{"id":97245,"date":"2026-11-03T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2026-11-03T07:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/?p=97245"},"modified":"2026-11-02T15:48:32","modified_gmt":"2026-11-02T22:48:32","slug":"trumps-election-fraud-reward-raises-fears-of-vigilantism-local-officials-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/trumps-election-fraud-reward-raises-fears-of-vigilantism-local-officials-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s election fraud reward raises fears of vigilantism, local officials say"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Trump\u2019s<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Local law enforcement and election officials are bracing for a tense Election Day as President Trump has kept up a sustained attack on the integrity of U.S. elections, including by offering a $1 million reward for information that leads to an election fraud conviction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In response to Mr. Trump\u2019s unsubstantiated claims about voting problems and his campaign to assert more federal control over state-run elections, officials have prepared for potential worst-case scenarios in which the federal government tries to intervene in voting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now some local authorities have said they also fear that the president\u2019s offer of a large financial incentive could foster unrest or even vigilantism, with Americans eying one another with suspicion as they head to the polls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDon\u2019t drag in the public and basically a vigilante-type system where we\u2019re going to say, \u2018Hey, you can make a million dollars here by going over here and accusing somebody of fraud,\u2019\u201d said Sheriff Chris Nanos of Pima County, Ariz., a Democrat. \u201cOur elections are handled at the local level, but yet we have fire and brimstone, if you will, coming down from the federal level.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Trump\u2019s unfounded claims that the election could be rigged come at a time when violent threats against public officials and election workers have increasingly become a new normal. To prepare for Tuesday, election officials and local law enforcement agencies have held hundreds of exercises to anticipate a variety of possible threats and disruptions at polling sites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chief Chris Davis, who leads the police department in Green Bay, Wis., said the level of fear surrounding elections has increased in recent years, particularly in his battleground state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI worry about disturbances at polling places, and we\u2019ve developed pretty comprehensive plans for that if it happens,\u201d said Chief Davis, who added that he was concerned Mr. Trump\u2019s reward offer could further heighten tensions at polling sites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf one voter challenges another voter, the potential for that to turn into a disturbance and a big problem for us is very real,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deidre Henderson, the Republican lieutenant governor of Utah, has also warned in recent weeks that the federal government has contributed to a tense environment for the midterms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ms. Henderson told CBS News\u2019s \u201c60 Minutes\u201d that in previous elections, \u201cthe threats were all external: nonstate actors, cybersecurity threats and other things. But now we also have threats coming from within our own government.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The atmosphere is already fraught. The Justice Department has asked California to set aside 20,000 mail ballots, claiming they were provided to likely noncitizens. The administration has also sought to pre-emptively challenge the results of the Senate race in Alaska, where two candidates named Dan Sullivan are on the ballot. So far, the courts have blocked those efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

State and local officials have responded to Mr. Trump\u2019s attacks by seeking to create guardrails to prevent potential disruptions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, a Democrat, sent an extraordinary \u201calert\u201d on Saturday to the four U.S. district courts that cover California, warning the judges that the Trump administration may try to seize ballots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And in response to the Justice Department\u2019s plan to dispatch 1,000 federal monitors across the country, some local officials have issued statements saying that monitors are prohibited from crossing into an established perimeter surrounding polling locations, citing state law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Justin Elicker, the Democratic mayor of New Haven, Conn., said the Justice Department told local officials last month that it would be sending two teams of two people to polling sites in the city to ensure New Haven was complying with federal voting requirements on language assistance and disability access.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The city responded by sending the Justice Department a letter saying the monitors were not welcome to enter any polling locations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey intimidate people not to vote,\u201d Mr. Elicker said in an interview. \u201cWe would prefer that they not be here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In discussions with local and state officials, the Justice Department committed to monitoring from outside a 75-foot perimeter, like other observers, and pledged not to interfere with voting, according to Stephanie Thomas, Connecticut\u2019s Democratic secretary of state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Justice Department spokeswoman said federal monitors do not require approval from state or local authorities but added that monitors are trained to follow local laws that govern access at polling sites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the final stretch of the midterm campaign, Mr. Trump has continued to make unsubstantiated claims that the country\u2019s elections can be manipulated, falsely asserting that there is widespread fraud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m also going to be issuing a $1 million bonus or reward, or whatever you want to call it, for anybody that reports voter fraud, leading to the arrest and conviction of somebody,\u201d Mr. Trump told reporters last week before flying to Mississippi for a campaign rally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The president has said the offer applies to past elections, as well as the midterms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Trump\u2019s dangling of a $1 million reward caps a year in which he has trained the full arsenal of his administration on sowing doubt about the country\u2019s election systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The White House declined to answer questions about what money would be used to pay for the reward or how Americans should report fraud, and did not address criticism that the financial incentive could spur people to vigilantism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lauren Bis, a White House spokeswoman, said that Democrats were the ones eroding election security. \u201cThey refused to enact common-sense election security measures like voter ID and citizenship verification,\u201d she said in a statement. \u201cPresident Trump is right: We have to have honest elections.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the inflamed rhetoric, local and state officials said that the authorities tasked with ensuring a safe election are prepared for this moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA lot of what has been said has been designed to provoke and cause fear, so we\u2019re paying attention to it but we\u2019re not going to overreact,\u201d said Aghogho Edevbie, the deputy secretary of state of Michigan, who said that his office has helped conduct about 125 security exercises this cycle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat is going to cause us to be ready for anything that comes along,\u201d said Mr. Edevbie, a Democrat. \u201cYou could ask, \u2018Was that more preparation because of what\u2019s happening from D.C.?\u2019 Absolutely.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gowri Ramachandran, the director of elections and security in the Brennan Center\u2019s Elections and Government Program, said Americans should not lose faith in poll workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cElection officials just really have been working super hard to provide a free and fair election for voters,\u201d Ms. Ramachandran said. \u201cThe rhetoric that we see coming out of the administration just does not square with the reality of what election officials and voters are doing. And I would say the only way all of that rhetoric works is if people don\u2019t exercise their rights to vote.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nearly three-quarters of voters said they largely trusted that the results of Tuesday\u2019s election would be accurate, including large majorities of Democrats, Republicans and independents, according to a recent New York Times\/Siena poll. Still, half of likely voters were worried about Republicans trying to overturn the outcome of the election, while 31 percent of voters were worried about the possibility of Democrats taking such action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chuck Wexler, the executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, which advises departments on best practices, said that current and former police chiefs discussed at a recent gathering how the political divisiveness at the national level had trickled down to communities trying to prepare for the election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are some people who are willing to go beyond rhetoric to actual exercise violence, and that has not been lost on police chiefs,\u201d Mr. Wexler said, noting the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of Mr. Trump who were angry about the outcome of the 2020 election. \u201cWhat used to be a simple constitutional right of voting now has become an issue of considerable agitation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n