Civil rights advocates plan to send thousands of observers to midterm polling places

It was loteria night at the offices of Living United for Change in Arizona, or LUCHA, in Phoenix.

A small group of young people were playing this bingo-like card game in the hopes of taking home an array of prizes: a camping chair, reusable water bottles and coolers.

Conveniently, the prizes would be useful if you plan to camp out somewhere for a while. Which happens to be what these players were getting trained to do last week.

LUCHA, a left-of-center community organizing group, has been training volunteers to be what they call "constitutional observers" ahead of this year's midterms. This was the first of many in-person sessions the organization plans to hold as Election Day nears.

Carime Rodriguez, who led the training, told volunteers that their main job will be to just observe.

"Monitor the polling environment," she said. "Stay aware of what's happening on the ground … just make sure you are kind of keeping your eyes open."

For many election cycles, groups have fanned out to monitor polling places, but the charged midterm environment has many organizations stepping up efforts. They plan to have thousands of individuals with eyes on this election.

Fears of ICE at the polls

For LUCHA's Rodriguez, immigration is a concern. She told her training volunteers that during Arizona's primaries earlier this year, there was an uptick in immigration enforcement — including around polling sites in Maricopa County, where Phoenix is located.

And in case this happens again, LUCHA and other similar groups want to have people on the ground, to keep an eye out for anything they think could intimidate voters. Chiefly, groups say they are worried about Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, agents at election sites.

"I feel like these last two years, everyone has been holding on by the edge of their seats," said Alejandra Gomez, LUCHA's executive director. "And so that has made us incredibly forward thinking and making sure that we are preparing. We're hoping for the best, preparing for the worst."

It would be illegal for the Trump administration to send armed agents to polling sites. And administration officials have said ICE has no plans to target polling locations. But right-wing political figures close to Trump like Steven Bannon have been calling for the president to send them anyway, and Trump officials have said ICE could serve warrants at polling places.

Mary Corcoran, co-founder and executive director of the left-leaning Save America Movement, said that's enough for her to take this potential threat seriously.

"The point is to scare people and use fear as an intimidation factor to keep people home," she told NPR. "So, our perspective was that the way that we could make a difference in this election was working in communities that would be most likely impacted by the threat of ICE coming to the polls this fall."

Corcoran's group is partnering with the Rev. Al Sharpton's National Action Network, as well as various unions, like the American Federation of Teachers, in an effort they are calling Vote Safe.

She said members of the effort plan to be in major population centers with large and growing Black, Latino, Asian and immigrant populations — particularly in states with key Senate races, like Ohio, North Carolina, Georgia and Michigan.

"The volunteers are not there to engage with any ICE folks that could show up," she said. "It's really about having a de-escalatory impact by way of really bearing witness."

She said the presence of clergy, veterans, teachers and nurses from the community will hopefully have a "de-escalatory impact and a deterrent impact."

DOJ election observers

Left-leaning groups won't be the only folks at the polls. The Republican National Committee, for one, recruits observers to keep elections secure and transparent. And leaders of the Justice Department, which regularly monitors polling places, say they plan to step up their usual presence.

Harmeet Dhillon, the head of DOJ's Civil Rights Division, said on Real America's Voice that she plans to send a thousand people from the agency to monitor polling sites.

"This is going to be the biggest DOJ election observer effort in history," she said. "And I'm so excited to be leading that effort."

She said that DOJ staff will play a similar role to other observers that will be at the polls, which is just to watch.

"They're not going to be interfering in any way or running the election, they're going to be observing, making notes," she said.

Wyoming's Republican governor criticized the actions of DOJ observers in the state in August.

"Not normal times"

Tammy Patrick with the National Association of Election Officials says election administrators have been hearing of big plans of large groups of observers for a while now. But Patrick said it's important to note that this is something they hear most election cycles.

"Every two years it seems, for at least the 20 or so years I've been doing this, we hear that there's going to be massive observation, and thousands of people are going to show up to observe at the polling place," she said.

"It hasn't manifested in that way in the past, but these are not normal times."

Which is why she says election administrators are educating the public. Rules about who can observe what, or how close you can be to a polling site, for example, vary from state to state.

Also, there is only so much observers can actually do at the polls. If something goes wrong, it's up to election workers and local law enforcement to sort it out.

Patrick said most years many observers get bored and leave.

"The actual process tends to be ... pretty dry," she said. "And one might even say boring to watch people walk in, give their name, sign their name, get their ballot."

But if things are not boring, Jane Kleeb with the Association of State Democratic Committees — which is part of the Democratic National Committee — said she wants people on the ground recording.

For political parties, the stakes of problems at the polls are high — particularly in close elections, where lawsuits are common.

"We're going to record any bad behavior," she said. "So that might be on audio. It may be still pictures, and it will be video that will then be sent to each state party. So, then they can get that information up to the DNC. So, we have a very clear process to make sure that we're documenting all of this in case lawsuits have to be filed."