This week, a group called Clean Elections USA drew national attention by sending out armed vigilantes in tactical gear to stand guard over — and film — ballot drop boxes at a number of places throughout Maricopa County, Arizona.
Six incidences of intimidation had been identified before the conclusion of the week. The photographs were chilling, showing heavily armed men with cameras tracking voters at drop boxes.
The photographs would not have looked out of place in Ukraine’s Donbas region, where gun-toting Russian military and paramilitaries recently kept an eye on voters in ostensibly free and fair “referendums” on whether to join the Russian Federation.
And, of course, the pictures would have been familiar to victims of KKK violence, as well as those who faced White Citizens Council efforts to keep non-whites from voting in the post-Civil War and Jim Crow eras.
Following the incidents in Maricopa County, the Arizona Alliance for Retired Americans and Voto Latino filed a lawsuit against the far-right group, asking a restraining order.
The lawsuit claims that the vigilante acts violate the Voting Rights Act as well as the post-Civil War Ku Klux Klan Act, both of which prohibit private conspiracies to intimidate voters.
At the same time, Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, the Democratic candidate for governor, submitted six allegations of voter intimidation to the Department of Justice.
