July 28, 2020 – Syracuse, NY & Florence, SC) The Green Party’s Hawkins/Walker campaign for president is calling on its supporters to go to polling places to stop voter suppression against Black and immigrant voters.

“Voter suppression is essential for the Republicans in the 2020 election,” said Howie Hawkins. “Voter suppression has been used by Republicans since the days of Richard Nixon. One tactic has been to send white people to polling places to intimidate Black voters. We need to combat that and show solidarity with Black, Latinx, Asian, Arab and Muslim voters and let them know we will be there to prevent intimidation.”

President Trump is losing in polls nationally by more than ten points, and in battleground states by landslide margins. His campaign is in trouble and he knows that all indications are he will be soundly defeated in November. He has already fired his campaign manager and is getting desperate. He needs to suppress votes against him and that means especially suppressing Black and immigrant voters.

Vice presidential candidate Angela Walker described her own experience, “I’ve participated in Election Protection, and I can speak from my own experience that voter intimidation is very real. The individual I reported to the authorities at the polling place I watched at was at that time a sitting Wisconsin politician. Poll watchers are essential to fair elections.”

One time-tested technique of Republicans is to send white people to polling places to intimidate voters. The former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court William Rehnquist was accused of going to primarily Black polling precincts in Arizona in 1964 and intimidating Black voters. Poll watchers filed affidavits against him for this activity and described him getting into a struggle with one of them and being removed from the polling place by police after a tussle. Rehnquist was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Nixon.

President Trump is fashioning himself as a ‘law and order’ president emulating Nixon. When Nixon ran for re-election he sent assistant attorneys general to major cities to act as poll watchers claiming to be searching for fraud but really working to suppress Black voting as part of Nixon’s “Southern strategy.”

“Like Nixon, Trump seems to be running for the president of the Confederacy echoing the ‘Southern Strategy.’ Trump’s sending militarized troops to cities is showing he will abuse his power. Trump needs to suppress the votes of Black and Latinx people because his racism has been on display throughout his presidency. People need to go to the polls and protect the right to vote and combat voter suppression,” said Walker.

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