The polls, the results of special elections, the turnout in primaries, the spending decisions by major organizations, the fundamentals of our economy, history… they’re all pointing towards big Democratic gains this November. Unfortunately in the Trump era, merely earning more votes than the other candidate isn’t enough.
This regime has already actively sought to undermine our ability to cast votes, redrawn district lines to reduce their power, and attempted to convince the public any victories will be illegitimate. We need to put in the work now to counteract this subversion, and prepare for even more dangerous tactics down the line – like Trump sending his thugs to the polls to intimidate voters, seizing ballot boxes, interfering with certification or even refusing to seat Democratic winners where the GOP is “disputing” outcomes.
Securing enough votes that a steal along these lines is untenable is a necessary part of countering this (see our midterms action page here), but not sufficient. Here’s our guide to various ways we can put in the work to protect the 2026 elections.
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Last update: 8/18
BEFORE ELECTION DAY
ON ELECTION DAY
- VOLUNTEER AS A POLL WORKER
- VOLUNTEER AS A POLL MONITOR
AFTER ELECTION DAY
- PREPARING FOR MASS ACTION
VoPro Pros aims to provide a national network of volunteers experienced in voter protection issues, ready to be activated wherever their expertise is needed – and they’re always looking to get new people trained and on board. In the lead-up to the election, they’ll be recruiting poll monitors, contacting voters to help get their registration issues fixed, and more. We can sign up to volunteer with VoPro Pros here.
A substantial amount of the infrastructure for election protection is run by the DNC, state Democratic Party organizations and their associated coordinated campaigns, and they’re using this period to make sure they have their teams in place. We can sign up to help recruit voter protection volunteers in Michigan here and in North Carolina here.
VoteRiders is focused on ensuring that voter ID laws don’t keep eligible voters away from the ballot box. In addition to advocating for pro-voter policies, they also work to inform folks of what identification they’ll need to register and cast their ballots and work with them to help them secure it. We can volunteer with them to do direct outreach to at-risk voters and help staff their voter ID assistance helplines by signing up here.
We know Donald Trump and MAGA aren’t shy about putting pressure on election administrators and elected officials to subvert elections. We need to make sure they know the heat is on them to do the right thing, too.
Indivisible’s Hands Off Our Vote program is urging folks to either sit down and meet with or publicly call out local and state election officials and our members of Congress to get some answers on what they’re doing on election protection. We can see their guidance on how to do so here.
Another other, separate Hands Off Our Vote campaign (yes, it’s confusing) is calling on folks to organize actions targeting public officials who’ve undermined election integrity, including town halls, targeted social media, which we can find a toolkit for here.
The Workers Circle is shifting its Talk To Your Sheriff campaign to have organizers try to get sheriffs to make a public commitment to acting in defense of free and fair elections, which we can find tools for here.
May Day Strong, led by partner the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, is encouraging folks to publicly push big businesses and recruit small businesses to commit to acting for democracy in the event of election subversion, starting with signing the Business for Democracy Pledge. We can read more about how to be part of this effort here.
Starting now, we need to be fully prepared for scenarios where we need to respond to new risks within hours, not days. Indivisible’s Hands Off Our Vote program has pulled together a rapid response playbook we can put to work here. And Freedom Trainers has put together an 80-page guide on the different threats that may arise we can review here.
WHAT WE MIGHT BE RESPONDING TO
Poll workers assist professional election administrators manage polling sites – helping check in voters, answering their questions, setting up and testing voting machines, issuing ballots and being a resource for anyone who has questions. (It’s also actual work, you’ll get paid for it.) The smoother each site functions, the weaker MAGA’s efforts to cry foul will be, and we’ll need a million poll workers nationwide to make it happen. We can sign up to be poll workers by contacting whoever runs our local elections or connect with them through Power The Polls here.
While poll workers help administer the election, poll monitors are there to assist voters who encounter any problems with those administrators when they try to exercise their rights, collect information and respond to any and all election regularities. We can volunteer to be grassroots poll monitors with the nonpartisan Election Protection/866-OUR-VOTE program here at protectthevote.net. Other opportunities to be poll monitors are likely to be offered locally through either your state’s chapter of Common Cause or the League of Women Voters or ACLU affiliate.
If we’re looking for higher commitment, higher preparation work, VoPro Pros will be helping to organize and staff voter assistance hotlines and serve in state party boiler rooms to respond to issues at the polls. We can sign up to volunteer with VoPro Pros here.
As noted above, a substantial amount of the infrastructure for on-site work identifying and addressing problems at the polls is run by the DNC, state Democratic Party organizations and their associated coordinated campaigns. You can find websites and contact info for your state party here, and sign up for the DNC voter protection program volunteer list here – with a disclaimer that we cannot guarantee this won’t put you on a bunch of email lists.
The Wisconsin Democrats are staffing up their voter assistance hotline now. We can sign up to join them here.
A whole network of local- and state-based pro-democracy organizations are working together to similarly identify and respond to threats on the ground. many of whom are grantees of the Movement Voter Fund. We can sign up to be connected with them here.
Want to keep an eye on the counts, the recounts, the audits? That’s being a canvass, tabulation or certification monitor. We will be posting these opportunities as they arise – but as noted above, consider connecting with your local Common Cause, League of Women Voters or ACLU affiliate or your state Democratic Party.
“Ballot curing” is the process of contacting voters whose votes have been rejected for some reason and helping them correct any errors to make sure they’re officially counted. We can sign up to volunteer to ballot cure with VoPro Pros here.
There will also be significant ballot curing opportunities run through coordinated campaigns, individual campaigns and state parties. We can sign up to join the ballot cure team in Wisconsin here.
We all lived through the days leading up to the attack on the Capitol, so we know the work of securing our victories doesn’t end on November 3rd. Some of the scariest and most plausible scenarios – Trump ordering federal law enforcement to seize ballots and voting machines to “prove” fraud, interfering with the certification process and/or encouraging congressional Republicans to refusing to seat the Democratic winners of “disputed” races – will arise in the weeks after Election Day. We need to guard against them and be prepared to respond to them.
Some of this groundwork will have already been laid – closely monitored and smoothly executed elections will make it more difficult for fraud claims to succeed. But we also need to be prepared to demand that our state officials stand firm and follow the law, and to exercise our collective power to insist that lawful results be respected. In short: be ready to shut it down.
The strikes organized on May 1st by the May Day Strong coalition (a group of labor and community organizations of which Rogan’s List is a proud partner!) were in part meant to test our capacity for a similar shutdown if it becomes necessary in November. We’re continuing to build for mass collective action by holding hundreds of solidarity schools and other nonviolent direct action trainings this Labor Day. We can learn more about how to organize one near us here.
Freedom Trainers’ Strike Ready Corps will be holding workshops with practical, concrete guidance on building community resilience and what strike readiness means in real life throughout this summer and fall. We can sign up to take one of their trainings here.
Of course, the most important and in many ways easiest thing we can do to be prepared to respond to a steal is to connect with others in our community who will also be taking to the streets. We can find organizations near us who will be preparing for action on this list of May Day Strong coalition partners, by connecting with a nearby Indivisible group and joining the Hands Off Our Vote team, by checking in with our local DSA chapters or by linking up with a Movement Voter Fund local grantee.
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