“We will have sheriffs, and we will enforce the law, and we will hopefully have American lawyers, and we will have everyone and attorneys general (sic),” Trump said in an interview on Fox News with Sean Hannity.
Trump has no authority to enforce local law enforcement officials to control elections, although his campaign could hire police officers to work the polling stations, said Rick Hasen, an election law expert at the University of California, Irvine.
If Trump did so, it would likely do legal action by Democrats, who would argue the claim would amount to a tactic for voter repression. And it would have echoes of a case that resulted in a federal court ruling that for decades limited the work of the Republican National Committee ‘voting security’ without prior judicial approval.
The 1982 decree emerged from a Democratic National Commission trial that accused the RNC of trying to suppress votes in New Jersey by, among other things, placing armed, off-duty police officers at the polling stations in Black and Latino neighborhoods. The decision expired in 2018, and this election marks the first presidential contest since 1980 that the nominated GOP president and the RNC will work together on poll-watching.
Marc Elias, an election advocate at the forefront of Democratic lawsuits over votes, responded to legal action as Trump continues.
Poll-watching is a common practice, and both parties use it. Observers monitor how ballots are cast, test equipment and counting procedures – looking for irregularities. They can also challenge the eligibility of individual voters.
Earlier this year, a top Trump aide, Justin Clark, said the campaign worked to recruit 50,000 poll watchers.
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