Videos show conservative activists cheering on voter suppression: 'We need to stop those ballots from going out'

(Image credit: Screenshot/The Washington Post)

published 14 October 2020

When conservatives gathered behind closed doors for conferences of the right-wing Council for National Policy, their talks had a common theme: Voter suppression.

Conservatives met for three days in February and another three in August, maskless regardless of Virginia state policies, to discuss election strategies and other goals, The Washington Post reports. One August speaker was Charlie Kirk, the founder of the college conservative group Turning Point USA. At one point, Kirk pinned college campus shutdowns on Democrats, and then called those purported decisions a "very foolish thing" because it's going to lose them opportunities to "harvest" left-leaning college students' votes, video of the event obtained by the Post reveals. "Please, keep the campuses closed, it's a great thing," he said.

Tom Fitton, president of the conservative group Judicial Watch, was more explicit. He alleged Democrats were "war-gaming" a plan to make House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) president, and used that as a call for conservative action against mail-in ballots. "We need to stop those ballots from going out, and I want the lawyers here to tell us what to do," Fitton said in video obtained by the Post. J. Christian Adams, a former Justice Department official, meanwhile told attendees to oppose mail-in voting and "be not afraid of the accusations that you're a voter suppressor, you're a racist and so forth."

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Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.