Project will prepare volunteers across US to monitor polls, encourage early voting and respond to disinformation
The Democrats intend to train tens of thousands of volunteers to monitor the polls and counter possible voter intimidation under a new plan to protect November’s US midterm elections from anticipated interference from Donald Trump and his allies.
The nationwide initiative, dubbed the New Battlefield Project, will help state Democratic committees build up a vast coalition of volunteers to monitor the polls, push voters to cast their ballots early and create a network to respond to disinformation.
The Association of State Democratic Committees (ASDC), an arm of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), plans to train volunteers across 57 states and territories. It hopes to train volunteers for 25% of the nation’s 95,000 election day polling places, focusing on districts with competitive races.
For the states I did this in, it was a straightforward process to sign up online and complete the training online.
It is a very long day, but I think it’s very satisfying. Sometimes it would be crazy, other times it would be very sparse for people coming in. People have all kinds of questions and it’s fun to help them participate.
People who are voting for the first time for whatever reason make it worth it. Whether they don’t have a system like this in the place they emigrated from, or were here the whole time and just didn’t bother, sometimes people are really excited to be involved and it’s really energizing. I’ll get the same snarky comment from 100 people and it won’t discourage me as much as one voter who’s really happy to be there builds me up.
If you have the time, I highly encourage getting involved. See how it works where you’re from, sign up, be there for your community.