Hacker News Reader

Comment by SilverElfin | Hacker News Reader

A lot of people have been concerned that ICE is turning into a personal army for Trump. This year they will expand ICE to over 40,000 agents allegedly. This is enough to overwhelm police departments in every jurisdiction.

There is a real possibility that these agents will continue detainment of people, even if they are US citizens, as they are trying to vote. Perhaps they will use their facial recognition app, Mobile Fortify (built by NEC), to identify people and decide if they’re a likely GOP voter or not. Who knows. Whatever they do, this feels like a serious threat to American democracy.

View on HN

On Election Day, they will deploy ICE to traditionally Democratic voting precincts. This is how they will "solve" electoral fraud.

It is the swing precincts and states that they will deploy it to.

No, if it was maximizing suppression bang for the buck it would be the Democratic precincts in swing states, not “swing precincts and states”, because electoral votes (except for 5—out of the 9 in Nebraska and Maine—that are determined by Congressional district) are decided by statewide (not precinct level) outcomes, so you get the maximum effect on the outcome by suppressing the vote in Democratic-leaning areas of swing states, not by targeting precincts that are near parity in the same states.

That’s for the presidential elections right? For midterms wouldn’t they target swing districts that determine House seats?

Sure, I was thinking in terms of the presidential; but its pretty similar for midterms, you'd still mostly want to target Democratic and not swing precincts, but those in swing congressional districts rather than swing states; precincts are typically on the several hundred to a few thousand people; congressional districts are several hundred thousand to just over a million people.

1. Deploy ICE agents wearing milsim gear to key Dem voting locations.

2. Allow the crowd to yell at them.

3. Use the crowd agitation as an opportunity to escalate and go "hands on".

4. Cause a ruckus.

5. Use the ruckus as justification for closing the polling location for the rest of the day.

6. Count the Republican votes, discard the Dem votes.

7. Declare landslide victory.

8. Ignore calls for extended voting or recounts.

the swing is small enough that one doesn't even have to target individuals. delaying some mail from particular zip codes might be enough. suppressing urban voting a little might be enough. a few of these and you're done.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com