Meet the volunteers who will observe Trump’s election monitors during the midterms

Thousands of volunteers are being trained as nonpartisan poll observers before the November 3 midterms, even as the Justice Department prepares to send about 1,000 federal monitors to polling sites. The department bills this as the biggest such effort in its history and says it will keep voting fair. Critics suing the government say it could intimidate voters, and the administration has not ruled out sending ICE or other law enforcement to polling places, according to The Guardian.

In Phoenix, Living United for Change in Arizona and the Arizona Center for Empowerment are preparing recruits after Republican state lawmakers introduced a bill to station ICE agents at polls. Mapping immigration enforcement in Maricopa and Pima counties, the groups found that the neighborhoods hit hardest often already faced obstacles to voting. They recorded a spike in reported raids before the July primary, plus ICE activity near several West Phoenix polling places. The plan calls for three or four observers at each site who simply watch and report to organizers.

Volunteer Stevie Lyn, who worked the primary, met only one problem: a campaigner crossing the legal boundary. Lyn hopes for an uneventful November 3.

Summarized by PolitiKool from The Guardian’s reporting. Read the full story at The Guardian →