https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/17/us/politics/midterm-elections-challenges.html
Right-Wing Leaders Mobilize Corps of Election Activists
Officials are prepared for aggressive challenges in midterm elections. “We’re going to adjudicate every battle,” Stephen K. Bannon said. ..."Their tactics in primary elections have officials braced for a range of new challenges, including disruptive poll watchers and workers, aggressive litigation strategies, voter and ballot challenges and vigilante searches for fraud.”
COMMENT: There is no similar nationwide effort by the Democratic Party to protect elections. If you feel compelled to do something to help combat this and protect democracy in New York, volunteer with or donate to the following organizations that have training for working in poll sites or on the phone. Please forward this information widely. Thanks. Allegra Dengler
NYDLC https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc1Gft2omKdi-4R90iFo6hUBnNbQ-r3LDgG7dXms6j0rlMDww/viewform
NYDLC responded to several reports of voter intimidation, suppression, and election subversion during the June and August primary elections - a signal of what's to come in November. We need trained eyes and ears on the ground, ensuring every eligible voter casts a ballot fairly and without intimidation.
The Election Protection program is mobilizing a grassroots volunteer program that’s unprecedented for a midterm election — recruiting, training, and placing hundreds of nonpartisan volunteers across New York to help voters know their rights and to ensure that votes are properly and correctly counted.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/17/us/politics/midterm-elections-challenges.html
Right-Wing Leaders Mobilize Corps of Election Activists
Officials are prepared for aggressive challenges in midterm elections. “We’re going to adjudicate every battle,” Stephen K. Bannon said.
By Alexandra Berzon and Nick Corasaniti
• Oct. 17, 2022
On the eve of a primary runoff election in June, a Republican candidate for secretary of state of South Carolina sent out a message to his supporters.
“For all of you on the team tomorrow observing the polls, Good Hunting,” Keith Blandford, a candidate who promoted the falsehood that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald J. Trump, wrote on the social media app Telegram. “You know what you are looking for. We have the enemy on their back foot, press the attack.”
The next day, activists fanned out to polling places in Charleston, S.C., demanding to inspect election equipment and to take photographs and video. When election workers denied their requests, some returned with police officers to file reports about broken or missing seals on the machines, according to emails from local officials to the state election commission. There were no broken or missing seals.
After Mr. Blandford lost, the activists posted online a list of more than 60 “anomalies” they observed, enough to have changed the outcome of races, they said. They called the operation a “pilot program.”
The episode is one of many that have election officials on alert as voting begins for midterm elections, the biggest test of the American election system since Mr. Trump’s lies about the 2020 results launched an assault on the democratic process.
In the two years since, groups of right-wing activists have banded together, spreading false claims of widespread election fraud and misconduct. Now those activists are inserting themselves in the vote count, with a broad and aggressive effort to monitor voting in search of evidence that confirms their theories. Many activists have been mobilized by some of the same people who tried to overturn Mr. Trump’s defeat in 2020.
Their tactics in primary elections have officials braced for a range of new challenges, including disruptive poll watchers and workers, aggressive litigation strategies, voter and ballot challenges and vigilante searches for fraud.
Many of the election activists have been mobilized by the same people who tried to overturn Donald J. Trump’s defeat in 2020.Credit...Tamir Kalifa for The New York Times
Both Republican and Democratic election officials say the efforts are unlikely to cause widespread disorder. They are prepared to accurately count the tens of millions of votes expected in the coming weeks, they said. But episodes such as the one in South Carolina come with consequences, spawning misinformation and spreading doubt about results, particularly in close races.
“In a way, it’s the manifestation of a self-fulfilling prophecy,” said Tammy Patrick, who works with election officials as a senior adviser at the Democracy Fund. Activists primed to see misconduct are more likely to blow minor errors out of proportion and cause disruptions “that will just bolster their claims,” she said.
Interviews with election officials and activists, public records and planning emails obtained by The New York Times show that the extensive network of organizers includes Republican Party officials, mainstream conservative groups and the most conspiracy-minded corners of the election denial movement.
The groups appear to be building on the tactics used two years ago: compiling testimony from G.O.P.-allied poll workers, the temporary employees who run polling places, and poll watchers, the volunteers who monitor operations, to build challenges and contest results.
“We are 100 times more prepared now,” Stephen K. Bannon, a former adviser to Mr. Trump who was involved in efforts to overturn the 2020 election, said in an interview. Mr. Bannon hosts a podcast that has become a clearinghouse for right-wing election activists. “We’re going to adjudicate every battle. That’s the difference.”
