Election authorities prepare for aggressive poll observers

AP — GOLDSBORO, N.C. The poll observer issue had gotten so out of hand that Anne Risku, the Wayne County, North Carolina, election director, had to step in over the loudspeaker.

"You must withdraw now!" At a precinct approximately 60 miles southeast of Raleigh, Risku recalls hollering when a lady positioned herself in the way of a voter trying to cast his ballot.

The guy was finally let to cast his ballot, but Risku noted a number of instances from the May primary that raised concerns about a surge of increasingly aggressive poll observers. Many people have spent the last two years being fed misinformation about how accurately the 2020 election would be called.

Due to these worries, the North Carolina State Board of Elections tightened the regulations controlling poll monitors in August. However, the new poll observer restrictions were banned by the state's rules review board, which was created by the Republican-controlled legislature, in late September, depriving election officials like Risku of extra tools to manage conduct on Election Day, Nov. 8.

In a recent interview, Risku observed, "It turns into pure babysitting." "The back-and-forth with the precinct officials, always having someone on you for every little thing that you do — not because you're doing it incorrectly, but because they disagree with what you're doing."

In order to verify that the actual voting process is conducted fairly and properly, poll observers have historically been a crucial component of electoral transparency. They serve as the two major political parties' eyes and ears during the voting process. Election authorities are worried that a spike in conspiracy believers may apply for these jobs this year and receive training from those who have promoted the myth that the 2020 presidential election will be tainted by fraud, which was peddled by former President Donald Trump and his associates.

Poll observers are being sought by organizations in Michigan that have disseminated untruths about that race. Jim Marchant, the Republican Party's contender for secretary of state in Nevada, has spoken at a party training session for poll watchers and has denied that President Joe Biden will win in 2020.

A organization is seeking vote monitors and employees in eight battleground states under the direction of noted conservative attorney and North Carolina resident Cleta Mitchell. When Trump phoned Georgia's secretary of state in January 2021 and requested that person "find" enough votes for Trump to be certified the state's winner, Mitchell was on the line with the president at the time.

When Trump claimed the election was being rigged in 2020, Chris Harvey, Georgia's election director at the time, remembered how hordes of Trump supporters arrived as self-appointed poll observers to observe the state's manual recounts, intimidating election officials and disturbing the process. Harvey is worried about a recurrence this year.

According to Harvey, who is providing guidance to a group of election officials and law police before to the November election, "the entire tension that we're anticipating to see at voting sites is something we're talking to election officials, something we're talking to law enforcement about."

States have different laws concerning poll monitors. In general, their responsibility is to watch, inquire about any deviations from the established protocol, and, in certain jurisdictions, make official complaints or offer testimony in support of court-filed objections.

The concerns this year are comparable to those in 2020, when Trump started to rant against mail-in ballots and the Republican National Committee began its first major national campaign in decades. After it was discovered that it had previously targeted Black and Latino voters, it was just released from a consent agreement that restricted its poll watching operation. But in November, voting occurred without a hitch.

According to Mitchell, the Election Integrity Network only seeks to make sure that everyone complies with the law.

She assured The Associated Press through text message that "we are not a danger." Unless you believe elections held in accordance with the law pose a threat. We educate individuals on how to uphold the law.

Risku said that both party poll observers had problems during the May primary. However, all 13 of the events from Wayne County that she reported to the North Carolina board involved Republicans.

Another Republican poll watcher in Risku's district, in addition to the one who had to be expelled, stayed outside the Mount Olive Train Depot early voting location after hours until Chief Judge Susan Wiley started transporting boxes of marked votes to her car, Risku claimed.

The guy made two attempts to pursue her to the nearby (20-minute drive) Goldsboro elections office.

Risku said that she increased security before November and provided increases to attract precinct officials to stay after realizing that the work had become into "a terrible nightmare" during the previous year. She anticipates that many won't after this year.

Michael Whatley, the chairman of the North Carolina GOP, asserted that the party does not instruct its poll monitors in such a manner.

Whatley added, "What we witnessed in terms of some of the actions that were in play may have come from Republicans but were not things that we have been instructing folks in our training sessions." "What we want to do is make sure that there are individuals in the room who will always treat election officials and voters with the utmost respect, and who will also report any problems they notice."

He has refused to permit journalists to join the training sessions, which, according to him, have so far this year taught 7,000 potential poll observers.

In North Carolina, like in many other states, poll monitors are only allowed if they have been invited by the main parties. However, groups that register with the local election officials in Michigan may also offer poll watchers. A coalition of organizations that have questioned the validity of the 2020 election are scurrying to station as many of their members as they can in the politically volatile region.

As part of a coalition that enlisted 5,000 poll watchers for the state's primary election in August, Sandy Kiesel, executive director of the Michigan Election Integrity Fund and Force, said, "The best I can do is put a whole bunch of eyeballs on it to make sure that anything that doesn't look right gets a further look."

In August, according to Kiesel, some of her coalition's vote watchers and poll challengers were either prohibited from monitoring or taken out of voting sites. Under Michigan law, one individual may observe while another may legally submit objections at precincts.

Election officials in Michigan are preparing for further altercations in November. Former Republican state legislator and well-known election conspiracy theorist Patrick Colbeck, a member of Kiesel's alliance, declared last week that "Operation Overwatch" would be the name of an autumn campaign to thoroughly examine every facet of voting.

In Michigan's Ingham County, which includes Lansing, the state capital, Barb Byrum, the county clerk, stated, "They are talking about frightening individuals who have the right to vote."

The GOP-controlled Legislature last week agreed to let election offices all over Michigan start processing mailed ballots two days before Election Day — something most states with mail voting allow long before that — but only if they allow poll watchers to observe. This is a sign of the importance the state's Republicans place on poll watchers. The real ballot tally is not completed until election day.

A new legislation in Texas permits each candidate to designate up to two poll monitors, which raises the possibility that polling places might get crowded with observers, especially in the vicinity of large cities like Dallas and Houston where ballots are the longest.

In the three weeks following the state's opening of the compulsory training on September 1, more than 900 persons in Texas had already acquired certification in poll watching, according to documents from the secretary of state's office.

Reporting from Denver was Riccardi. This article was written by AP journalists Paul Weber in Austin, Texas, Joey Cappelletti in Lansing, Michigan, and Gabe Stern in Reno, Nevada.