Keep Elections Free and Fair: Join the Election Administration Corps!
You can directly and personally engage in election administration by:
Applying to become an election poll worker yourself
Applying to host a polling location on your property for a San Francisco precinct
Sign up to be an election observer for San Francisco’s Elections Department
Joining a national election protection program like ACLU’s Democracy Defenders
Context
Our movement to preserve a democracy for the people while the MAGA regime tries to create an oligarchy for its billionaire cronies and reactionary sycophants has won a few battles while it’s currently losing the war. This is especially notable with regard to the transfer of power away from the people’s elected representatives and a non-partisan professional Civil Service to a unitary executive branch under the President’s partisan control. But the MAGA regime is now deeply unpopular, so the mid-term elections present an opportunity to reverse the momentum, but only if they are as free and fair as possible given the Supreme Court’s partisan decisions. In this environment, it is crucial that we do everything in our power to ensure valid election results.
Background
In Protect Democracy’s analysis, the MAGA regime’s triple threat to free and fair elections includes deception, disruption, and denial. For example, the regime has long been deceiving the public about the validity of election participation and results, claiming without evidence that non-citizens vote and that elections are rigged. With the collusion of the Supreme Court, it disrupted recent primary elections by redistricting even while voting was in progress. Meanwhile, the President has blustered about sending federal troops to the polls in upcoming elections. Where MAGA candidates lose those elections, the regime could try to deny certification of the results, as it did in several critical states and at the US capitol in the 2000 presidential election.
Why Is This Happening Now?
The MAGA regime is historically unpopular and on a path toward landslide losses in the mid-term Congressional elections in November, possibly losing majorities in the House and even the Senate. Losing control of Congress would subject the MAGA regime to constraints on federal appropriations for regime projects like mass incarceration and deportation of US residents and military campaigns abroad and to hearings by Democrat-chaired committees with subpoena power that could expose the depth of the regime’s corruption. Depending on the positions of elected Democrats, even the Supreme Court could be subject to restructuring leading to eventual reversal of recent decisions. Knowing this, MAGA strategists seem likely to use every available artifice to control election processes and outcomes. The President has even suggested federalizing elections and sending the military to polling places during elections.
What We Can Do to Fight Back
To survive, MAGA must minimize election losses by any means possible. While SCOTUS has been the MAGA regime’s primary enabler, shifting huge power away from Congress toward a unitary executive in recent decisions, it has upheld states’ rights under the Constitution to administer elections under their own procedures. That means that states also have the duty to administer elections effectively, so that citizens can cast their votes freely. California delegates that responsibility to counties, and county elections departments cannot staff all the necessary polling places. That in turn means that residents have to step up to staff the polls and monitor election procedures like counting votes and certifying results. Here’s how:
Sign up to become an election poll worker yourself through Power the Polls or apply here for San Francisco. Power the Polls provides a portal where you can look up the elections department that serves your address and submit a request to become a poll worker. In San Francisco, the Elections Department provides training in advance, election day support, and a small stipend after completion, and the voting public is very appreciative of the poll volunteers.
Sign up to host a polling place in San Francisco. Polling places are often at public locations like firehouses, libraries, and schools, but sometimes in some precincts such facilities aren’t available on a given election day. Private property owners can also volunteer their space as a poll location, also for a small stipend.
Sign up to be an election observer. Serving at the polls entails a long election day, from 6am to about 10pm with breaks, so it may not be for everyone. For a valuable contribution where you set your own hours, San Francisco’s Elections Department provides procedures under which people can observe election activities. While the materials currently cite the 2026 primary election, we expect the department will update them for the November mid-term elections. Election observers can contribute to public confidence in election procedures and results and perhaps discourage attempts to disrupt those procedures.
Join a national election protection program like ACLU’s Democracy Defenders or Indivisible’s Hands Off Our Vote campaigns. While these programs prioritize battleground states, they will also keep you current on election protection issues broadly.