Mr. Bannon was found guilty in July of contempt of Congress for not cooperating with the House committee investigating the attack of Jan. 6, 2021. On Monday, prosecutors recommended that he serve six months in jail, while Mr. Bannon argued he should have no jail time.
Both Democrats and Republicans have long enlisted poll watchers and workers to oversee voting and planned ahead for disputes. But this year, officials are grappling with the prospect that those efforts may be driven by activists who spread fantastical or debunked theories.
Officials saw evidence of the new organizing in primary elections. In Michigan, a poll worker was charged with tampering with an election computer. In Texas, activists followed election officials to their offices and tried to enter secured areas. In Alabama, activists tried to insert fake ballots into a machine during public testing.
In Kansas, activists funded a recount of a ballot measure on abortion rights that required Johnson County to count a quarter million ballots by hand, even though the measure failed by 18 percentage points. Fred Sherman, the county’s election chief, said that some workers involved appeared to be election deniers. He called the police to remove one who breached security, he said. The recount went smoothly, he added, but was “terrifying.”
“We have to be mindful we may have people who may not have the best of intentions from an election integrity standpoint,” Mr. Sherman said.
Election officials have spent months preparing for the challenges. Some have participated in exercises organized by the F.B.I. on how to handle threats, including physical aggression toward election workers. They have held “de-escalation” training for their staff. Some have changed their offices, adding fences and other barriers.
“When people see everyone working hard and ethically and toward the same goal — who wants to disrupt that?” said Stephen Richer, the recorder of Maricopa County in Arizona.
Activists say they are trying to ensure that all rules are followed and only eligible voters cast ballots.
“We have people trained in the law so they can then observe and document and report when things are not being conducted according to the law,” Cleta Mitchell, an organizer of one of the national groups involved in training activists and a lawyer who assisted Mr. Trump in his failed 2020 challenges, said recently on Mr. Bannon’s podcast. Ms. Mitchell said her network had trained more than 20,000 people into what she described as a “citizens’ detective agency.”
She did not respond to requests for comment.
In many places, political parties have a direct role in recruiting poll workers and monitors. The Republican National Committee said it had placed more than 56,000 workers and monitors in primary and special elections this year and expected more in the general election. In several battleground states, the committee has also hired what it calls “election integrity” officials.
The Democratic National Committee casts its efforts as “voter protection” and has hired 25 directors and 129 staff members across the country. The committee did not provide the total number of poll workers or monitors it recruited.
Observers watched as voters cast ballots at Rancho High School on Election Day in Las Vegas in 2020.Credit...Bridget Bennett for The New York Times
Democrats and Republicans have filed an early blitz of election litigation: 96 lawsuits, according to Democracy Docket, a left-leaning election legal group. The tally is split roughly evenly between the sides.
In a replay of 2020, many of the fights are focused on absentee ballots: More than half of the lawsuits by Republican-aligned groups are disputes over mail voting rules, such as how to fix errors on a ballot, according to Democracy Docket.
Some voting rights advocates and Democratic groups say they are watching for another similarity to 2020, when Mr. Trump and his allies tried to stop the results from being certified.
“There’s the underlying concern about in some of these places, where you’ve got political people certifying the election, whether they’ll certify the election and then what the crisis will be,” said Jonathan Greenbaum, chief counsel for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a nonpartisan group.
Some of the people involved in the 2020 challenges are now leading organizers.
Patrick Byrne, the former chief executive of Overstock.com and a purveyor of election conspiracy theories, is recruiting activists through his group, the America Project. Michael Flynn, Mr. Trump’s first national security adviser, is a co-founder and is advising the group. (Both men attended a December 2020 meeting at the White House where Mr. Flynn urged Mr. Trump to seize voting machines.)
In Michigan, a state party official is identified in documents as the state director of America Project’s effort — called Operation Eagles Wings — in documents. That official also coordinates with Ms. Mitchell’s Election Integrity Network, which hosts strategy calls and training, according to emails obtained by The Times.
On his “War Room” podcast, Mr. Bannon tells listeners that Democrats will win elections only if they steal them. He and his allies can prevent that “by taking over the election apparatus,” he said on his show this month.
Mr. Bannon has been directing followers to websites that encourage a sort of election vigilantism. The Gateway Pundit, a right-wing website, urges activists to demand that observers be allowed to watch as ballots are loaded onto trucks at post offices and to insist that they get closer to the ballot counting than the rules allow.
