In recent weeks, Trump has raised the specter of voter fraud in response to polls suggesting that he is on his way to an unprecedented mollywhopping. Earlier this month, for example, Trump insisted at a rally in Altoona, Pennsylvania, that the only way he will lose the swing state is if “in certain sections of the state, they cheat.”

There’s no voter fraud crisis. Not a single investigation has turned up any evidence of such a thing.

But that hasn’t stopped Donald Trump from hyperventilating about it, or ranting about his plans to stop that from happening: namely, amassing a network of volunteers and law enforcement for a military-style operation that will somehow ensure that “Crooked Hillary,” as he has taken to calling her, doesn’t rig the election. This, as you can imagine, has alarming implications, especially for Black voters. However, a settlement agreement made between the Republican National Committee (RNC) and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) 26 years ago may throw a wrench into Trump’s plans.

First things first, let’s get something straight: Trump’s accusation that “certain sections” may cheat and deprive him of a win is not so much a dog-whistle as it is a dog vuvuzela.

By referring to “certain sections” of the state as more likely to “cheat,” Trump likely means predominantly Black precincts in Philadelphia. To Black folks, remarks about “certain sections” in Pennsylvania are clear. As Darrell L. Clarke, Philadelphia’s city council president, told the New York Times, “When you talk about ‘certain areas’ in Pennsylvania, we all know what that means,” he said. “He’s talking about Philadelphia and some of the urban areas.”

These areas have featured prominently in many conservative conspiracy theories about voter fraud, especially caterwauling about Mitt Romney garnering zero votes in 59 of Philly’s 1,700 voting divisions on Election Day in 2012. For example, Sean Hannity, who is one of the main drivers of the pro-Trump train at Fox News, recently tweeted that Romney’s failure to get even one vote in “certain sections” in Philadelphia—North and West Philadelphia to be precise—is proof positive of voter fraud.

I’m from North Philly. I went to high school in West Philly. (West Philadelphia, you may remember, is also where the Fresh Prince was born and raised; in the playground is where he spent most of his days.) North and West Philly are chock full of Black people. In other words, it’s not surprising that Romney failed to get any votes in predominantly Black and Democratic precincts when he ran against a sitting Black president.

President Obama got 93 percent of the Black vote nationwide to Romney’s 6 percent. Currently, Donald Trump is polling at one percent with Black people in Pennsylvania.

Still, as far as Trump seems to see it, without voter fraud, he would win in these “certain sections.”

This prompted Trump to make that recent plea to his supporters in Altoona: “I hope you people can sort of not just vote on the eighth [but] go around and look and watch other polling places and make sure that it’s 100 percent fine.”

And it goes beyond Altoona. Filling out a form on Trump’s website lands you on a list of people whom the Trump campaign intends to use to serve as election observers. These observers will report what they perceive as election shenanigans to Trump’s team of lawyers who will be standing at the ready.

Randy Evans, chairman of the Republican National Lawyers Association—which, according to the Washington Post, met with a Trump campaign attorney to discuss building an election protection network—has said that his intent is to “create a pretty select, Navy SEAL-type operation” around the country that might include “7,000 lawyers on the ground, and 200 sophisticated election attorneys on call.”

If the prospect of a military-style operation being deployed in Black neighborhoods in Philly in order to, as Trump put it, “make sure people don’t come in and vote five times” doesn’t scare you—Navy SEAL-type operation? Really?—then perhaps Trump’s promise to enlist law enforcement will.

“We have a lot of law enforcement people working that day,” Trump said at that same rally in Altoona, Pennsylvania. “We’re hiring a lot of people. We’re putting a lot of law enforcement—we’re going to watch Pennsylvania,” he promised.

Specifically, threatening to use police as monitors, as Solomon Jones pointed out in Newsworks, “resurrects the history that created the enmity between African Americans and law enforcement.”

Black people are no stranger to government-sanctioned violence intended to interfere with their right to vote. Indeed, as Jones writes, that violence played out in Philadelphia in 1871, when Octavius V. Catto, a leader in the Black community in Philadelphia, decided to register Black people to vote. Catto supported Republicans—who, at the time, were viewed as more progressive than the Democrats.

“On October 10, Election Day, the Democrats responded by encouraging gangs of white thugs to roam the black community in an effort to depress black turnout,” wrote Jones.

“Numerous historical accounts say Frank Kelly, a white Democratic Party operative, shot Catto dead that day. Catto’s body was carried to the police station, though doing so had little affect [sic] since historical accounts say police, many of whom were Irish immigrants who supported the Democrats, refused to provide protection for black residents,” Jones continued.

Ultimately, an all-white jury would acquit Kelly of Catto’s murder.

It’s almost 150 years later, and the relationship between Black communities and the police isn’t much better. And the prospect of police and vigilantes roaming Black precincts on the look-out for voting tomfoolery might be enough to cause some Black voters to stay home.

And considering that Trump is polling at 2 percent with Black voters nationally, the fewer Black voters that make it to the polls, the better for Trump.

But, Imani, you may be yelling exasperatedly. The Obama campaign had an entire manual dedicated to teaching volunteers how to function as election observers. That is certainly what some conservatives are arguing.

Yes, but it was the modern Republican party that was forced into a settlement agreement in 1982, and which has been unable to extricate itself from that agreement over the past 30 years.

The DNC had filed a lawsuit against the RNC in 1981, following accusations that the RNC had engaged in “voter caging”: a practice used to identify and disenfranchise improperly registered voters solely on the basis of an undeliverable mailing.

The RNC had created a “voter challenge” list by mailing sample ballots to individuals in precincts with a large population of people of color, and then included people whose postcards were returned as undeliverable on a list of voters to challenge at the polls.

