Meeting with president felon’s Department of Justice is supposed to be scary — or so i’ve been told. Maybe it is for some people, but i am old AF and i have worked professionally on elections for decades. My girlfriend in college was later Janet Reno’s Chief of Staff (IIRC), the documentation Hope Springs from Field PAC volunteers use is decades old and has been tested in courts for just as long and i have other reasons to feel pretty bullet-proof. So, to me, no big deal.
None of that changes the fact that the Trump Administration has been exceptionally bold, and even more so with its Department of Justice.
I’ve mentioned numerous times that we (me and several of our volunteer attorneys) have met with DoJ officials (the last two meetings at their request), i have yet explained all the aspects of our last sit-down with them. My posts are already too long (so i’ve been told), so it is easier to break it down to just a few elements each time.
This diary is specifically what the Justice Department asked us NOT TO DO this election in Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina and Texas. They contend our Voter Protection activities “scare off” MAGA observers and activists.
DoJ markup
Probably the most interesting thing they “asked” (demanded) us to do was to stop recording the names of Republican voters and/or election observers. This Incident report to the right shows what they want us to remove from our documentation over the next 3 years. Basically, the names of any Republicans on these reports.
To say the least, i was a little taken aback by the request. “Have you ever been a poll watcher,” i asked.
It didn’t really matter how they replied (no one said yes, but) because the item they focused in on was not information we usually gather from GOP poll watchers. Poll Watchers are required to present their credentials to Election Workers — and it is from that list that we gather the “names of judges” that we record.
Kurt Olsen basically accused me and Hope Springs from Field of “suppressing” political activism that “guarantees the integrity of American elections.” To stop collecting these witness reports of election interference and voter suppression, and, especially, to remove the lines about Republican names. “I could have you arrested,” he said.
Like i said, supposed to be scary. Here’s why it was not: Credentialed Poll Watchers is basically public record. They probably aren’t aware that we even record their names here — unless they paid close attention to the blank Incident Report that we will provide them upon request.
So when Olsen asked us, “What right does your poll watcher have to record the names and badge numbers of LEOs,” one of the attorneys pointed out that this documentation has been tested in courts for decades.
“Most of us believe elections should be completely transparent.”
You might have the impression the Trump Administration doesn’t share those values.
Hope Springs from Field PAC has been knocking on doors, serving as a resource to Elections Committees in Black Churches and partnering with local civics and civil rights groups to raise 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.
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/hopevoteprotect
Hope Springs from Field 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: looking for patterns, addressing issues that have come up in the past and making sure authorities know about issues that are likely to (or even just may) come up in this election. Especially in light of True the Vote activities in majority minority areas.
Here’s the thing: we don’t exactly take these witness reports given on days other than Election Day totally at face value. Very few Incident Reports we take at a voter’s door is complete (how could they be?). The Incident Reports we collect given to our volunteers other than Election Day are a starting point. A lot of work goes into verification and expansion before we use them as a basis for a legal request (by others) or submission to DoJ, District and State’s Attorneys or the state Attorney General’s offices.
Which is why the suggestion of fraud was so ridiculous. Heather Honey told us they they would do their own, independent investigation of our documentation, “sure that there is more to the story here.” I assume we were supposed to be intimidation — after all, they had already told us to stop collection Incident Reports.
And they specifically mentioned they were creating a new fraud unit to do so. This was before Trump fired Pam Bondi.
So this was not news (to us):
Blanche said the department would be creating a new unit to combat the “fraud crisis,” drawing from top prosecutors in Washington and U.S. attorney’s offices across the country. The National Fraud Enforcement Division will be headed by Colin McDonald. The White House created the division and nominated McDonald — a longtime federal prosecutor who has been co-leading the Justice Department’s Weaponization Working Group this administration.
The task force would pull largely from current employees, though Blanche said the agency could hire more people. He said that the department also would create a fraud detection center, which would aid law enforcement in analyzing the reams of paperwork and data that typically come with fraud investigations.
“We will spare no resources,” Blanche said. “The American people deserve an end to this crisis of fraud.”