Mr. Bannon has also urged his listeners to take over local parties, which in some states have a role in selecting poll workers
In El Paso County, Colo., the head of the local G.O.P., who has aligned with influential election deniers, asked the county clerk to remove several longtime poll workers whom she described in an email as “unfaithful” to the party. The clerk, Chuck Broerman, said he reluctantly fulfilled the request because he was required to by law.
“The individuals they are removing have been longstanding dedicated hard-working Republicans,” said Mr. Broerman, who is also a former county party chairman.
In North Carolina, a right-wing group dedicated to “election integrity” said it trained 1,000 poll watchers in the state, with help from Ms. Mitchell’s network. Some became the subject of dozens of complaints during the primary.
In Pasquotank County, one was “intimidating poll workers, leaving the enclosure several times to ‘report to headquarters,’” according to complaints obtained by The Times.
To address the complaints, the state drafted a proposal of changes that would have made it easier to remove a poll watcher for misbehavior. The Republican-controlled rules commission rejected these after a torrent of emails and public testimony from local activists.
Ms. Mitchell was among those who chimed in. The changes were trying to curb “the enthusiastic interest” that citizens had in the election process, she said.
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The 2022 November Election will be our first national election since the January 6 insurrection. Since that day, the election deniers have only stepped up their efforts to undermine trust in our elections. And this isn’t just happening in other states – they’ve held rallies and are spreading disinformation in communities across New York State, sowing disinformation and trying to disrupt election officials’ preparations for an orderly election day.
That’s why, this fall, the Election Protection program is mobilizing a grassroots volunteer program that’s unprecedented for a midterm election — recruiting, training, and placing hundreds of nonpartisan volunteers across New York to help voters know their rights and to ensure that votes are properly and correctly counted.
We need your help to make sure these programs are successful to help as many voters as possible – join us to help ensure things go smoothly for voters at the ballot box during early voting and on election day. Each of our pre-election programs have two sign up and training options – live on Zoom or a pre-recorded training that you can watch whenever:
In-Person Poll Monitor (both roving and stationary): monitor polling places, report problems and assist voters.
Social Media Monitor: identify mis/disinformation and help answer voter questions online.
If you choose the pre-recorded option, you will receive a confirmation email with a link to watch the training and complete the mandatory quiz on your own time. We encourage you to complete the training and necessary quiz as soon as possible after signing up – we will be following up with those that do not complete the training and/or the quiz in due time.
We must redouble our defenses and make sure every New Yorker’s right to free and fair elections will NOT be infringed and that every eligible vote is accurately counted.
New York Democratic Lawyers Council
Interested in monitoring poll sites in your County?
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc1Gft2omKdi-4R90iFo6hUBnNbQ-r3LDgG7dXms6j0rlMDww/viewform
NYDLC responded to several reports of voter intimidation, suppression, and election subversion during the June and August primary elections - a signal of what's to come in November. We need trained eyes and ears on the ground, ensuring every eligible voter casts a ballot fairly and without intimidation.
The general election is one month away, and we're in full recruitment mode. We need your help to recruit registered democrats in each county to serve as poll observers during early voting and on election day. Certified Poll observers undergo a 1.5-hour training on New York's election law, and the voting process and are equipped with the tools and resources to observe, report, and resolve issues in real time.
We need HUNDREDS of poll observers across the state and cannot recruit them alone. We need your help.
Sign up for phone-banking sessions below to reactivate volunteers from past cycles and recruit new volunteers! All you need is a computer and a wifi connection. We provide a brief 10-minute training on the virtual phone banking software and call script.
Sundays @ 2 pm <https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAqfuCtrD4oE9TNffMwvUCe8obSIW_eSZry>
Tuesdays @ 5 pm <https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZModeirpjssHNP8K8FebFrp_HAk0S6ZXrBP>
Thursdays @ 5 pm <https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwvcuqurjwtGdczyE-7SjAdDa9tSvLH1XMW>
Not available on these dates and times? No problem! Email Alejandra@nydlc.org to get set up to make calls in your own time.
Recruitment phone banking is fulfilling and impactful work and your efforts ensure we can organize the robust election monitoring program New York State and New York voters deserve.
Please share this email and registration links and recruit others to join you in your efforts. We need all hands on deck!
Interested in monitoring poll sites in your County?
Sign up today <https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc1Gft2omKdi-4R90iFo6hUBnNbQ-r3LDgG7dXms6j0rlMDww/viewform> to get trained and receive your assignment!
Onward, for voters!
Team NYDLC
New York Democratic Lawyers Council
<http://www.nydlc.org/>http://www.nydlc.org/