With the midterm elections approaching, a coalition of local and national nonprofits are seeking volunteers, especially lawyers, to safeguard the vote.

Many of the election protection opportunities — such as poll watching, answering hotline calls and observing the ballot count — have been around for years. But the midterms might present new challenges, with more states in play as battlegrounds and growing anxiety about federal interference in local elections.

"We're really building our program around the fact that we don't know what Election Day is going to look like, what the threat will be," said Bailey Rechler, voting rights counsel with Promote the Vote Fund. "It might be the same issues we always deal with, or it might be something new. And we are preparing our volunteers on the hotline and on the ground to be able to respond to those different threats, and with our partners, we're also making sure we have litigation capacity to take action if we need to."

And while anyone can sign up for some of these opportunities, people with legal training are uniquely skilled to handle problems that might crop up, according to Carol Evans, vice president of policy for Common Cause, a nonpartisan democracy watchdog group.

"Lawyers are trained to focus on the facts, to report facts, to observe things very carefully, to absorb lots of rule-based information," she said. "All of those skills are enormously helpful when you're trying to answer questions for folks who are trying to cast their ballots."

Opportunities are available nationwide, but organizations are seeking aid on the ground, particularly in Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and Texas, according to Anna Chu, executive director of We The Action, a group that links attorneys with pro bono opportunities.

Chu added that she's seen "a softening" of BigLaw involvement in election protection work.

"We are still getting big firms who are taking on a lot of voting rights-related research projects. We are still seeing big firms take on shifts with the election protection hotline," she said, "but it's not quite at the intensity of the levels we've seen in the past."

Chu attributed the decline to the Trump administration's targeting of BigLaw firms, and said there's also a misconception that the nonpartisan work of election protection is political.

"It is not," she said. "Everyone deserves the right to vote. We should have safe and fair elections."

Here are some of the opportunities that are still available.

Hotline Volunteers

Perhaps the most convenient opportunity, which doesn't require leaving one's couch, is volunteering for a shift answering calls for the election protection hotline at 866-OUR-VOTE. Lawyers can take calls at local command centers, sometimes hosted by BigLaw firms, or sign up for virtual shifts from home.

The hotline is operational year-round, but the pace picks up during primaries, early voting and on Election Day. It is only operated by people with legal training because attorneys, law students and paralegals possess "the ability to look at issues, analyze issues, and … to hone in on how to solve those issues and do good problem-solving," according to Julie Houk, managing counsel for election protection at the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

"I think lawyers are uniquely trained to do issue spotting and [know] how to resolve issues by research and diving deep into a question, and so I think that's one of the reasons why we prefer people with some legal training to be on the hotline assisting voters," she said. "They're not giving legal advice, but their skills are helpful in trying to hone in on the issues and point the voters in the right direction "

The questions hotline volunteers handle vary. Voters may call to ask whether they're registered to vote, where their polling location is, and whether they can vote early or need to show ID.

They may also report a problem at the polls, such as long lines, closures or poll workers not following the rules. Hotline operators can advise voters, but also pass along on-the-ground intel to a team of attorneys in that state's "boiler room," who can then decide the appropriate course of action, Evans said.

"It could be working with local election officials to make sure that they're following all the appropriate rules, or in some cases, it could even lead to litigation to ensure that everybody has a right to cast their ballot," she said.

Battling Misinformation

Disinformation and rumors can have real-world effects on elections, discouraging voters from going to the polls or having confidence in the results, and so Common Cause's Texas branch is offering a social media monitoring opportunity meant to flag election lies and offset them with accurate information.

The group ran a similar "digital democracy" program in 2024, in which volunteers monitored platforms such as Facebook, NextDoor, Reddit and X for mis- and disinformation as well as intimidation. They compared notes on Slack and asked questions in real time over Zoom, and would raise concerns with content moderators at the social media companies, citing the platforms' own terms of use.

