I was listening to Chris Hayes talking about poll watchers, and he was right...

[TreasonousBastard]

I've been a poll worker and coordinator for years, and we deal with poll watchers all the time.

You become poll watcher by your party putting your name in and getting a certificate. That certificate allows you to look at registration books and voting totals. And that's about it. You can check the books to see who hasn't voted for your GOTV work, and you can see how many voted.

And that's it.

You CAN NOT just show up, armed or not, and "defend the polls". You CAN NOT interfere with the election in any way. You CAN NOT tell poll workers how to do their jobs. Needless to say, without a certificate you can't just show up and announce you are watching the polls.

If anyone listens to Trump and tries to save the election his way, he or she will find his or her ass cooling off behind bars.

We had problems back in 2008 with the Tea Party actually getting them Republican or Conservative certificates but not telling them what the job was. When we told them, they said "Fuck this" and left.

[Wounded Bear]

1. Rules vary by state, but what you've laid out sounds pretty universal to me...

[SharonClark]

2. I've been a poll watchers for years and what

you said describes what we do, too. We keep track of who has voted and relay that info to the county party. The repugs generally don’t have poll watchers in my precinct.

[Klaralven]

7. Same here: the main function is to keep track of Democratic registered voters who have not yet voted

That way your phone bank can call and encourage them to vote, find out if they need transportation, etc.

The other function is to challenge voters who are no longer residents of the district, although neither I nor my Republican counterparts ever did so.

The local party organization has to forward the nominations of its poll watchers to the county clerk well before the election. The county clerk issues credentials that have to be shown to the poll workers before the poll watcher is seated.

[keithbvadu2]

3. I asked some questions on another posting. Got some good answers.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100214171013#post5

[greenjar_01]

4. The vast majority of the work done by poll watchers or observers is determining whether

their own voters have already voted. In other words, they have a list of registered Democrats or Republicans, and they check off those who have voted by occasionally checking the sign-in book handled by the poll workers. If somebody hasn't voted, they communicate that to the local party office, which then calls or contacts the voter to urge them to vote, offers rides to the polls, etc. They can also work from lists of people who have been contacted in door to door or phone banking. The whole point is to pump up your known voters, not to depress the other candidates voters. I was a poll observer in 2004, and not one of our poll observers across all precincts challenged a single voter. That wasn't really the purpose of the job.

[keithbvadu2]

10. Another good answer. Trump doesn't seem to emphasize legitimate functions.

Another good answer. Trump doesn't seem to emphasize legitimate functions.

Just the ethnic fear factor.

[soldierant]

13. I've been an election worker in Colorado (too disabled now and besides we noe have all mail ballots.

We had a couple of ways of keeping track of who had voted, and we were told in our training which one (and only that one) poll watchers could look at. They could sit there with it and take notes - it was the one which didn't disrupt the process by being out of service for a bit. I suppose that's obvious that it would be.

In not every election did I encounter poll watchers, and all the ones I did encounter were well trained - knew their job - and polite.

Had a voter once, though, that it took two of us to explain the law on electioneering to. He was wearing a hat with the name of his candidate for, of all things, sheriff, and didn't want to take it off. He finally took it off and put it on a table with his candidate's name facing the room. Also not acceptable. He took his hat and left in a snit. Back later, very sheepish, having been instructed by his candidate (one would think a candidate for sheriff would be somewhat familiar with the law, but I wouldn't have bet any valuable body parts on it. I was impressed, particularly since it wasn't my candidate.)

[quakerboy]

5. Assuming that law enforcement

will uphold the law.

In the current age, i think that is an unwarranted assumption. Police have been showing up in solidarity with the armed white supremicist thugs for the past 3 months, why would they suddenly stop now?

[Lock him up.]

6. We need these guys:

United Nations Blue Berets

[lastlib]

8. Jimmy Carter's foundation send election observers to a lot of other countries......

Why couldn't they do it in good ol' USA?

Any thoughts, DU?

[ancianita]

12. Maybe the US is too big?

Maybe just in battlegrounds? But even then, his teams might not be large enough.

It's a scale problem, since most of our states are as large, if not larger, than most countries, and probably the ones the Carter Foundation sends observers to.

I'm don't know about probable state jurisdictional problems, but they might be another factor.

[LiberalFighter]

9. That is pretty much the same here in Indiana.

We also have attorneys available if there are any problems at polling locations.

[Hamlette]

11. they don't want to be a poll watcher, they want to intimidate people so they don't go to the polls.