As you might imagine, a lot — maybe half — of the precincts from which we have documented election irregularities has been in precincts where a majority of the voters are African-American. “And I would bet that most of the (presumably Republican) ‘targets’ you’ve recorded are not. That opens up all kinds of problems,” Olsen told us.
BTW, all four of us wrote down that comment in our notes, it really stood out.
But this lead to another complaint: that Hope Springs from Field should stop putting up Voter Protection tables in front of precincts that we’ve identified as problematic.
Voter Protection Tabling outside Polling Precinct
Last year, we identified 76 polling locations in the areas we canvassed in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia where we established Voter Protection tables outside those polling places.
This year, we will be expanding our Poll Watchers and our Voter Protection Tables outside of Polling Precincts.
It’s all part of our strategy to prevent these MAGA interference in the conduct of free and fair elections, in helping ensure that every voter can cast a ballot that is counted. Action like registering voters in historically suppressed counties. Chasing Ballots for VBM voters who didn’t complete the process. Free Voter Photo ID days for voters who don’t have one. Making sure Purged Voters weren’t erroneously deleted from the Voter Rolls. Extra communications with Newly Registered Voters.
another grassroots innovation: selfie stations at Voter Protection tables (in this case, why you vote)
Hope Springs from Field has also been talking to our partners in Black Church Election Committees, who have been working with us already to help organize our Free Voter ID Days. Not a surprise, but the SAVE Act proposals are alarming to the African-American women we’ve talked to about this. We are doing everything we can think of pro-actively to circumvent the intended Voter Hassles envisioned by these proposals.
We’ve continue to lay down the marker for Election Protection, making sure that District and State’s Attorney, the state’s Attorney General, as well as the DoJ Civil Rights Division, know what we know going in. And the thing about making sure that our local attorney volunteers, the District and State’s Attorneys all know that we take this information to the Department of Justice means that they have to play by the rules. Let people vote, have their votes counted and prevent voter intimidation and suppression. Seems simple. We are prepared. But we do need your help.
One way we deal with Voter Suppression is through Super-Oversight and Poll Protection. The main reason why Hope Springs from Field is organized as a federal political action committee is because that gives us the ability to request poll watcher credentials in most states. And making sure polls have poll watchers in places where Voter Suppression or Intimidation is common is a part of it, but Voter Protection Tabling — including in areas where we make sure there’s a poll watcher inside — is also key. Years of experience has taught us that voters don’t always understand what has happened to them inside the polling place. They may walk away stunned or confused about how they’ve been treated. Voter Protection Tabling allows voters to talk through their experience and discuss with others how it may be remedied.
Here’s the thing: nothing has upset the MAGA-verse in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Wisconsin than Hope Springs volunteers (and others) pulling out these Incident Reports and recording what has happened. I’d bet most of the threats made against my person have been as a result of this data collection. In our experience, MAGA Intimidators don’t want to provide their name — and they don’t want their attempts at disrupting an election recorded. Arming people with Incident Reports seems to have deterred promised acts of disruption from occurring. Several poll workers (that i know of) have thanked us because disruptive behavior stopped inside their poll when someone pulled out an Incident Report. My favorite example of this has to be when several MAGA voters started filming after an Incident Report was brought out (pretty sure they weren’t supposed to film inside the polling place) and when our Poll Watcher asked for their names they quickly decided they were done. We have power — we just have to use it.
No other Democratically-aligned org has been methodically trying to circumvent MAGA efforts to rig the House Midterm elections in 2026. And we need your help to continue. Our printer costs alone are way beyond our budgeting and we are asking for your help (if you are able).
Hope Springs from Field 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. But we have also want to adopt best practices we find “out in the wild,” like these first time voter parties. But because we study and teach field work as a profession, we bring in skillsets and tactics that may be new to the Democratic party regulars as well as activists in the area. But it is a two way street. 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?
Like everyone else, we are asking for your financial support for these vital efforts. If you are like me, you are inundated with requests. We don’t have any cute pets, or special treats, to offer up to encourage your support. Nor will we try to guilt you by telling you the threat is real, ongoing and getting more sophisticated. We are all getting tired of it.
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. We need help more than ever because of all the literature supporting Democratic candidates that we left at more than 13,765,242 doors this year:
