Watching the Watcher: Election Primary Coverage

The clear distinction between “watching” and causing a commotion was brought into crystal clear resolution at this past Tuesday’s New York primary. While working as a scanner inspector in my Assembly District, I once again encountered an aggressive Republican poll watcher (let’s call him Lee).

Lee didn’t make his appearance until 30 minutes before the site manager instructed us to close the doors (at nine PM). But he caused enough of a disturbance that the police officer assigned to our precinct called for back up.

In November 2021, for the general election, our poll site generated nearly several thousand votes. We anticipated — and dealt with — a crush of registered voters attempting to cast ballots within the last hour. Lee showed up 15 minutes before doors closed, flanked by two outrageous subordinates, practically costumed as MAGA trolls.

As I wrote at the time, they approached me at the lowest ED table, where I was assigned to work with two female volunteers. Initially, we paid them no notice, servicing a steady stream of local residents. We reminded voters to take action on different state initiatives on the back of the ballots.

First, Lee asked one of the two women why she wasn’t wearing identification. She had been dealing with voters for 14 hours by this point. Not one other…