Voting rights groups and Democratic officials are looking to defend against what they see as possible election interference from the Trump administration ahead of the upcoming midterm elections, now that they’ve won a major battle over mail ballots.
Common Cause, a nonpartisan pro-democracy organization, announced a “voter protection” campaign Thursday that would place thousands of volunteers at polling sites in 25 states.
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The initiative is designed to counter potential administration moves to intimidate voters, such as ordering troops or law enforcement officers to polling places.
The Democratic Party is also upping its voter protection efforts, launching its own initiative this week to deploy 10,000 volunteers to assist voters at polling locations in all 50 states plus seven U.S. territories.
Both efforts are described as preemptive efforts to head off any possible attempts by President Donald Trump to skew election results. Trump for years has alleged, without evidence, U.S. elections are beset by myriad attempts at fraud.
He has used that pretext in attempts to enact policies to restrict voting, including the order limiting vote-by-mail that the U.S. Supreme Court blocked for this election.
‘Breathing down our neck’
Voting rights advocates say they are preparing for more efforts to dissuade voters from casting ballots.
Voters are “facing aggressive and deliberate threats from this administration and anti-voter forces that are tied to this administration,” Common Cause CEO Virginia Kase Solomón said. “Whether it be voter intimidation at the polls, the attacks on mail-in voting or attempts to collect your personal data, the barriers that voters are facing right now … are not only real, they are urgent. And they are intentionally designed to make everyday Americans give up.”
The Democratic plan, led by the Association of State Democratic Conferences, a coalition of the 57 state and territorial party leaders, was also in part a reaction to Trump, ASDC Chair Jane Kleeb said in an interview.
“We had to react to the threat that was breathing down our neck,” Kleeb, who is also the chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party, said in an interview.
Trump has broadly accused Democrats of trying to cheat, and has placed particular focus on the possibility of noncitizens voting.
White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis wrote in a Thursday email that the administration would continue to guard against that possibility.
“Despite extreme Democrats and the media claiming it never happens, the evidence of non-citizens registering and voting in our elections continues to pile up,” Bis wrote. “Any non-citizens found registering and voting in our elections will be arrested and held accountable. Only Americans should be electing American leaders.”
The Justice Department has charged a handful of voter fraud cases of foreign nationals in recent months.
The administration has also argued a software glitch in New Jersey that registered 6,600 noncitizens showed why tighter regulations on voting are needed.
“There continues to be a narrative and a concern that noncitizens are voting,” Ari Mittelman, the executive director of the civic education group Keep Our Republic, said, adding that examples like the New Jersey glitch kept the issue “on the minds of many.”
Troops at the polls?
Common Cause officials and Kleeb highlighted the possibility of federal troops or law enforcement, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement, at polling places as a strong concern.
“We don’t know exactly what Donald Trump is going to do,” Kleeb, whose interview was conducted before the Supreme Court’s mail voting decision on Sept. 14, said. “But if we take him at his word, he will disrupt the vote-by-mail process, and he will have people outside of polling locations to intimidate voters.”
Administration officials have dismissed the idea of sending federal agents to the polls, but have not completely ruled it out.
FBI Director Kash Patel repeatedly dodged the question during a U.S. Senate hearing Wednesday.
At a press conference this month, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said ICE would not have a sizable presence at election sites, but could deploy as part of the agency’s routine duties.
“ICE isn’t there to patrol the polling places,” Mullin said. “We’re there to enforce specific threats. The only reason why we would be at polling places: Because there is a threat to that polling place or we are serving a warrant on someone we are actively tracking down.”
And then-White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called a question about sending ICE agents to the polls “disingenuous” at a February press briefing.
“I can’t guarantee that an ICE agent won’t be around a polling location in November. I mean, that’s frankly a very silly hypothetical question,” she said. “But what I can tell you is I haven’t heard the president discuss any formal plans to put ICE outside of polling locations.”
Disinformation, distrust
Trump’s relentless focus on election regulations has contributed to a distrust of elections. Only 34% of adults in a AP-NORC and USAFacts poll this month said they trust government certifications of election results “a great deal” or “quite a bit.”
Solomon said on the Thursday press call announcing the voter protection drive that the administration and its allies were seeking to sow distrust in the election.
The program, which the group said was the country’s largest nonpartisan election protection effort, hopes to counter that narrative by installing voter advocates at polling stations.
Volunteers will receive about an hour to 90 minutes of training on their state’s voting laws and how to help voters. ASDC volunteers will also receive about an hour of training.
“They are trained to check for things like signage, polling place accessibility, long lines,” Common Cause Director of Policy Carol Evans said. “They are trained to be a positive and joyful presence at the polls to make the experience better for voters. And importantly, they are our eyes and ears on the ground to alert us to serious issues.”
In another voter education initiative, Keep Our Republic has launched a series of town hall-style events in the five states in which it operates — Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — to give election officials a platform to speak to voters and increase trust in the election process, Mittleman said.
Georgia Recorder is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
