The attack on Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi’s husband did not come out of nowhere. The robbery — in which the perpetrator said he planned to hold Pelosi hostage and shatter her kneecaps if she didn’t tell the “truth” — was just the culmination of a years-long political hate campaign against one of America’s most powerful women. Since Pelosi was elected Speaker of the House in 2006, she has become a walking target for Republicans. She has already been targeted in dozens of election commercials – in the truest sense of the word -, ex-President Donald Trump spread the nickname “Crazy Nancy” and the Democrat was proclaimed a hunting trophy during the storming of the Capitol.
As on January 6, Nancy Pelosi was lucky not to be in the wrong place at the right time. Instead, it hit her 82-year-old husband, who had to be hospitalized with a fractured skull as a result of the brutal attack.
Shocked by the act, just days before the hard-fought midterm elections, President Joe Biden condemned in the strongest terms any form of politically motivated violence. When he voted early, he blamed Trump and his Republican supporters for the tense mood in the country with their hate speech against alleged voter fraud. “It’s one thing to condemn the violence,” Biden said Saturday in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware. “But you can’t condemn the violence if you don’t condemn the people who keep claiming that the election wasn’t real (…).”
Almost two years after the 2020 presidential election, ex-President Trump is still spreading the “big lie” about the stolen election – still without any proof. To quickly uncover a possible fraud this year, his loyal Republican supporters have mobilized a swarm of election observers. “We’re going to be there enforcing these rules, and we’re going to contest every vote, every ballot, and you’re going to have to live with that,” Trump’s former adviser Steve Bannon announced on his popular podcast. In Michigan, a right-wing group announced in a press release in September that they had started “Operation Overwatch” – including the tenfold warning “We are watching”.
It is a call to distrust every election result as a matter of principle – and one that has long since come not only from radical Trump fans. Just recently, the Republican National Committee, the party’s umbrella organization, announced that thousands of training sessions had been held across the country on how to monitor the midterms and report complaints about irregularities. In key swing state Pennsylvania, Republican party officials are even boasting that they have increased the number of poll watchers sixfold since 2020.
The appeal by leaders of the “Grand Old Party” puts election officials across the country in a dilemma. Normally, the officials rely on the one hand on election workers who register the voters, who are available to answer questions and count the votes – on the other hand on trained election observers who accompany the entire process. But now there is growing concern that some of the helpers could become troublemakers themselves. Even a handful of bad election observers could bring chaos to the electoral system and sow distrust, they say.
In the run-up to the elections, one thing is already certain: many Americans will go to the polls on November 8 with a queasy feeling. Two in five voters are concerned about threats of violence or intimidation at polling stations, according to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll. The fear was voiced more strongly by Democratic voters (51 percent), although a significant proportion of Republicans (38 percent) also shared the same concerns. While no violent incidents have been reported nationwide during early voting, there have been indications of attempts at intimidation.
For example, election officers in Arizona sounded the alarm after citizens who had cast their ballots in a suburb of Phoenix were followed and filmed by self-appointed election observers. The official complaint to federal authorities alleges that the voters were called “mules” – a term coined significantly by Trump personally in connection with allegations of voter fraud.
In another incident, polling officials also filed a complaint after “persons dressed in camouflage” took photos of a voter and his license plate at the Maricopa County polling station. And it was only on Friday that police officers had to move out to scare away two armed men from the mailbox in front of said polling station.
In view of these incidents, the American security authorities are also alarmed. Election officials across the country have been urged to secure their voting systems and be vigilant against political violence in a “highly complex threat environment,” senior US cybersecurity official Jen Easterly said on Sunday. In an appearance on CBS, the head of the Cyber and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said she was concerned about a number of threats – including cyber, insider, physical and disinformation – although there were no “specific or “credible” threats.
In the few days leading up to the midterms, the warning will be one of a series of reports being distributed by various law enforcement agencies. Just Friday, the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, the Counterterrorism Center and the Capitol Police released a letter warning that political candidates, election officials and the public are at increased risk of violence.
For Nancy Pelosi and her husband Paul, this warning comes too late.
Sources: NY Times, Washington Post, CNN, Reuters, with DPA and AFP material
