Democrats are recruiting some 500 volunteers a week to watch the polls ahead of an election that many fear will feature interference from the Trump administration.

Since the 2020 election, in which President Donald Trump’s false claims that the election was stolen from him, and the eventual attack on the Capitol those claims precipitated, many have feared that a return to power could mean an erosion of free and fair elections in the United States.

A recent survey from the University of California San Diego from mid-September gave insight into just how widespread concerns over election integrity are: Just 63% of Democrats, 58% of Republicans, and  49% of independents trusted that votes would be counted accurately to how they were cast nationwide. 

Likewise, just 49% of respondents said that they believed that the midterms would be free and fair when asked, with one of the most highly anticipated sources of interference being the expectation that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers, which have brutalized communities across the U.S., will be at the polls in November. 

A full 40% of respondents to the UC San Diego survey said they thought it was likely ICE would be at polling locations, with this figure rising among minority groups, with 48% of Hispanic, 47% of Asian American and Pacific Islander respondents and 46% of Black respondents. 

While unable to directly influence the behavior of ICE, the Association of State Democratic Committees (ASDC), a group that helps organize Democratic efforts between states, has been training around 500 new volunteers to observe polling places, with the goal of training tens of thousands ahead of election day. The ASDC are calling these volunteers “Democracy Protectors.”

Jane Kleeb, the president of the ASDC and the Nebraska Democratic Party chair, told The Caucus, that the strategy was influenced by constitutional observer trainings provided by groups like Indivisible, which helped document and put scrutiny on ICE officers in Minneapolis, along with input from staff from the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party.

“I think the people that are stepping up to be Democracy Protectors feel a deep responsibility in their local area to take action, and some of this was certainly inspired by what we all witnessed with Minnesota and them training each other to be constitutional observers to film the bad actors,” Kleeb said. 

Kleeb added that the observers are only a part of the ASDC’s effort and, behind the scenes, the ASDC is helping organize a national early voting campaign as well as an information sharing network in which state parties can share what’s happening in their states in terms of potential election interference. 

“We have confidence in the system. What we don't have confidence in is Trump's erratic behavior and his inability to actually follow the law. And knowing that, and knowing that he did pardon insurrectionists that have gone on to continue to commit crimes in their local communities, that we want to be prepared for everything,” Kleeb said.

These efforts from the ASDC and volunteers come on the heels of other moves from Republican politicians and their allies to give themselves an advantage in the midterms. The most high profile example of this was the mid-decade redistricting Republicans kicked off in an attempt to gerrymander their way into maintaining their House majority, though that looks unlikely given current House polling. 

However, attempts to advantage Republicans have also taken more mundane forms. For example, one key Texas county cut 92 polling locations in early September, which will likely force residents to stand in long lines in Fort Worth and other parts of Tarrant County that have a higher proportion of voters who generally vote for Democrats. And, other Texas counties are considering similar moves. The Supreme Court has also recently opened the door to potential voter roll purges ahead of the election, though legal experts say that existing current law likely prevents it from happening between now and the election.