Disinformation comes from bad actors posing as concerned citizens, who might start rumors about polling sites being shut down, while misinformation can come from well-meaning people who spread falsities.

This year, Evans said, the federal government has been a source of "panic and confusion," with the president himself saying he hasn't ruled out federal interference in the election.

"We can provide critical support to not amplify any rumors that may dissuade people from passing their ballots," she said. "Amplifying rumors and misinformation can dissuade people in our community, our neighbors, from going out and casting their ballots. And we really want to make sure that people recognize that the election system is safe, it's reliable, and they can trust it. We want everybody to be able to cast their ballots without fear."

The best way to combat misinformation is with good information, and so much of the work of the social media monitoring team will be amplifying reliable sources, such as the OUR VOTE hotline or secretary of state offices.

"We want to make sure people understand where are the reliable sources of information out there," she said.

Poll Watchers and Rovers

Many state organizations are still seeking poll monitors, who stand outside the polls and answer voters' questions or offer additional support. They also serve as the coalition's "eyes and ears on the ground" conveying information to a state's headquarters, according to Evans.

In Michigan, registered voters can also be credentialed as challengers, who have the right to make an election process challenge, telling a designated liaison if poll workers aren't following the law. In the past, those issues have mostly involved campaign signs going up within 100 feet of a poll, or accessibility issues such as missing wheelchair ramps, according to Rechler, of Promote the Vote Fund.

"Most of the shifts are boring," she said, "but when they're not boring, it is essential to have volunteers there."

But this year could introduce new issues. While federal poll monitors are nothing new, the Department of Justice has announced plans to send 1,000 of them to the polls in November. By comparison, less than 300 monitors were deployed during the 2022 midterms. During Michigan's August primaries, DOJ sent monitors to polling places in Detroit, Lansing and East Lansing, and volunteers ended up monitoring the federal monitors, to ensure they weren't disturbing the local process, Rechler said.

She added that there was no interference by DOJ monitors at that time.

In Ohio, efforts are underway to create a "legal rover" program, which is essentially "poll monitoring on steroids," according to Maria Bruno, executive director of Ohioans Against Extremism. Rovers will travel to polling places and boards of elections when problems arise to document, take declarations from voters and escalate issues to a litigation action team.

The standard election protection infrastructure works well for the issues that occur every election season, such as a polling location having technical difficulties, Bruno said. The legal rover program is meant to address new dilemmas that might come up this year or widespread glitches.

"One polling location having a problem with the books — that happens. But if 15 are dealing with it at once, that's a whole different issue. And if we do have something like federal interference, we want to make sure that we're in a position to be documenting what's happening, be preserving legal rights every opportunity that we have," she said. "It's just basically to add capacity to the existing infrastructure and allow us to make sure that we're ready for just about anything."

Election Litigation

Litigators may also be needed throughout election season, coalition members said. The most common reason voting advocates end up in court on Election Day is to advocate for keeping polls open later, in order to compensate for lost time due to closures or delays.

"Litigation is a last resort. A lot of these problems that come up, especially on Election Day, they're resolved through direct conversations with election administrators or voters themselves," Bruno said. "If there's something that is systemic, then you're looking at larger litigation that would be more long term, or at least not resolved that day."

Election protection advocates are preparing in case federal immigration law enforcement officers show up at the polls. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said at a news conference in September that there were no plans for immigration enforcement to patrol the polls, but that officers may serve warrants at the polls.

Federal interference in the election is another concern. Earlier this year, the Federal Bureau of Investigation seized boxes of ballots from Fulton County, Georgia. That was part of an investigation into the 2020 presidential race, not an ongoing election, but the unusual move left some officials and voting rights advocates worried about the possibility of the federal government interfering with the upcoming midterm ballots before they can be counted.

