Imagine this.
In heavily Latino precincts, ICE shows up and starts arresting people.
It does not matter that they are American citizens, that they have picture iDs with them. We have already seen ICE arrest American citizens.
The idea would be to intimidate, to suppress votes.
If you think I am being paranoid, I want to take you back to the NJ Governor’s race in 1981. Republican operatives showed up in Black precincts and started to challenge voter as a mean of suppressing the vote. That MAY have been the factor that tipped the election in Kean’s favor — the final margin was less than 1,800 votes.
That election led to a court-ordered consent decree barring the NJ Republican party from certain kinds of “ballot security” measures that was finally vacated only in 2016.
I am NOT a lawyer, and certainly not an expert in election law. But given what we have already seen from ICE, and given what we know about the Republican attitude on voting — which is to try to suppress the vote of all constituencies that MIGHT tilt towards Democrats — I would be exploring every avenue possible to keep ICE from ANY polling place, in either a primary or general election.
Just saying ….
