Army of Poll Watchers For Both Parties Deploys
Nov. 6, 2012— -- When polls open Tuesday morning, a small army of thousands of lawyers affiliated with both campaigns and state party efforts will be in place in key swing states where legal action can make a difference in the outcome of the election.
In large part the Democrats are worried about what they say are efforts to suppress the vote. Republicans fear instances of voter fraud.
Both sides will be concentrating on issues such as voter registration and eligibility, poll watcher activity, ballot counting, polling hours and machine malfunctioning.
At the national level teams of lawyers will be wired in to nationwide databases, as Republican attorneys use a Smartphone app to communicate about problems and Democrats relay information to a database in Chicago, according to the Associated Press.
Obama officials, speaking on background, say they have recruited thousands of attorney volunteers to help recruit, train, educate and observe at polling locations across the country. They say they are not only concerned with putting legal teams in place, but also having a data base in place of experts on voting systems, registration data bases, ballot design, student voting and provisional ballots.
Tune in to ABCNews.com on Tuesday, Nov. 6 for livestreaming coverage of Election 2012. Our Election Day show kicks off at noon, and the Election Night event begins at 7 p.m. The top lawyers for both campaigns are long-time veterans of electoral politics.
Robert F. Bauer, Obama's top lawyer, issued a memo this week linking the Republican National Committee with efforts to "disseminate misinformation to voters."
"This is an assault with deep roots in the party's history and politics," Bauer wrote.
Republicans dismiss allegations of voter suppression, and say they are concerned that voter fraud will interfere with the election.
Romney lawyer Benjamin Ginsberg will be joined in Boston Tuesday night by top Romney aides Katie Biber and Lee Rudofsky to oversee lawyers and volunteers across the county. There are volunteers in every battleground state led by a counsel in charge of each team. Lawyers affiliated with the National Republican Lawyers Association have worked with the Romney team to provide volunteers.
Last week John R. Phillippe, Jr., chief counsel the RNC, wrote a letter to several states expressing concern with reports that voting machine errors were occurring. He asked the states to take action.
"I understand that, in a significant number of cases, voting machines in your states have populated a vote for Barack Obama when a voter cast his or her ballot for Mitt Romney," Phillippe wrote.
Partisans have already spent months fighting over voter regulations in the courts of key states. They have waged war on issues such as the hours for early vote, voter registration and Voter ID.
Some of the best appellate lawyers in the country—many who worked on legal issues during the 2000 campaign – are poised to hop a plane at a moment's notice as the situation warrants.
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