Civil rights groups mobilize thousands of volunteers to monitor polling places amid ICE fears

Ahead of the midterm elections, civil-rights organizers like Living United for Change in Arizona (LUCHA) are training volunteers to serve as “constitutional observers” at polling locations, with plans to deploy thousands nationwide. The effort responds to reports of increased immigration enforcement near ballots in Arizona’s primaries and warnings from figures such as Steven Bannon that ICE could appear at polls. Partner groups including the Save America Movement, Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network and the American Federation of Teachers have launched the Vote Safe initiative to focus on jurisdictions with large Black, Latino, Asian and immigrant populations, such as Ohio, North Carolina, Georgia and Michigan.

The Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, led by Harmeet Dhillon, also intends to send a historic thousand-person observer team. While the Republican National Committee will field its own monitors, election officials stress that observers merely watch and record, and that any misconduct will be handled by poll workers and law enforcement.