Former President Donald Trump urged police officers to monitor polling places for signs of voter fraud during a North Carolina appearance Friday to accept an endorsement from America's largest police union.
“I hope you can watch, and you’re all over the place, watch for the voter fraud. Because we win without voter fraud. We win so easily,” Trump said to the crowd representing the Fraternal Order of Police.
“You can keep it down just by watching, because, believe it or not, they’re afraid of that badge. They’re afraid of you people. They’re afraid of that more than anything else.”
According to The New York Times, Trump may have just requested that cops break the law.
In many states, what he's asking for would be considered voter intimidation, according to the Brennan Center for Justice: "State and local laws and practices place limits on the role of law enforcement and poll watchers. And a host of federal and state laws, many of which also carry severe criminal penalties, prevent anyone — whether a law enforcement officer or a vigilante — from harassing or intimidating voters."
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Moreover, The Times noted, "The presence of uniformed officers at the polls has a fraught history in the United States."
There is no evidence of any substantive voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election — cases of illegal voting are extremely rare. But Trump has continued to claim, without providing evidence, that his loss in that contest was a result of rigging.
During his FOP speech, Trump also made a number of other promises to law enforcement, including grants to cities that employ "stop and frisk" policies, and disputed his own criminal conviction for falsifying business records in New York. At one point, he veered into a tangent and pushed a debunked hoax about transgender boxers at the Olympics.
