RICHLAND COUNTY, S.C. — On Friday, the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that monitors hate groups and works to help the most vulnerable people in society, held a virtual meeting to discuss voter intimidation and suppression.
The SPLC is urging people to not only have a plan to vote, but to be aware when they are at the polls. The organization gave voters tips on voter intimidation and suppression.
"We need to make sure that voters understand that for the overwhelming majority of people voting will be safe and it should be easy," Nancy Abudu, SPLC Deputy Legal Director for Voting Rights, said. "We recognize again that there are barriers in the process, but we are working as hard as we can to acknowledge, expose and address them."
Cassie Miller, a Senior Research Analyst at SPLC said they are expecting militia groups and extremist to be out at polling locations across the county on Election Day.
"We do expect to see armed militia groups before, during and after the election," Miller said. "Right now activity has been some what limited, it's been mostly sporadic and what we see is mostly organized in a pretty ad hoc manor. Most of it is smaller groups that are organized online like places like Facebook, and that's what I think we can expect to see as we head towards Election Day."
Miller said if voters see any agitators at the polls her advice is to not engage. She also doesn't want fear to stop anyone from casting their ballot.
"We do expect for the vast majority of voters that voting will be safe and secure," Lindsay Schubiner, Momentum Program Director at Western States Center, said.
Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said his department has not had any threats from anyone or any groups planning to do anything on Election Day, but he said if anyone does, they are prepared.
"Don't do it in Richland County, don't do it anywhere, I mean just don't," Lott said. "We don't want anybody to think they can disrupt the voting process or anything else because we're prepared and we're not going to allow that to happen."