Gitlin-Adam

Introduction
Voter intimidation took center stage in the United States’ 2016 presidential election. As a
candidate, Donald Trump warned of voter fraud, and encouraged his supporters to go to precincts
other than their own to “watch” voters in “other areas,” a phrase many interpreted as dog-whistle
politics (Anderson 2016). He also took a permissive attitude towards violence by his supporters
against his detractors. This set the stage for possible intimidation and discrimination against
voters in the lead-up to, and on, Election Day.
Intimidation of and discrimination against voters is hardly a new concept in the United
States. Indeed, as discussed below, it dates to before the Founding. Yet it has not until now
received top billing in a modern presidential campaign. In the wake of Mr. Trump’s repeated
remarks, Democrats filed several lawsuits to prevent intimidation, and news reports conveyed
fears of widespread voter intimidation on Election Day. While intimidation may not have
occurred at the scale suggested, there was intimidation and there are lessons to be drawn from
the election on how the nation treats its voters.
This paper first discusses in broad terms the problem behind the research question, which
may explain its lack of comprehensive study: assessing voter intimidation is difficult if we
cannot agree on what intimidation is. After proposing a novel definition with a focus on
subjective perceptions of intimidation, the paper discusses some salient historical examples of
voter intimidation that confirm the importance of this subjective perspective. Next, the paper
looks at the 2016 election, in which there was widespread media attention to, and concern about,
voter intimidation, and squares that against what actually happened. The paper concludes with
recommendations on how to limit intimidation.
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