Fear, suspicion could fuel militia groups on election day: researcher

Amid worries that militia groups could disrupt polling locations during the U.S. presidential election on Tuesday, one expert believes that even in the absence of violence, their visibility could cause alarm among voters.

"Even if they don't show up with the intention of intimidating others, their mere presence could have the effect of intimidating others," said Mark Pitcavage, senior fellow with the Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism, in an interview with Cross Country Checkup.

"That in itself could lead to problems where someone might decide to confront them, or someone might call other people to show up in response to what they've perceived of as intimidation."

The ADL Center on Extremism monitors extremism, terrorism and hate. Militias, in this case, refers to self-appointed paramilitary groups of armed civilians. 

U.S. President Donald Trump has regularly made unsubstantiated claims about the legitimacy of the November election, and actively encouraged his supporters to observe polling locations for fraud and irregularities during the election.

Critics have suggested the latter move, which is regulated by a mix of state and federal laws, amounts to an effort by the president to intimidate voters.

The Republican party has also said they would recruit and train up to 50,000 poll watchers, according to a report by the New York Times.

Pitcavage says that while there have been few problems in the run up to election day, tensions between conservative and progressive voters are high.

"There is a lot of fear, suspicion, even paranoia in some cases, and that leads to a lot of possibilities for problems," he said.

Focus on progressives

Members of what Pitcavage calls the militia movement, a collection of dozens of right-wing extremist groups dating back to the early 1990s, typically portray themselves as a defence against government intrusion on individual rights, particularly when it comes to the right to bear arms.

"People in the militia movement have said that like American patriots during the American Revolution, when the government becomes tyrannical, when it starts to attack its own citizens, we need to step up and protect the American people in the same way the patriots of yore did," Pitcavage told Checkup.

More recently, however, their attention has turned to liberal voters.

Pitcavage says that members of the militia movement have signalled their intent to be at polls on November 3rd to watch for wrongdoing by progressive voters, but not necessarily to intimidate them.

"There are a lot of people on the right who are convinced that the people on the left will show up at the polls and do shenanigans of some sort," Pitcavage said.

But there's a difference between "the self-conception and reality," he adds. "The reality is that the militia movement actually has a long history of association with criminal activity, including terrorism."

As an example, he points to the foiled plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat. In early October, U.S. agents charged 14 men with ties to militia groups for their involvement.

Violence after the election

While there are worries about voter intimidation and vote suppression on election day, what happens in the weeks and months following is a greater concern, Pitcavage said.

"There have been people in the militia movement as well as others ... who have talked about the possibility of engaging in violence if Joe Biden were declared president because they believe the only way that can happen would be through fraud," Pitcavage said.

In 2016, it was suggested that violence would erupt if Hillary Clinton won that year's presidential election, Pitcavage says. 

In the absence of a decisive win for Biden this year, he says there is once again a risk.

"Should Biden be declared the winner, or even perhaps in situations where there may be a contested election and various legal battles going on, there could be people coming out of the woodwork, possibly to engage in violence — more volatile, angry individuals."

Written by Jason Vermes. Produced by Steve Howard.