Bloomberg: Masked poll watchers are showing up at voting sites with handguns and Kevlar vests

(Bloomberg) — Two people armed with handguns and wearing tactical military gear, balaclavas masking their face, and the license plates on their cars covered, stood watch over a ballot drop box during early voting last week in Mesa, Arizona.

This scene, reported by the Maricopa County Elections Department on Friday, is one that some elections officials and law enforcement fear might spread as believers in Donald Trump’s false claims that a second term as president was stolen from him through voter fraud amp up activity ahead of the Nov. 8 election. …

But the freelance effort is different. The participants are not vetted by state or local officials, have no approved training on voter intimidation laws and are gathering around unstaffed drop boxes, a practice that election deniers call “tailgating.”

They are also being called to action by groups that have embraced false claims about voting, including Clean Elections USA, Audit the Vote and the Flynn-linked group One More Mission, as well as election denier candidates like Arizona Secretary of State nominee Mark Finchem, who tweeted out a call for supporters to “watch all drop boxes” in order to “save the Republic.”

“Ballot drop boxes are open for much longer than polling places. They aren’t staffed and they are often placed in locations that make them vulnerable for people to act in a way that you would probably not see in a polling place,” said Suzanne Almeida, who is heading a voter intimidation hotline for the advocacy group Common Cause.