Claims of voter fraud raise political tensions

WASHINGTON — The usual tension of a presidential election has a twist this year — questions about the integrity of the election itself. Adding anxiety and uncertainty in the weeks before Election Day were Republican candidate Donald Trump’s unsupported warnings of a rigged election, fears of voter intimidation at the polls and concerns about election systems being hacked. New voter regulations in more than a dozen states also held the potential to sow confusion at polling places. In the last week alone, Democrats went to court in seven states seeking to halt what they claim were efforts by Republicans and the Trump campaign to deploy a network of poll watchers hunting for voter fraud. Republicans have disputed claims they are planning to intimidate voters, and judges in a handful of the cases have found no evidence the two camps are coordinating. “Hopefully it’s relatively calm. Hopefully it doesn’t blow up. But this hasn’t been a regular election year,” said Wendy Weiser, head of the democracy program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU’s Law School. One positive sign: Relative quiet during the early voting period. Early voting through mail-in ballots or in-person voting was expected to account for as much as 40 percent of all ballots cast nationwide. Despite hours-long waits at some polling places, the process has been largely devoid of major problems, adding a measure or reassurance. Presidential elections usually include sporadic voting problems, including machines not working properly, long lines and issues with ballots or voter rolls. The question this year is whether problems will be widespread and indicate a pattern of fraud or voter intimidation. One possibility is confusion over voter ID laws passed in more than a dozen states. Legal challenges to some of those have led to a multitude of court rulings in recent months that blocked or struck down some provisions while upholding or reinstating others. — AP