Trump ‘army’ of poll watchers led by veteran of fraud claims
Associated PressWASHINGTON — A veteran Republican operative who got his start in politics by helping to persuade a judge to throw out hundreds of mail-in ballots is organizing an “army” of volunteers for President Donald Trump’s campaign to monitor voting in Democratic-leaning areas on Tuesday. Mike Roman, Trump’s director of Election Day Operations, is a former White House aide from Pennsylvania who gathered claims in 1993 of voter fraud, resulting in a court ruling overturning election results and getting his candidate seated in the Pennsylvania State Senate. Trump 2020 spokeswoman Thea McDonald called such assertions “laughable.” She said the campaign’s “rule-abiding poll watchers” are simply trying to “ensure a fair election.” Both campaigns have zeroed in on Pennsylvania as the battleground state that might decide the election. As Roman and Marks tell it in a June blog post on Marks’ website, control of the Pennsylvania State Senate turned on the race, and “the Democratic machine’s operatives descended on the District to steal the election.” Their legal team later convinced a federal judge that there were so many ballots in Latino neighborhoods with irregularities that he threw out hundreds of ballots, overturning the result and sending Marks to a State Senate seat.