Guns at the Polls Is Voter Suppression. Here’s What We Need to Do to Stop It.
By: Peter Ambler and Tiffany Muller
Imagine an angry crowd storming an election office in a crucial swing state and forcing officials to stop counting votes that could change the outcome of the race. It’s a nightmare scenario keeping many Americans up at night as President Donald Trump whips up his supporters with baseless allegations about mail-in ballot fraud and urges them to “go into the polls and watch very carefully.” It’s also exactly what happened twenty years ago in Miami, helping end the Florida recount and tip the 2000 election to George W. Bush. But what if this time, that angry crowd is armed with guns?
The incident that became known as the “Brooks Brothers Riot” in late November of 2000 was orchestrated by professional Republican operatives who wore suits and polo shirts as they banged down the doors of the Miami-Dade County election office to suppress votes. Fortunately, they were not armed, but today’s election vigilantes won’t carry briefcases and Blackberries. They will carry assault rifles and handguns. They won’t be Congressional staffers and campaign workers. They will be members of white supremacists groups and radicalized right-wing militias.
One of us, Peter, has seen first-hand how political gun violence can have a chilling effect far beyond its immediate victims. In 2011, his boss Gabby Giffords, then a Congresswoman from Arizona, was shot outside a Tucson supermarket while meeting with constituents. Eighteen other people were injured and six were killed. Gabby survived, but some elected officials across the country began avoiding town halls and other public events. This wasn’t the motivation for the Tucson shooting, but guns at polling places are intended to have a similar effect: The militia-members who carry them, and the politicians who fail to denounce them, want to scare Americans away from participating in our politics. We can’t let them.
The absence of gun safety in this country is a threat to voting. The fact is gun safety is a democracy issue.
In fact, Tiffany’s organization — End Citizens United / Let America Vote — includes another victim of the Tucson shooting. Former Congressman Ron Barber was Rep. Giffords’ District Director. He won her seat when she resigned after the shooting and later joined our organization, because he knows that if we want to pass common sense gun laws — like those that’ll keep firearms out of polling places — we need to unrig the system by making it easier to vote and by giving everyday people more access and influence in our democracy.
There has been bipartisan attention paid to the threat to our elections from foreign powers and cyber attacks, but not nearly enough to the more immediate danger of armed intimidation by domestic extremists, especially aimed at Black and Brown voters. U.S. intelligence officials are starting to raise the alarm, but the government’s response is hampered by the fact that the President himself is a prime instigator in stoking racist violence. Just last year, 22 people were shot and killed in Peter’s hometown of El Paso by a man inspired by President Trump’s hateful anti-immigrant rhetoric.
This year we’ve already seen a troubling increase in armed protests, including militia members invading the Michigan State House and crowds brandishing guns outside early vote locations in Virginia and Pennsylvania. The risk to public safety is clear: research and common sense suggest that when guns are carried in the open it may increase aggressive and violent behavior and can lead to tragic violence.
That’s why to protect the safety of Americans and the integrity of our elections, swift action is needed to reduce the risk of gun violence around the election.
First, state and local authorities must strictly enforce laws already on the books that prohibit brandishing guns to intimidate people, including voters. Six states and the District of Columbia also explicitly ban firearms at polling places and another four states bar concealed firearms at the polls. Continuing to treat armed white vigilantes with kid gloves will only lead to more violence. The same is true for major online social media platforms. For example, Facebook has not done nearly enough to crack down on private Groups, which often serve as organizing tools for armed voter intimidation efforts. Facebook’s own recommendation tools promote these dangerous networks. The company should listen to experts and shut down Group recommendations until after election results are certified.
Second, it’s long past time for Republicans to stand up to President Trump and condemn his efforts to incite intimidation and violence at the polls. In 2018, the GOP finally emerged from a 35-year federal consent decree prohibiting it from conducting “ballot security activities” put in place after Republicans posted armed guards outside polling sites in Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in New Jersey. Just two years later, the Trump Campaign is attempting to “enlist” an “army for Trump’s election security operation.” If Gabby Giffords can summon the courage to walk after being shot in the head, Republican leaders can speak up to prevent others from suffering the same fate.
Third, after the election, lawmakers across the country should move quickly to ban the open carrying of firearms in or around polling places everywhere in America. This is just one of many long-overdue commonsense gun safety reforms, like universal background checks. Every American has the right to go to the polls and practice their most sacred democratic right without the looming shadow of violence.
Finally, Congress must pass comprehensive democracy reform legislation to fight voter suppression and intimidation, like the policies included in the For the People Act (H.R. 1) and the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act (H.R. 4).
Over the past several years, our failures to address the gun violence problem have forever altered our schools, movie theaters, concerts and stores as places we considered safe. Our elections can’t be allowed to become the next casualty is America’s gun violence epidemic.
Peter Ambler is the Executive Director of Giffords, the gun violence prevention organization founded by former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.
Tiffany Muller is the president of End Citizens United / Let America Vote, working to end the dominance of big money in politics and ensure everyone’s vote is counted.
