Conservative-trained army of poll watchers worries Democrats: 'Goal is to disenfranchise'

An army of poll watchers convinced of dirty election tricks is being trained by a conservative organization that plans to mobilize them on voting stations in Virginia, according to a New York Times report.

"The VFE [Virginia Fair Elections] coalition developed and taught poll watcher and election official training because Virginia has a 45-day election season, which means there are some 14,000 slots that should be filled by observers," according to a memo that was first reported by the Times.

"By Virginia law, poll watchers and election officials must be credentialed by one of the political Parties or an independent candidate and each polling place is required to have observers in parity.

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The VFW, buoyed by what it saw as successes monitoring elections in 2021, wrote the memo, called "The Virginia Model," to essentially spread its training elsewhere in the country.

It is essentially credentialing those who complete the course with a "certificate of completion," the Times reported.

"During the 2021 election season, over 4,500 trained volunteers covered more than 85% of those 14,000 slots to bring true transparency to the election process," Lynn Taylor, president of the Virginia Institute for Public Policy Chair, Virginia Fair Elections boasts in the memo. "In fact, training of poll watchers and election officials was taken over by the Parties, with our agreement and gratitude."

"We have never felt the need to own the training or best practices. We just want those who are training volunteers to do it right."

The effort in Virginia has been such a boon that other states are starting to mimic the model to brace for not only state elections but the national 2024 election.

The Times reports that each Tuesday evening, the VFE is conducting training summits for what the memo counts as hundreds of poll watchers and fortifying them with a variety of tools.

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Chief among them is to engage "ever-changing election process", "documenting and dealing with potential illegal registrations", "election integrity for poll watchers and election officials", "preparing for post-election, "war rooms, and recounts", "protecting vulnerable voters", "recruiting, scheduling, and deploying poll observers", "researching how your local election office conducts YOUR elections".

“All of us have eyes on,” Clara Belle Wheeler said, according to a recording of one of the summits that was reviewed by the Times.

Wheeler is a former member of the Virginia State Board of Elections is leading the trainings.

“I’m watching," she added.

The consensus among state Democrats is that these efforts to train election poll watchers and officials based off of conservative philosophies sows doubt and could complicate the outcomes of elections.

“This is sort of like a death by 1,000 cuts, and there’s no necessarily one thing that you can point to and say, ‘That’s what’s going to swing the election,’” voter protection director for the Virginia Democratic Party Aaron Mukerjee told the Times. “Taken together, the goal is to disenfranchise enough voters that they can win the election.”