I worked as a poll watcher in several (pre-DeSantis) elections here in Florida and you cannot believe the level of intimidation we got from the Dems.
Poll watchers in Florida have to be members of their party, have voted in recent elections, and be approved by the party. The lists are then public.
I was truly stunned when a “legal letter” arrived at my home, sent by an attorney for the Dems, telling me they would be watching me and I would be liable for x many years in the Federal pen for this that and the other thing.
And when I sat there as a poll watcher, all the Dem poll watchers next to me were attorneys and kept making threatening statements.
Finally I got up to challenge one very visible incident, where a bus full of union workers from the local state hospital had brought in about 30 elderly “developmentally disabled” people and had an aide who went into the voting booths with them and “voted” them. It was the same aide, taking in several at a time and then going from booth to booth, and I happened to be close enough to hear her instructing them where to put their marks.
But what was really awful was not simply that the Dems were angry when I reported it to the polling station supe at the desk - but that the GOP reps then said, “well, that’s what you’ve seen, we can’t do anything about it.” They were completely useless and obviously intimidated.
The state - Florida - was pretty red at that time but this was in a university town where a political science prof had physically attacked a cardboard cut out of GWB and somebody else (also university affiliated) had thrown a brick through the window of GOP headquarters when our volunteers were doing their evening calls.
Shortly afterwards when I moved to another county, which actually had a very good but somewhat elderly and not computer savvy supervisor of elections, the GOP list of poll watchers was hacked and completely wiped out on the eve of the elections. Thus we were not approved to present ourselves at our assigned polling locations.
As usual the GOP response (from headquarters in DC) was useless. They told us to go to our nearest polling site and explain it to them and see if they’d let us sit there, but that we had no official capacity.
So, yes, agree, people don’t realize that their individual participation, even on a basic level such as being a poll watcher, is under attack and is what matters, and not sitting around bloviating on-line.
Wow! That is crazy. Glad you made it through that experience and did your part for the cause. Definitely voter intimidation and rather shocking level.
Omigosh, that makes my blood boil.
Thank you for doing your duty as best you could.
It just goes to show how much rot and decay the Democrats have foisted upon our election process.