People vote in the US Presidential Election in Pasadena, California on November 2.
McConnellsburg:
Millions of Americans will vote on an election day like no other Tuesday, braving the threat of COVID-19 and the potential for violence and intimidation after one of the most polarizing presidential races in state history -United.
In and around polling stations across the country, reminders of a 2020 election year marked by a pandemic, civil unrest and deadly political partisanship will greet voters, though more than 90 million ballots have already been cast. submitted in an unprecedented wave of early votes.
Many will wear masks at the polls – either by choice or by official mandate – with the coronavirus epidemic raging in many parts of the country.
Some voters in major US cities will see businesses shut down as a precaution against politically motivated vandalism, an extraordinary sight on election day in the United States, where voting is generally peaceful in the modern age.
Tensions surrounding this year’s presidential election were in the air Monday in the gun section of the Buchanan Trail Sporters store in the small town of McConnellsburg, Pennsylvania.
“No matter who comes in, they have a feeling there will be civil unrest,” said Sally Hoover, the store’s co-owner, as half a dozen shoppers perused the cases filled with weapons and bullets.
Hoover supports President Donald Trump, a Republican, as he fights for a second term against Democratic nominee Joe Biden, a former vice president leading the polls.
“These people here are not going to get the fight,” Hoover said. “But if the fight comes to them, they will defend their property and their way of life.”
TIMES SQUARE TENSIONS IN TEXAS
The American Civil Liberties Union and other civil rights groups said they were watching closely for signs of voter intimidation.
The ACLU Georgia affiliate deployed about 300 attorneys across the state to about 50 potential “hot spots” for voting issues on Tuesday, including 15 polling stations in Atlanta.
“We have poll watchers looking for any voter intimidation,” Andrea Young, executive director of ACLU Georgia, told reporters. “We don’t know exactly what’s going to happen, but we want to be as ready as possible.”
The United States Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division is deploying staff to 18 states to monitor voter intimidation and suppression, including some battlefield counties and cities plagued by civil unrest this year.
Police and business owners said they were taking precautions to protect property, with still fresh memories of sometimes violent protests against racial injustice in many cities over the summer.
In New York City, the Macy’s department store and the skyscraper that houses the Trump-favored Fox News channel were among the buildings closed. On Rodeo Drive, one of the most expensive shopping streets in Beverley Hills, California, staff stripped Tiffany & Co. and Van Cleef & Arpels storefronts of their jewelry.
“Hopefully this is all for nothing,” said Kathy Gohari, vice chair of the Rodeo Drive committee, the shopkeepers association, said Monday as she watched workers nail plywood to luxury storefronts.
Yet fists, eggs and curses have already flown in Times Square in New York in recent days among avid Trump fans, Democrats and adherents of the anti-fascism movement known as the anti-fascism.
An alleged plot by an anti-government militia to kidnap the Democratic governor of Michigan, uncovered last month, highlighted the potential for political violence on election day. Police in Graham, North Carolina, sprayed pepper spray on a group of anti-racist activists as they walked to a polling station on Saturday.
On a Texas highway on Friday, in a show reminiscent of the movie “Mad Max,” a convoy of pickup trucks mounted with inflated Trump flags surrounded a bus emblazoned with the Biden crest filled with campaign workers in what looked like an attempt to force the bus off the road.
Trump praised truckers as “patriots” and expressed impatience with his Federal Bureau of Investigation when the agency said it was looking into the matter.
In the New York City area and elsewhere, convoys of vehicles emblazoned with Trump flags pulled up on highways and bridges, according to local media, harassing traffic in a provocative show of support for the president.
Even after the votes were cast, Americans, from the president down, expressed concern over what could be an extended tally.
While the United States has suffered from the deadliest coronavirus outbreak on the planet, many states have expanded early voting to reduce contagion crowds at polling stations.
A record 97.7 million early votes were cast in person or by mail as of Monday afternoon, representing about 40% of all Americans legally entitled to vote.
(This story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
