Prepare to Have Your Vote Challenged in These Battleground States

As Donald Trump’s calls for the harassment of African-American and Latino voters at the polls become more flagrant, it’s important to understand exactly what kind of damage these self-appointed “poll watchers” can do. Voter intimidation is one thing—and many poll watchers will find that some voters are harder to intimidate than others. But there are other ways that vigilante poll watchers can be problematic, namely by challenging people’s eligibility to cast ballots. It’s the kind of attack that can blindside a voter on Election Day, because unofficial poll watchers—those who are not enlisted for state- or political party-authorized election observing—can make these challenges without ever physically confronting the voter.

States have different rules about how to regulate both official and bootleg poll watchers, and some states are less restrictive than others. The nonpartisan election-watchdog group Common Cause has assembled a report that sketches out what voter-challenge policies look like in the presidential election’s 11 battleground states: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin.