Daily US Times: The upcoming US election is everyne’s focus point now, where unlikely, even the unthinkable, can happen. Election observers, organizers and commentators in the US, Europe and Africa fear that there are significant warning signs for the upcoming US elections.
With a pandemic like the current one shifting the nature of balloting and President Donald Trump and his surrogates relentlessly prejudging the result, questioning the fairness of the elections without evidence and rallying his hardcore base, the election observers worry that a protracted voting could lead to a constitutional crisis and even violence.
President Trump and his campaign surrogates have questioned the integrity of the upcoming elections for months now.
Mr Trump has encouraged voters to vote twice to test the system, while it is crime to vote twice. The US President has claimed that foreign countries will print mail-in ballots to rig the US election and urged his supporters to go to the polls and watch out for “thieving and stealing” on Election Day — and that’s only a partial list.
The President’s claims about the vulnerabilities in the voting process of the US have little grounding in reality, but observers with experience in challenging elections abroad say the rhetoric itself is dangerous.
Dren Nupen, a South African election expert, said: “I think that Trump is preparing us for the narrative of a rigged election. That has happened in other jurisdictions I have worked.”
For decades, Dren Nupen has organized party and national elections across Southern Africa and worked with a team preparing South Africans for their historic 1994 ballot.
“He says President Trump is planting the seed in the mind of voters that this thing is not going to be fair.
”His ammunition is basically the voters. If he loses, then he can say that he knew there were issues with the vote and can mobilize them,” Nupen said.
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