INSTITUTE INDEX: Civil rights advocates call for more international monitors for U.S. election

Number of years since the U.S. last held a presidential election that wasn't conducted under a fully operational Voting Rights Act, which the U.S. Supreme Court weakened significantly in its 2013 Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder decision: 50

Under the Voting Rights Act, number of states to which the U.S. Justice Department dispatched poll monitors during the 2004 election: 25

Thanks to Shelby, number of states to which the Justice Department will be allowed to deploy monitors this year, and only because of federal court rulings: 5*

Year in which federal observers monitoring an election in Shelby County documented the closing of doors on African-American voters during voting hours and voting officials using racial epithets: 2012

Date on which the Trump campaign, which has stoked fears over what is in fact virtually nonexistent voter fraud, began inviting visitors to its website to sign up as a "Trump Election Observer": 8/13/2016

According to baseless claims made by Trump, number of times an individual could vote in this year's election because of court rulings striking down voter ID laws: 15

Year in which a federal court, in a case involving charges of voter intimidation in African-American and Latino neighborhoods, issued a consent decree that's still in place preventing the Republican National Committee from engaging in some voter fraud prevention efforts without prior court consent, especially in areas where racial or ethnic makeup could be considered a motivating factor: 1982

Date on which the Republican elections board chair in Henderson County, North Carolina, announced that he had discussed with the local sheriff the idea of deputizing and arming civilians to patrol the polls before abandoning it as unfeasible: 8/16/2016

Date on which a Trump supporter in Florida tweeted a photograph of a pickup with a cage in the truck bed and the message, "Florida, we gonna landslide TRUMP … We gonna be watch'n fer shenanigans … & haul ya away": 8/19/2016

Date on which the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, citing the weakening of the Voting Rights Act and Trump's call for election observers, sent a letter asking the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to expand its election monitoring mission in the U.S. and target resources to states where voter discrimination and intimidation is most likely, including Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina and Texas: 8/20/2016

Year OSCE began sending observers to monitor U.S. elections: 2002

Year in which Greg Abbott, then the Republican attorney general of Texas and now the state's governor, threatened to arrest OSCE monitors sent to his state: 2012

Number of observers OSCE sent to monitor the last U.S. presidential election: 44

Minimum number of observers OSCE is planning to send this year: 500

* Alabama, Alaska, California, Louisiana, and New York.

(Click on figure to go to source.)