MINUTEMEN PLANNED TO WREAK HAVOC ON ELECTION DAY

November 7th, 2008

Our friends at the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) shared with us a disturbing email from Minutemen Civil Defense Corps (MCDC) leader, Chris Simcox, urging MCDC members to form "poll watches" on Election Day to monitor election sites and videotape incidents of "voter fraud."  Simcox, in his usual hyperbolic way, sounds the alarm on a problem that does not exist.

One might ask the highly pertinent question of how MCDC members know who is eligible to vote and who isn't.  In short:  They don't.  Just like enforcing immigration law, ensuring the integrity of the voting process requires expertise.  And just like in immigration enforcement, untrained amateurs make the problem worse.  

What this latest publicity stunt is really about is voter intimidation, pure and simple.  Simcox uncharacteristically gives the game away when he mentions "the busloads of people who will arrive at many locations around the country."  He asked his members to videotape anyone who
looks "suspicious" or "out of the ordinary."  It doesn't take a lot to figure out that the stars of the MCDC's videos are going to be Hispanic, Asian, and Arab Americans trying to exercise their right to vote.

As reprehensible as Simcox's email is, it does provide helpful evidence in unmasking the MCDC's true aims-harassing anyone who looks or sounds foreign.  The email also is a much-needed wake up call to Minutemen apologists who say that these people are just patriotic Americans trying to secure our borders.  Unless the border runs through Toledo, Ohio; Scranton, Pennsylvania; or Charlotte, North Carolina, the Minutemen have stepped way over the line this time.  And if they we find that they were successful in scaring people away from the polls or prevented anyone from voting, we will work with the ADL and other organizations to make sure the law holds them accountable for their jingoist denial of our most basic American right.