to monitor the monitors. Quem custodiet ipsos custodes?

I'll get a couple days training before the day. Ohio has 'judges' in the polling places to de-escalate situations.

Ohio has a special election on June 11, 2024 to fill the U.S. House seat that bill johnson (rwnj-pos) deserted for a $400,000.00/yr job in which his buddies on the board at Youngstown U. installed him.

The Democratic candidate is Michael Kripchak. For the 6th District.

When he ran against Bushhitler.

Did that actually happen?

I was one of 3000 attorneys in Florida (800 in Broward county alone) in 2004. I was offered the opportunity to go to Ohio but went to Florida. That was in addition to the in-state attorneys who were on the ground in these states. I met some really great Florida attorneys who were calling the shots in 2004.

There were 800 out of state attorneys in Broward County where I was stationed. Kerry Edwards had approximately 11,000 out of state attorneys go to battleground states in 2004. It was interesting but you really need in state people who can be in the polling stations. This was my first experience with voter protection, and I have been working on voter protection efforts ever since.

In Texas, we are gearing up. I was in the voter protection boiler room for the primary and we will have teams out for the general election. I was on a zoom call for the state party two weeks ago on voter protection.

We will do our best to be ready and it will be interesting to see what happens.

And it is so unfortunate that this is even an issue. I'm afraid the intimidation of election workers is going to be exponentially greater than it was is 2020.

Democrats have been doing his for years. Mostly without Republican counterparts. On the few occasions when any have shown up they were poorly trained and unorganized.

I've been personally involved since 2008.

They will be there to intimidate, threaten, disrupt, and god knows what else. An army of fascist chaos agents.

Or causing enough chaos to destroy the process before they are kicked out.

In three countries, and dozens of precincts. Being an observer (including the restrictions) is taken very seriously by election officials. If they don't act to remove a badly behaved Republican observer promptly, I have a direct line to our "war room" and (in the main county I observe in) to the county board of elections. They will be there in no more than drive time plus 5 minutes to take care of the matter.

In the Democratic training, the main take-away is that if we get ourselves kicked out, we are dead to the party. In Ohio, observers can't be replaced mid-day, since we are registered with the state for a specific precinct, and cannot serve in a different precinct. So getting kicked out means no Democratic observer to report problems and help troubleshoot for the remainder of the day. The same would be true for Republican observers.

When I'm sworn in I've been warned by more than one PEO that I am not permitted to speak with, or approach, any voter. This warning has come from Democratic PEOs who know they are swearing in a Democratic observer.

I have only observed one vote count/machine tabulation here in Oregon and it went smoothly, but I just can't help it--I am an extreme worrier. Also, I do believe the right-wingers are going to go all-out to put Trump in the Presidency by any means available to them.

Do you think that uniformed police officers might be needed at places where the votes are counted this year?

I have had to protest and call the election office when there were uniform officers at a polling place in that this can intimidate some voters. In 2016, I was running the statewide Clinton voter protection and we had some officers in Bexar county standing outside with weapons. I called the secretary of state on this and they promised to look into it.

One of these tools used for voter protection a nation-wide DNC database called LBJ where all voting related incidents are gathered and documented for later use if there is litigation.

Uniformed police officers are far more likely to intimidate potential Democratic voters than Republican voters.

They can be called if need be, but generally the position of the folks I work with is that we don't want uniformed officers around because of potential voter intimidation.

True the Vote targeted my county in 2012. I had 70 or so poll watchers out and we had few issues. I did some poll watching during the one weekend of weekend early voting. There was a true the vote asshole there but he was fairly well behaved.

That was the last year before the SCOTUS gutted the Voting Rights Act. The DOJ had observers in five or so of the key precincts and the DOJ told my poll watchers that they were not needed because only an idiot would try something with DOJ observers on the ground.

Poll watchers can only talk to the head election judge unless the judge allows them to do more. The main thing that a poll watcher can do is go outside to call the election protection attorneys in the boiler rooms.

I haven't personally experienced any disruptive incidents outside of the ordinary in all the time I was in the precincts. (Ordinary - people electioneering inside the barricades, pollworkers who are mishandling absentee voters, PEOs who do not understand an observer's role and try to kick us out before the ballots are packed up to go back to the BOE; not ordinary - people engaging in violence, brandishing weapons, etc.) As a boiler-room staff member I heard of a few outside of the ordinary incidents (hot-heads outside the polling places - including at least one Democrat). Ditto - working in the Board of Elections on Election Day (where voting is not actually occurring).

As to the advice of the DOJ - my role is far less making sure an idiot doesn't try anything, than it is to make sure that everyone/thing is handled properly: Two opposite-party people present whenever a voter needs assistance, seals properly on machines, people are given a non-provisional ballot whenever they are eligible, everyone who is not eligible is given a provisional ballot - or sent to the precinct where they are registered to vote, etc. Those have nothing to do with an idiot trying anything - and everything to do with the fact that (in our area, at least) most of the pollworkers do this role once a year or so - AND - are not retrained between elections, even if the laws have changed. Mistakes happen - an extra set of eyes and ears help to get all of the votes cast.

They'd all have to be volunteers. And if they're not, they're suckers because he'd never pay them!

Democrats seek attorneys, but more than half are not attorneys. Virtually all are unpaid - every 2 or 4 years, we volunteer 18 hours on election day, and a few hours of training ahead of time. Many of us also volunteer several 12 hour days ahead of time during early voting, and some volunteer after to observe tabulation of absentee ballots.

“Having the right people to count the ballots is just as important as turning out voters on Election Day. "

"I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this—who will count the votes, and how." Stalin, said in 1923; Boris Bazhanov The Memoirs of Stalin's Former Secretary (1992)

Who knew?
There are other folks here that have taken on that important responsibility. I suggest you consider doing so if you want to help the party on election day.

that's not the point of my post. You aren't Stalin. Trump and his crew? Oh yeah.

Please proceed.

Are you suggesting there is something unethical about being an election observer?

and what Repugs did in 2020.

It is about deploying election observers - the exact same role I've been serving in since 2008.

In that entire time, I have encountered maybe a half-dozen Republican observers. They simply haven't gotten their act together to appoint election observers. What they are suggesting is that they are finally going to get their act together, and do the same thing Democrats have been doing for more than a decade. Being an officially appointed election observer does not put one at risk for disbarrment.

in 2020 was lose. I hope they do the same in 2024

For how many Scaramucci Units it will take before they get it up and running?

I'm in for 18 SUs.

We'll see "in two weeks " I suppose.

I hope there is some education to voters on "if you see something, say something" regarding poll monitors. Outside the polls I have sometimes taken the vote recommendation flyer from a Repug because it helps me know who to vote against in some of the more obscure races.

100,000 attorneys? I call bullshit.

His attorneys “essentially”volunteers, that ultimately get disbarred for that free work?

I doubt he'll convince 100 lawyers to sign up for this.

He'll never get close to 100,000.

Its something we volunteer to do.

Hope they're working pro bono. Everyone knows deadbeat Donny doesn't pay.

The Biden-Harris campaign will do the same thing. Because both Parties ALWAYS do so.

All this is is a press-release to jostle more dollars out of the MAGA faithful.

(my wife -- a lawyer -- and me -- not a lawyer -- have served as voter protection volunteers for Kerry, Obama and Clinton)

They'll be lucky to be able to pay 1,000, and the ones they do will just be Sidney Powell and Giuliani types of bottom-scrapers.

Not worried.

The whole point of this is right there.