Talking Points Memo has a post up about alleged voter intimidation in Texas.  The premise is that Tea Party members are acting as poll watchers and are intimidating minority voters.

How?

Harris County, the biggest county in the state, is where a Tea Party group called the King Street Patriots launched an anti-voter fraud initiative called “True the Vote,” which recruited poll watchers and amped up fears over groups like the community organizing group ACORN.

Chad Dunn, a lawyer who is representing the Texas Democratic Party, told TPMMuckraker a number of witnesses have been interviewed by Civil Rights Division lawyers already. “We’ve gotten a number of reports — quite a few out of the Houston area — that poll watchers, King Street Patriot training poll watchers, are following a voter after they’ve checked them out and stand right behind them,” Dunn said. There’s at least a dozen reports that they could confirm with witnesses, he said. “Interestingly, it’s all in the polling places in Hispanic and African-American areas,” he added.

I see what you did there.

I wonder if this is a situation where the epigram “Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence” would be more accurate.

This is probably the first time a lot of these folks have been in this position, and may not have been trained properly.  They might also be a little overzealous in carrying out their duties.

But it doesn’t sound like they are actively trying to intimidate voters.  I mean, it’s not like they are carrying billy clubs or anything.  Not that that’s something this administration would care about.