"If the federal government is inserting itself in a state-level-run election and really a county-level-run election, we're dealing with a situation that is so off the map of what is legally allowed that it does become a little bit of a Wild West game. But that's why having 100 lawyers that we can contact and help make sure everything stays on course is really helpful," Bruno said. "Having those lawyers that can serve as witnesses or find witnesses and notarize a statement from them — doing all of that in real time and catching the voters while they're at the polls is really the best way to set ourselves up for success in the post-election litigation as well."

Watching the Ballot Count

Even after voting is over, the work of election protection continues, with volunteers monitoring the counting of votes and the certification of the results. Vote-by-mail and provisional ballots are processed by local canvassing boards, and volunteers will document what goes on and advocate during meetings, according to Brad Ashwell, Florida state director of All Voting Is Local, which is seeking volunteers to keep an eye out for a variety of issues.

"It could be vote-by-mail ballots being disregarded when they shouldn't be. It could be voters being excessively challenged when they shouldn't be. It could be supervisors challenging their own voters in a way that's inappropriate — we've seen that happen. It could also be members of the canvassing board behaving in ways they shouldn't," he said.

Attorneys are particularly well suited for the work because they tend to have more confidence in standing up and interceding in the moment, Ashwell said.

"It really, really helps to have attorneys or at least really savvy advocates who can get into the canvassing board meetings at critical points when certain issues pop up. It can mean the difference between resolving it right there and just being done and, you know, preserving someone's vote versus a whole lot of work on the back end," he said. "An attorney might be able to either intercede just by speaking up, or possibly even file a motion like an injunction, or a writ to either get them to stop or to take action."

Attorneys need not be barred in Florida, though it's preferred. No election law experience is required. The group is holding a special training for lawyers interested in canvassing board work on Oct. 27 at 6 p.m. Other organizations are looking for monitors to observe the vote count in Georgia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Michigan, according to Chu.

Volunteers have been crucial in the past. In 2022, after Hurricane Nicole, state officials extended the deadline for curing provisional and vote-by-mail ballots. Legal monitors ensured that board members honored the extension, Ashwell said.

His group has several concerns about the post-election season this year. He worries election conspiracy activists will disrupt or intimidate officials and monitors, or that officials might refuse to certify the election results — a phenomenon that has occurred in other states, including Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

Looking Ahead

Chu urged attorneys to sign up for this election cycle as soon as possible. She said there's often a "mismatch" between when lawyers start making their Election Day plans and when organizations need volunteers signed up, trained and assigned to their posts.

"It's not quite too late yet, but the clock is definitely ticking," she said. "I really would not wait until the last week of October. It is very hard to find the opportunities that people would like and want at that point."

But it's also not too early to think about the 2027 local elections or even the 2028 presidential election, especially when it comes to re-enfranchisement. The Florida Rights Restoration Coalition is helping people who've finished serving a prison sentence — often referred to as returning citizens — regain their right to vote in the Sunshine State.

While a 2018 ballot measure won overwhelmingly to restore voting rights to Floridians with prior felony convictions who had served their sentence, a state law passed the following year made paying all associated court fines and fees a voting requirement. County prosecutors have gone after returning citizens for registering to vote while ineligible due to outstanding court fees.

But a judge can terminate or convert those fees to community service hours if a returning citizen is unable to pay. FRRC has compiled modification packets, including motions and exhibits, for more than 1,000 returning citizens, but they need attorneys to appear in court on their behalf.

"It's not a heavy lift," said Lenora Easter, FRRC's senior counsel. "We do a lot of the upfront work, so by the time it gets to the attorney, it's just a matter of them connecting with the returning citizen, filing the motion, and then handling the matter in court."

Florida's deadline to register to vote for the coming election has passed, but Easter said it's the perfect time to help returning citizens remove the financial barriers to voting, a process that can take several months.

"Starting early with us helps us to get them done sooner, get the community service out the way, get the court to sign off on that completion order sooner than later, and get them registered," she said. "It's better to be early and proactive than to wait, like, 'Oh, let's wait until August of 2027,' and then we're looking at another time crunch. It takes time for folks to get through the process."

--Editing by Tim Ruel.

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