Democrats to train tens of thousands to monitor polls amid election interference fears

The Democrats intend to train tens of thousands of volunteers to monitor the polls and counter possible voter intimidation under a new plan to protect November’s US midterm elections from anticipated interference from Donald Trump and his allies.The nationwide initiative, dubbed the New Battlefield Project, will help state Democratic committees build up a vast coalition of volunteers to monitor the polls, push voters to cast their ballots early and create a network to respond to disinformation.The Association of State Democratic Committees (ASDC), an arm of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), plans to train volunteers across 57 states and territories. It hopes to train volunteers for 25% of the nation’s 95,000 election day polling places, focusing on districts with competitive races.These volunteers will wear blue vests to provide a visible presence intended to counter any voter intimidation, including by federal agents. Each state party has a trained election protection director.The Trump administration has not explicitly ruled out sending federal agents to cities during the election, and some of the president’s allies have called on him to send immigration agents to the polls. The homeland security secretary, Markwayne Mullin, previously said immigration agents’ job isn’t to patrol polling places, but they could go to polling places if there was a threat or to serve a warrant.The president has personally made a series of interventions that have fanned fears that he could meddle in the upcoming elections, and even declare a national emergency in a bid to exert greater control over the process.Jane Kleeb, the chair of the Nebraska Democratic party and president of the ASDC, said the project is much more extensive and coordinated than the party has been in the past on election protection. “We didn’t want to be caught flat-footed on election day or leading up to election day,” she said.These volunteers will be trained to “be happy” and respond to any voter needs, including helping them find a polling location if they’re in the wrong place, or informing them they can cast provisional ballots if they need to, Kleeb said. They will also document whether others at the polls are hindering voters.“We don’t know if there are going to be a bunch of insurrectionist types out there trying to intimidate voters, but we’re going to be there happy with information, but we’re also going to be there trained to document if the other side is doing things that are violating the law,” she said.The party will additionally push out its first national early-vote campaign, telling voters to “bank their vote” by casting ballots early by mail or in person. This will include ad campaigns focused on communities at risk of Republican election interference.The state parties and the DNC typically run get-out-the-vote programs, but this year’s will include more explicit directions to voters – telling them to vote early, and not let a mail ballot sit on their kitchen counter for weeks before turning it in, Kleeb said. The party will also push for people to vote early in person.“We don’t know what Donald Trump is going to do. We’ve heard some of the things that he may do, but none of us can predict his behavior,” she said. “He’s so chaotic. All of us have witnessed certainly that. So the earlier you can vote, the better.”The third part of the project will spin up a “democracy defense network”, led by Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg, designed to identify and counter tactics that can sway elections, including disinformation, dark money, manipulation via artificial intelligence and election subversion.The network will allow state parties to communicate with each other about these threats to share knowledge, with a goal to get ahead of such tactics before they gain traction.