Rights Groups Plan Thousands of Poll Watchers as DOJ Vows Its Biggest Effort Ever

It was loteria night at the Phoenix offices of Living United for Change in Arizona, known as LUCHA. A small group of young people played the bingo-like card game for prizes that included a camping chair, reusable water bottles and coolers. The prizes were not random. The players were being trained to camp out at polling places this fall.

LUCHA, a left-of-center community organizing group, is training volunteers to serve as what it calls "constitutional observers" ahead of the midterm elections. Karime Rodriguez, who led the first session, told volunteers their main job is to observe. "Monitor the polling environment," she said. "Stay aware of what's happening on the ground."

Groups have fanned out to monitor polling places for many election cycles, but the charged environment this year has more organizations stepping up. They plan to put thousands of people at polling sites. For LUCHA, immigration is the main worry. Rodriguez told 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. Groups say they are especially concerned about Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents appearing at election sites.

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 figures close to Trump, such as Steve Bannon, have urged him to send them anyway, and Trump officials have said ICE could serve warrants at polling places. For Mary Corcoran, co-founder and executive director of the left-leaning Save America Movement, that is enough. "The point is to scare people and use fear as an intimidation factor to keep people home," she said. Her group is partnering with the Rev. Al Sharpton's National Action Network and unions including the American Federation of Teachers on an effort called Vote Safe, planned for population centers in states with key Senate races, such as Ohio, North Carolina, Georgia and Michigan. Volunteers will include clergy, veterans, teachers and nurses, and are not meant to engage with ICE agents. "It's really about having a de-escalatory impact by way of really bearing witness," Corcoran said.

Left-leaning groups will not be the only observers. The Republican National Committee recruits its own, and the Justice Department, which regularly monitors polling places, says it will expand its presence. Harmeet Dhillon, who heads the department's Civil Rights Division, said on Real America's Voice that she plans to send a thousand people from the agency. "This is going to be the biggest DOJ election observer effort in history," she said. She said the staff would not interfere or run the election, only observe and make notes. Wyoming's Republican governor criticized the actions of DOJ observers in the state in August.

Election administrators are skeptical of the hype. Tammy Patrick of the National Association of Election Officials said officials have heard about big plans for observers for a while, but that they hear it in most election cycles.