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For months, we’ve been hearing about campaign signs being moved, vandalized, and stolen. And, since the start of early voting, we’ve heard stories about tensions at the polls – nothing physical, but plenty of short tempers and strong words.
Last weekend, things started taking an uglier turn, in a couple of different ways.
First, we heard reports of Harris campaign volunteers getting harassed in Brunswick County. This was a tricky one, because there had been no police reports filed – and, to be fair, canvassers are not guaranteed a warm welcome. Sending folks with armloads of Harris paraphernalia into a Republican stronghold seems likely to result in a few chilly receptions, if not slammed doors. But the reports we heard had a harder edge – and also, unfortunately, a concerning gender dynamic, with female volunteers allegedly bearing the brunt of harassment.
The next issue was bilingual signs that appeared at Carolina Beach Town Hall and other polling stations around the region. In English, the signs read, “STOP: voting by noncitizens is a criminal, deportable offense.” In Spanish, they read, “ALTO: Votar como extranjero es un delito penal que conlleva la deportación.” The translation uses the word “foreign” not “non-citizen,” so it’s potentially misleading. Non-citizens can’t vote, but naturalized foreigners certainly can.
These were not official signs, and advocates voiced concerns about the motivations for posting them.
New Hanover County Elections Director Rae Hunter-Havens told me that the board of elections would only have jurisdiction over the signs if they were on the voting site property – or, at most, directly adjacent. She added, "if these signs are out and about in the community, someone could report them to the appropriate law enforcement jurisdiction—city PD, county sheriff, etc. [...] the signs may constitute both state and federal crimes for misinforming voters about the legal qualifications to vote."
On social media, several people dismissed concerns about the signs, noting foreign-born people who had become legal citizens would have learned about their right to vote as they studied to pass their naturalization test. While that’s true, advocates noted that someone who passed their test years (or decades) ago, might have heard about recent changes to law, including North Carolina's proposed constitutional amendment, and been confused.
Then there was another set of concerning signs – some posted at the Northeast Regional Library polling location, others along Market Street – which featured slogans for Patriot Front, a fascist white supremacist group.
Patriot Front is considered an “aesthetic rebrand” of Vanguard America, a neo-Nazi organization that played a prominent role in the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. The organization uses simplistic graphic designs in red-white-and-blue color schemes, with generic nationalist slogans – “strong families, strong nations,” “no more foreign wars,” and “defend American labor” – that could appeal to liberals or conservatives. But if you visit Patriot Front’s website, you’ll see the group melds attacks on Jews, immigrants, and queer people under a broad banner of nationalist white supremacy.
Again, we asked the local board of elections, and Hunter-Havens told us there was no legal recourse to remove the signs. Unlike signs which could potentially provide voting misinformation, advertising a neo-Nazi organization is protected by the First Amendment.
So, I sat down with C.L. Murray to unpack who and what Patriot Front is, and why they might be posting their signs near a polling site. Murray’s a researcher who specializes in extremist groups; she’s previously joined me on The Newsroom for conversations about the Proud Boys and the broader landscape of extremist and anti-democratic groups.
Murray’s bona fides weren’t enough for one commenter, who claimed I’d failed to explore the possibility that the signs were a “psy-op” – a psychological disinformation campaign. They argued the signs could have been posted by liberal progressives to deter voters from casting ballots for Republicans by implying, somehow, that those candidates were associated with Patriot Front (the signs, it’s worth noting, don’t endorse any candidate or even mention the election).
It’s a convoluted conspiracy theory that defies Occam’s razor and Patriot Front’s own track record of posting these signs and documenting them online. But it also echoes a conspiratorial trope you’ve probably heard before – when some, mostly on the right, claimed that Proud Boys and other extremists spotted in Wilmington in the summer of 2020 during the George Floyd protests were really members of Antifa, a very loosely organized left-wing group. The same claim surfaced in the wake of the January 6 attack on the Capitol.
But, while I think that Murray’s expertise outweighs a layperson’s skepticism, I actually do sympathize with the instinct to find an alternative explanation.
It’s no fun knowing that a group like Patriot Front exists, or that their uncanny knack for propaganda is helping them to grow their ranks. I dislike trotting out "Nazi" as a knee-jerk reaction to anyone you don't agree with, but in this case, it’s absolutely accurate.
Likewise, I’m loath to imagine trying to trick someone out of their right to vote – especially a naturalized citizen, who didn’t have the exceptional luck to be born in the United States, but had to work very hard to earn their citizenship. And I see why it might be more comforting to think that those reports of harassment from Brunswick County are fake or exaggerated.
I also genuinely think it’s important not to overreact. So, if these stories, concerning as they are, did not shake you to your very core, I understand; they did not shake me to mine. As Americans, we are no strangers to political violence. I find myself thinking, we have seen leaders shot, cities turned inside out by riots, naked anger in the streets. What are a couple of signs, some internet cranks, or a few rude encounters on the campaign trail? I try to keep a sense of historical perspective.
But I’m also reminded by history that political violence does not always erupt all at once, like zombies breaking loose from their pen in some blockbuster horrorshow. No, sometimes it comes in banal increments, each easy to dismiss or ignore. Until, of course, it’s too late.
