Tomorrow is Primary Election Day in North Carolina. It also serves as the first test run of our Election Protection Project for Hope Springs from Field PAC.
In the past year, we have been collecting Incident Reports from witnesses who have experienced issues with voting in prior elections. The Incident Reports we use are, of course, designed for witnesses on election day, but they can also be used ex post facto to help warn of us where likely occurrences of voter intimidation or suppression could happen. We collect them both at the door, in our canvasses, as well as through our partnership with Black Churches in North Carolina, Georgia and Florida. We have 1,583 congregations participating in our Voter Registration/Protection effort, including 406 Black Churches in North Carolina, where voters have had the opportunity to file an Incident Report about prior issues they have had or witnessed at their polling place.
These reports are combined with other historical data about voter suppression and polling place issues — including opening up on time (many voters like to cast ballots on their way to work and failure to open up a polling location on time can cause voters to leave without having cast a ballot in order to be at work on time). We combine historical data to look for patterns, because we have learned that voter suppression is often repeated in the same place. And not always by the same people. But patterns of voter suppression and polling place neglect are things we are looking for so that we can send teams to those locations to help deter, mitigate or possibly even take to court on election day.
So collecting Incident Reports is the first step and Pattern Analysis is the second step. We identified 36 polling locations in 11 counties with historical patterns of late openings or intermittent closings (eg, for lunch or bathroom breaks) and these became our target test cases for tomorrow.
EPP recruitment is the third step here. For tomorrow, we did not need to go outside our volunteer and partner base (black churches and Divine Nine chapters). In about a third of the test locations, we recruited volunteers to open and close the polling places, and the rest we recruited volunteers for the full day of voting.
Training volunteers was the fourth step. Since we are not expecting Republicans to challenge voters tomorrow, our training was fairly simple and short (~ an hour). In North Carolina:
Any registered voter can challenge someone's right to register, remain registered or to vote in an Election. Any registered voter of the same precinct as the challenged voter may challenge a voter's right to vote. If you are not eligible to enter a challenge, you should bring your concerns to a candidate's campaign organization.
You may challenge a mail-in absentee, one-stop early voting, or Election Day ballot on the day of the election. Challenges to mail-in absentee or one-stop ballots are made at the Board of Elections, or to the Chief Judge at the voter's precinct. Challenges to ballots cast on Election Day are made at the precincts.
The reason why we don’t expect Republicans to challenge voters tomorrow is that doing so would make it easier for challenged voters to be eligible to cast a regular ballot in the fall. Plus, the True the Vote training weighs against primary challenges and since the True the Vote training materials are also used by the Leadership Institute and other Republican and conservative orgs, we feel confident that this won’t be an organized strategy this time.
Hope Springs from Field PAC is knocking on doors and partnering with local civics and civil rights groups awareness of the fact that Democrats care about our voters and are working to protect their rights. We are thinking about how to mitigate Voter Suppression efforts, get around them and make sure we have "super compliance," both informing and helping our voters meet the requirements and get out and vote. We are taking those efforts to the doors and gathering locations of the communities most effected (the intended targets or victims) of these new voter suppression laws.
Obviously, we rely on grassroots support, so if you support field/grassroots organizing and our efforts to protect our voters, we would certainly appreciate your support:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/2022electionprotection
Hope Springs from Field PAC was started by former Obama Field Organizers because field was the cornerstone of our success. Election Protection was central to the Obama primary effort in 2008 because we were running against a party favorite with strong roots in state and local party organizations and we needed to appeal to voters outside that framework. We are returning to the old school basics: repeated contacts, repeated efforts to remind them of protocols, meeting them were they are. Mentoring those who need it (like first time and newly registered voters). Reminding, reminding, reminding, and then chasing down those voters whose ballots need to be cured.
Training poll watcher volunteers is one step in our Election Protection Plan, but they will need to be supported, as well. Again, relying upon our partners in black churches and the African-American fraternities and sororities, we recruited and trained lawyers, paralegals and even law students as a legal Election Protection Force. Fortunately, this was an easy ask, and we had more lawyers than we needed in all 11 counties. At least one (but I think the number was two) of those lawyers ended up becoming a poll watcher. These legal teams will serve their counties, being called in as needed by poll watchers and outside observers.
In polling locations with historical patterns of voter intimidation and/or suppression, we are establishing outside observers (teams which will not need nor receive poll credentials) to be placed at the entrances of these polling locations. Out of the 36 locations we identified only 5 had historical patterns of primary voter intimidation, and were in two specific counties (Rowan and Chatham) that pre-dated the switch from Southern Democrats to Republicans. In each of these, 2 or 3 people will man an Incidence Table from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m, generally in 4 hour shifts. 4 of these 5 will have someone present during peak voting times who have legal training and all 5 will have black ministers as part of their volunteer base.
These support teams for poll watchers will serve as pre- and post- voting alert and reporting functions so that voters who see something can say something. But the primary function of these very visible observer stations are to let voters and those with ill intent to know that we are there. Voters will have more confidence that they can vote in November without being harassed if they know we were there in the primary. And this does matter. Voters need to feel they can cast their ballot without feeling threatened.
Which brings us to the final step of our Election Protection Plan. Last week, Black and Democratic attorneys visited local District, State and County Attorneys in all 11 counties to talk about historical trends related to voter intimidation and outright suppression in prior North Carolina elections. One District Attorney in Georgia had called this “working the refs.” I also visited the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division to provide the same documentation. In all but one case, we made sure everyone was aware that our primary concern was Poll openings but that we were also using this as an opportunity to test our organizational abilities in this regard.
But there are lawyers available to go to state or federal courts tomorrow to keep polls open in the cases we find where they do not open on time, or get close prematurely for whatever reasons. Because everyone deserves to be able to vote when they decide they are ready to vote.
We start now, organizing among our most vulnerable voters, because it gives us the ability to correct issues (like voter registrations at old addresses), keeps voters engaged in the upcoming elections and build a trust network that will allow friends and fellow congregants to make sure that people vote and that their votes count. This is critical for many reasons, but the fact that this is a midterm election *and* the first election after electoral districts have been re-mapped makes it doubly so. Changes in polling locations may double the importance again. Voters want to feel comfortable about casting their votes.
Hope Springs from Field PAC is trying to reinstitute best field practices, such as canvassing with people who look like the voters we are talking to and targeting former voters thrown off the rolls. A lot of these got forgotten because of the Covid restrictions in the last cycle, and we have an entire cycle of campaign staffers who were trained without the benefit of actually getting to do field. That’s why it is so important to start developing Election Protection strategies now, and not wait until a couple of weeks or so before the general election. We have a lot of work to do. Can you help?
If you are able to support our efforts to protect Democratic voters, especially in minority communities, expand the electorate, and believe in grassroots efforts to increase voter participation and election protection, please donate:
secure.actblue.com/donate/2022electionprotection
Thank you for your support. This work depends on you!