October 22, 2022

Some of the "2000 Mules" Trumpbots in Arizona are being investigated over reports of intimidating and even threatening behavior at ballot dropboxes. Via the Washington Post:

“There’s a group of people hanging out near the ballot dropbox filming and photographing my wife and I as we approached the dropbox and accusing us of being a mule,” said the report, which was written by a voter in the Phoenix suburbs and obtained by The Washington Post. “They took … photographs of our license plate and of us and then followed us out the parking lot in one of their cars continuing to film.”

For months in this vast desert swing state, elections officials and democracy advocates have worried that bands of activist observers hunting for fraud will harass and intimidate voters. Citizen watchdogs, organized and freelance, have advertised stakeout events to monitor the goings-ons in parking lots and other drop box locations as voters deposit their early ballots ahead of Election Day.

Monday’s report, which emanated from a drop box in Mesa, just off a major roadway, was the first solid evidence that those fears might come true.

Another incident was reported in downtown Phoenix:

“Camo clad people taking pictures of me, my license plate as I dropped our mail in ballots in the box,” the complaint said. “When I approached them asking names, group they’re with, they wouldn’t give anything. They asked why I wanted to know, well it’s because it’s a personal attack.”

State elections officials alerted county workers of another complaint by someone who came across an image on Reddit of “a vehicle at a polling location that they are trying to monitor for supposed fraud.”

One man monitoring a drop box in downtown Phoenix, told a local ABC television affiliate Wednesday evening that he was with Clean Elections USA Group. Citing “2000 Mules,” the group asks followers “to safeguard our elections with a legal presence at every ballot box in each and every state that has them.”

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