In addition, the RNC had recruited off-duty sheriffs and police officers to intimidate voters by standing at polling places in precincts where the majority of individuals were people of color during voting, with “National Ballot Security Task Force” armbands. (Sound familiar?)

Rather than fight a costly legal battle in court, the RNC decided to settle by entering into a consent decree with the DNC. (Don’t know what a consent decree is? Read this explainer I wrote.)

A key provision of the consent decree prohibits the sort of vigilantism that Trump apparently intends to employ in order to ensure that “certain sections” of Pennsylvania don’t cheat: It requires the RNC to “refrain from giving any directions to or permitting their employees to campaign within restricted polling areas or to interrogate prospective voters as to their qualifications to vote prior to their entry to a polling place.”

In 1987, the RNC and DNC renegotiated the consent decree in the wake of accusations that in Louisiana, the RNC had again engaged in a voter caging program. The RNC’s midwest political director wrote a memorandum that emerged during the fact-finding process to the RNC’s southern political director that stated “this program will eliminate at least 60,000-80,000 folks from the rolls …. If it’s a close race .… which I’m assuming it is, this could keep the black vote down considerably.”

The renegotiated consent decree allows the RNC to deploy people to perform “normal poll watch[ing] functions,” but those people can’t use the results of voter challenge lists or any other ballot security effort prohibited by the consent decree. And to top it all off, the RNC must submit any ballot security plan to the district court and to the DNC in advance, so that the court can make sure that the ballot security plan isn’t unlawful or part of some voter intimidation scheme.

In 1990, the RNC violated the consent decree again: The court found that the RNC had conspired with the North Carolina Republican Party to intimidate voters by sending 150,000 postcards to residents of predominantly Black precincts that warned voters it is “a federal crime … to knowingly give false information about your name, residence, or period of residence to an election official.” Given the tense relationship between Black communities and the police, it’s no surprise that Black voters might sit out an election in order to avoid even the possibility of a run-in with the law.

The postcards also falsely stated that voters were required to comply with a 30-day minimum residency period before casting a ballot in that precinct.

And later in 2004, the court barred the RNC from using a voter challenge list it had developed with Ohio Republicans for ballot security efforts.

In 2008, the DNC complained again. This time, the RNC was victorious. Judge Dickinson R. Debevoise—who had been monitoring the consent decree since its inception in 1981—cleared the RNC of charges that it had participated in illegal ballot security measures in New Mexico. Fresh off the heels of its victory, the RNC tried to extricate itself from the consent decree to which it had been subjected for 26 years.

The RNC argued before the Third Circuit Court of Appeals that the consent decree was thwarting its efforts to combat voter fraud, and was no longer necessary to prevent intimidation of voters of color, in part because of the fact that President Obama and then-Attorney General Eric Holder are Black—which, it claimed, would increase the likelihood of prosecutions of violations of the Voting Rights Act. (The flip side of that sentiment is rather alarming: that white presidents and attorneys general don’t give a hoot about voter suppression or the voting rights of Black people.)

The RNC also argued that the head of the RNC, Michael Steele, was Black—as was the chief administrative officer—which would decrease the likelihood that the RNC would engage in ballot security efforts resulting in minority voter suppression.

Setting aside that it is absurd to think that officials embarking on voter intimidation and suppression efforts nationwide to, as the RNC midwest political director said, “keep Black votes down” would be less inclined to participate in such efforts because a Black guy served as RNC chair for a few years, again, the RNC’s argument suggests that the only people in the Republican Party who champion voting rights are Black people.

The Third Circuit made quick work of this argument, unanimously smacking it down: “The RNC’s argument that the fact that President Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder, RNC Chairman Michael Steele, and another RNC leader are minorities justifies vacatur or modification of the [consent decree] hardly requires a serious response.”

The sort of tactics that Trump is threatening to deploy, however, do require a serious response—one that the consent decree may already address. If the consent decree applies to Trump, then Trump will have to submit any ballot security plan to the Court and to the DNC for preclearance.

The consent decree applies to “the RNC, its agents, servants, and employees,” “whether acting directly or indirectly through other party committees.”

The question becomes, then, whether Trump is an agent, servant, or employee of the RNC. University of California-Irvine professor and elections law expert Rick Hasen thinks he might be. “They are certainly acting in concert, and it is plausible to argue that Trump and the RNC are agents of each other for purposes of this election,” Hansen argued on his blog.

It is unclear what will become of Trump’s ballot security effort. What is clear, however, is that neither his ballot security program, nor any as-yet-unannounced program that the Clinton campaign may plan to initiate, will measurably reduce voter fraud, because voter fraud is so rare that it has no effect on elections. A study conducted by Loyola Law School Professor Justin Levitt found a mere 31 credible incidents of voter impersonation out of more than 1 billion votes that were cast nationwide from 2000 through 2014.

Still, there has been much conservative complaining that the consent decree effectively ensures that the RNC is powerless to combat voter fraud. This, of course, is nonsense. Republicans are, in fact, concerned about their winnowing support in the face of a shrinking white electorate.

The notion that Trump in particular is concerned about voter fraud rather than intimidating Black people and suppressing the Black vote is hard to swallow. Trump has spent his campaign demonizing people of color and fomenting violence against them, whether it’s having his staff  “look into” paying the legal fees for one of his rally attendees who assaulted a person of color, castigating Mexican immigrants as “rapists,” or threatening to ban Muslims from entering the country.

Trump has been making laughable efforts last week to pivot and garner votes from Blacks and Latinos, all the while expressing a willingness to stir up more discord between his overwhelmingly white supporters and voters of color in “certain areas,” and to call upon law enforcement to preside over polling stations in already overpoliced communities.

Fortunately, the DNC is not without recourse when it comes to ensuring vigilantism doesn’t trump election integrity and the right to vote.