Protesters marched outside an early voting center in Virginia, intimidating people who would have liked to vote early in the November general election, The New York Times reports.
Trump Supporters came over to the early voting site to protest while people are in line to Vote in FairFax Virginia. #EarlyVoting pic.twitter.com/Lkkl4o2aAc
— Anthony Tilghman (@AnthonyTilghman) September 19, 2020
The protests, mainly by supporters of President Donald Trump, occurred in the wake of a town hall-style session Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia sat for with seniors in the state’s Fairfax County Public Schools. A video of the complete question-and-answer session has been made available.
Sen. Tim Kaine talks to seniors Wednesday in Fairfax Co., Va. (FCPS/screen shot)Mr Kaine discussed many of the impediments to voting—restrictive voter ID laws in many states, disenfranchisement of large groups of citizens, and so on—even though most seniors in Virginia schools won’t be able to vote in the general election because they won’t yet be 18.
He told students, “States purge names off voting rolls, which is a really significant problem. So if you don’t vote several years in a row, you may suddenly find that you’re not registered any more and you weren’t even notified about it.”
One thing Mr Kaine didn’t anticipate in Virginia this election, certainly because he talked with students before the protests in Virginia, was the idea that people who support one candidate may try to intimidate people who support a different candidate when they try to exercise their right to vote.
“I was there when the county executive was there and I saw him walk multiple people through the crowd because they didn’t feel safe,” the Times quoted Bryan Graham, the chairman of the Fairfax County Democrats, as saying. “I don’t think it’s appropriate. We shouldn’t be doing things to make people feel unsafe.”
