Arizona MAGA Goons Stalking Drop Boxes Looking For ‘Mules’ — Totally Legal, Not So Cool

Voter intimidation in action.

Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, the Democratic nominee for governor, received this message in her office’s online portal last Monday. A voter from the Phoenix suburbs described a disturbing scene of voter intimidation.

 The Washington Post reports:  

“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.”

Hobbs escalated the report to the US Justice Department and Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, a Republican who has debunked Donald Trump’s lies about election fraud. His spokesperson, Brittni Thomason, released a statement advising voters to immediately contact the police if they feel threatened while dropping off a ballot. “Everyone should feel safe exercising their voting rights,” she said. However, Trump’s MAGA goons have other ideas.

Trump has demonized the use of drop boxes, and his willing stooge Marco Rubio spun deranged fantasy scenarios about them during last week’s Florida Senate debate. Trump’s actively encouraged his supporters to “monitor” outdoor drop boxes, like thuggish vigilantes.

Early voting started in Arizona on October 12, and MAGA goons have stalked drop boxes in Maricopa and Yavapai counties like they were attending an outdoor voter intimidation festival. Citizens exercising their right to vote have reported being watched, filmed, and followed. When a reporter questioned one member of the intimidation squad , her eerie response was , “I’m getting vitamin D.” It’s Arizona. You receive a year’s allotment of vitamin D when you go to the mailbox each morning.

“NEW: several people have been sitting outside the Maricopa County elections headquarters in Arizona outside 1 of 2 ballot drop boxes. They have their own cameras rolling, pointed right at the drop box. A woman here says she is here to get Vitamin D. @Garrett_Archer @abc15”

— Nicole Grigg (@Nicole Grigg) 1666224795 

This is occurring in other states as well, and the drop box stalkers are apparently inspired by Dinesh D’Souza’s Big Lie propaganda epic , 2000 Mules , which claimed absurdly and without evidence that “mules” are stuffing ballot boxes with votes. These creeps even call certain voters “mules.” It’s not a big stretch to imagine what racial criteria the MAGA faithful are using to determine which voters are “mules."

PREVIOUSLY: No One Taking Dinesh D'Souza's Documentary Seriously, Except Other People Who Also Make Things Up 

One self-declared drop box monitor in downtown Phoenix told a local ABC television affiliate that he was with “Clean Elections USA.” Arizona wasted significant time and money on "election integrity units” and bogus “audits" that found no evidence of fraud in the 2020 election. This should’ve reassured all these people courting heat stroke while staking out drop boxes. However, “clean elections” is a similar racist call to action, much like “clean neighborhoods” during the 1950s. 

These goons aren’t simply annoying. There’s tremendous potential for violence. The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office told the local news that they are “looking into several individuals watching a voter drop box in Mesa, Arizona,” a city that is almost 30 percent Hispanic. Reporter Nicole Grigg tweeted Friday, “I’m told they have magazine clips, dressed in tactical gear, fully disguised."

“BREAKING: @mcsoaz tells @abc15 they are looking into several individuals watching a voter drop box in Mesa, AZ. I’m told they have magazine clips, dressed in tactical gear, fully disguised. @Garrett_Archer Video:”

— Nicole Grigg (@Nicole Grigg) 1666409699 

They're also covering their license plates, because they're very innocent.

“This evening's Mesa drop box watchers covered up their license plate.”

— The AZ - abc15 - Data Guru (@The AZ - abc15 - Data Guru) 1666501829 

 Kyle Rittenhouse walks free, and it’s likely these vigilantes could enjoy the same fate if they confront and kill any suspected “mules.” They would just claim “self-defense.” In America, the (white) person who shoots first wins.

These poll watchers are desperate to believe fraud is the reason their MAGA king lost, but many probably harbor no delusions about Dominion voting machines and ballot-stuffing mules under the direction of Hugo Chavez’s ghost. They just resent that the “wrong” people are voting. What’s especially terrifying is that Arizona’s next secretary of state could share their sentiments. Election denier Mark Finchem is leading the polls. 

These tactics are shockingly reminiscent of white supremacist efforts to undermine Reconstruction and roll back any gains newly freed Black citizens had made after the Civil War. Conservative whites passed laws that made voter registration and voting itself more difficult for Black citizens. Voter rolls dropped dramatically. Then they used violence and intimidation to fully cement this disenfranchisement and preserve white, one-party rule in the South.

This is the tragic history we seem doomed to repeat.

[ Washington Post / The Guardian ]

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