What do the U.S., Russia and Belarus have in common?
None of the three will allow the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to observe their elections.
After more than 20 years of OSCE—the world’s largerst regional security organization—monitoring our elections, they are out for the midterms, thanks to the Trump Administration.
Even though all they do is observe and never interfere.
“The Trump Administration’s failure to continue this practice is yet another step that risks undermining public trust in America’s safe and secure election system,” Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen said to The Guardian.
Shaheen, who sits on the foreign relations committee in Congress, added: “I was an official election monitor in the country of Georgia in 2012 and most recently in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2022, so I know first-hand the importance of showing up for allies and partners to improve the public’s confidence in election integrity.”
Why the move? Well, there are a lot of interpretations one could make, but usually if you don’t want someone to see what you’re doing, it’s because you’re probably up to no good.
Also, Russia and Belarus are both authoritarian dictatorships where voting is more window dressing than democracy.
Strange company (or maybe not-so-strange) for a representative democracy. Or perhaps it’s yet another indication of Trump seeing himself as America’s supreme leader, as opposed to a Democratically-elected one.
An election ‘free from intimidation’
But while OSCE won’t be at the polls, no one should be surprised who will. The Trump Administration plans to deploy a thousand federal agents to polling places for the November midterms. The NAACP has filed suit to try to block the move.
The historic civil rights organization told The Guardian that the move could “interfere with the right of voters to participate in the election free from intimidation.”
Its complaint argues that “Black, Latino, Asian American and Pacific Islander, immigrant and naturalized citizen voters as well as voters from mixed-status families fear questioning, arrest, detention, surveillance or use of force by federal agents while casting their ballot on Election Day, conducting voter registration, or serving as an election official.”
But the administration’s backers are arguing this move is no different from years when the DOJ sent agents to observe elections for possible Civil Rights violations.
Attorney General Todd Blanche told Fox News Sunday, “This administration, President Trump, is doing the same thing that every single administration has done in our generation, in multiple generations. We’re making sure that federal law is being enforced appropriately.”
At the same time, the Trump Administration is ramping up investigations into nonprofits that work to register voters, accusing them of targeting non-citizens despite the fact that incidents of non-citizens voting are rare.
The New York Times reported Wednesday that Homeland Security has already investigated at least 150 nonprofits. And according to a memo they obtained, the department deployed undercover agents to “investigate” organizations to “gather evidence and disrupt activities.”
Depending on what agents found, they could “dismantle illicit facilitation networks,” the Times wrote.
The New York Times reports that the Department of Homeland Security seems focused on nonprofits in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, including 82 groups in Pennsylvania. One of them is CAIR’s state chapter. CAIR is among the largest Muslim civil rights groups in the United States. DHS also targeted 44 groups in New Jersey, but reportedly found nothing.
Pulling out all the tricks
Homeland Security says this is about “election integrity” and making sure our voting processes are safe. But federal agents at the polls, DHS investigations into voter registration drives, and kicking out OSCE don’t exactly scream “integrity.”
Instead, these moves more likely indicate desperation from an Administration that knows it’s incredibly unpopular and is now seeking to suppress voter turnout. Trump’s allies in the GOP face the possible loss of at least one house of Congress in the Nov. 3 midterms.
If they lose both, Trump fears he will be impeached. Again.
The president was already impeached twice in 2019 and in 2021 after the insurrection on January 6. He is the only president to face impeachment more than once.
Rather than risk that old adage, “third time’s a charm,” Trump seems to be pulling every trick at his disposal to move the election in his favor.
And the tricks are taking a toll, as voters worry whether this election will be safe and fair. While 63 percent of Democrats think the vote is secure, only 37 percent of Republicans and 35 percent of Independents feel the same, Gallup reports.
But I’m sure that number will make its way to 100 percent once we fully transform ourselves into Belarus or Russia, where public opinion is whatever government officials say it is.
That is, unless voters show up and show out, knowing their rights while checking their registration, and taking advantage of mail-in, absentee voting and early voting opportunities.
Don’t let the intimidation work. Make your plan to vote in the midterms today.
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