CHANDLER, Ariz. — At balloon-adorned tables in red, white and blue, a handful of voters inside a church gymnasium listened as Medina Moore explained what to do if federal agents show up at the polls. Call a hotline, she told volunteers, where attorneys will be ready to respond. Take videos, report what you see and remove yourself from any situation that becomes intense, she advised.
It was one of Moore’s final poll monitor trainings in the Phoenix area before election day, preparing a few new “peacekeepers” to join the ranks of about 200 she has recruited from local faith groups in the Phoenix area to greet voters, answer questions and keep an eye out for issues at voting sites on Tuesday. Being able to educate voters on what’s true and what’s not is very important.” As lawyers nationwide prepare defenses against possible election interference by the Trump administration and election officials train for worst-case scenarios, ordinary citizens across the country are also readying to help. Through nonpartisan groups, parents are training to be poll monitors, law students are staffing legal hotlines, veterans are holding voting events and business owners are signing pledges to back local election officials.
The grassroots efforts, underpinned by various voting and democracy nonprofits, amount to a striking push by American voters to help uphold the nation’s election system in the face of possible threats from its own government. More than 21,000 people nationwide have been trained as nonpartisan poll monitors through the Election Protection coalition, the program that Moore used, along with thousands of others through other nonprofit and partisan efforts. The effort is aimed at helping ensure voter turnout at a time when Trump’s rhetoric has eroded public trust in the system and many GOP-led states have enacted new ballot rules for voters to navigate.
Worry among voters about whether their ballots will be counted has accelerated, according to organizers; in a recent AP-NORC poll, just under half of American voters expressed confidence that midterm votes will be counted accurately. The best way to combat those fears, she said, is for as many people as possible to “show up and exercise their right.” Since returning to office, Trump has undertaken a sweeping effort to exert control over and cast doubt on U.S. elections, and the administration has intensified its efforts as the midterms draw closer. In recent days, the Justice Department has sued California, arrested residents and threatened to prosecute election officials over an unsubstantiated government claim of 20,000 “likely noncitizen” voters; moved to block certification of Alaska’s election results if the Republican candidate for Senate there loses narrowly; and began notifying counties of its plan to send federal monitors to polling places in every state.
Todd Blanche last week said the Justice Department did not intend to interfere with elections. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) committed to a peaceful transfer of power if Democrats win a majority, saying, “We’re going to follow the Constitution,” but predicted there would be no transfer because Republicans would win the majority. Trump told reporters Tuesday that he would respect the election results “if they’re honest elections.” Preparations by lawyers, nonprofits and Democratic lawmakers to anticipate how the Trump administration could try to interfere with the midterms have been underway for months.
Courts have already blocked many of the administration’s steps, including attempts to access state voter rolls, restrict voting by mail and demand states change some election rules. The grassroots effort has grown out of existing programs — the Election Protection coalition has been operating since 2000 — but interest from volunteers is particularly high this year, organizers from several groups said. Now, election denialism is on the ballot: The Republican nominees for governor, secretary of state and attorney general each played a role in Trump’s denial of the 2020 results.
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