Democrats Recruit Tens of Thousands of Poll Monitors
Democrats Recruit Tens of Thousands of Poll Monitors
The News
Democrats plan to train tens of thousands of volunteers to monitor polling places in the November midterms, an effort built around the expectation that President Trump and his allies will try to interfere in the vote, The Guardian reported Monday.
The nationwide initiative is called the New Battlefield Project. It is designed to help state Democratic committees recruit and prepare volunteers to watch the polls, counter voter intimidation, push early voting and respond to disinformation.
The Associated Press and PBS NewsHour reported the same day that Democrats and allied activist groups are drawing up contingency plans for a federal attempt to intervene in the election.
Timeline
The Guardian reports that Democrats will train tens of thousands of poll monitors under the New Battlefield Project, working through state Democratic committees.
The Associated Press and PBS NewsHour report that Democrats and activist groups are preparing to push back if Trump tries to interfere in the midterms.
Midterm elections. Voting in some states is already underway, according to PBS NewsHour.
Reactions
Democrats behind the project frame it as insurance rather than prediction: volunteers on the ground at precincts, early-vote encouragement, and a rapid answer to false claims about the count, per The Guardian's account of the plan.
PBS NewsHour described the planning as anxious, and called it "a marker for how fraught democracy has become in the country that once stood as an example to the world."
The Wire cluster's four reports do not include a response from Trump, the White House or the Republican National Committee.
What's Next
Recruitment and training run through state Democratic committees ahead of November, with the volunteer force aimed at precincts on Election Day and at the early-voting period that precedes it.
The open questions are how many volunteers actually get trained, where they are deployed, and whether the federal government takes any action on election administration that triggers the contingency plans the AP and PBS describe.
More
Poll monitoring is a long-standing party activity on both sides — volunteers observe procedures at precincts and report problems to lawyers. What is new here is the scale Democrats are claiming and the stated reason for it: not routine coverage, but the anticipation of interference from a sitting president and his allies.
Poll
Are tens of thousands of trained poll monitors a good idea?
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