A vigilant group of HBCU students are taking action to help keep voter suppression efforts at the polls to a minimum on election day.
Last month, Donald Trump encouraged teams of “observers” to monitor polling locations after voting to prevent his bizarre prediction that the election will be rigged. To counteract those plans, Howard University student Gabrielle Gray is rounding up a group of her fellow HBCU peers who will also be on hand to ensure that voters aren’t intimidated by Trump’s observers.
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“It was so important to make sure that people were exercising their rights to vote,” Gray told The Grio in a recent interview. The Howard University Ph.D candidate is also adamant about paying close attention to any of the “observers” tactics that could mirror voter suppression efforts.
“There is an implicit targeting in his suggestion that makes me think that those of us who are most concerned need to give special emphasis to observing certain kind of electoral constitutes,” Gray’s advisor Dr. Morris Lorenzo said. “Meaning those [people] where, not necessarily in the most overwhelmingly black districts and certainly not in the overwhelmingly white districts, but those that are marginal, where, in terms of numbers, where black voter intimidation can be significant.”
Gray and the other students will reportedly plan to be present at polling sites as “unbiased motivators” to monitor any a potential suppression activity, which could very well surface should Trump’s observers decide to go the extra mile.