would check with the county authorities to confirm, and that's fine too. One time I noticed that part of a subdivision had been miscoded by the county and was voting for the wrong candidates. This isn't the type of fraud I think people are talking about, but it does influence the outcome of elections.

What you're speaking of is legitimate, sure, but what Trump seems to be doing seems very risky. He's trying to convince all his supporters that Democrats are going to steal the election, and then enlisting his supporters to go "watch" polls in this mindset? Given the nature of his base, it's not hard to see how this can go wrong. He's basically running a white nationalist campaign and he's telling his supporters to go watch, for example, in PA precincts where there will be lots of minority voters - voters those supporters probably think are cheating.

This just feels wrong and like a disaster waiting to happen.. and all so he can justify his likely eventual loss by crying about fraud.