A coalition of military veterans and families announced a new effort Tuesday to bolster the ranks of election workers by recruiting within the military community
Vet the Vote, a project of We the Veterans, aims to enlist 100,000 veterans and military family members to be poll workers during the 2022 election, and to help sustain future elections as well.
“We see this as a new norm for veterans and military families members,” said Ellen Gustafson, co-executive director of Vet the Vote. “We don't envision that 2022 is going to be the one time that we call 100,000 military veterans and military film members to do this job.”
Veterans are “deeply committed to democracy,” said Anil Nathan, a second co-executive director. “The challenges are solvable. … Military families can lead.”
According to data collected by Vet the Votes, about 130,000 election workers have quit during the past three midterm cycles and two-thirds of election officials have said they struggle to recruit enough people to staff voting locations.
“Our intention as an organization, We the Veterans, was to find an opportunity for veterans and military family members to volunteer for democracy,” said another of the co-executive directors, Ellen Gustafson, who referenced the seemingly small but important tasks that come with working a polling location.
“All of those incredibly important jobs need to be done by citizens and what better group of citizens than veterans and military family members who've already proven their commitment to stand up and protect our democracy,” she said.
While Vet the Votes wants to support elections nationwide through its nearly two dozen coalition partners, the organization recognizes that some states are more in need than others. The campaign is particularly focused on recruiting poll workers in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio and Wisconsin.
“What we are hoping is that by partly doing a national push we can engage as many veterans as possible, but that, if we do need to get more local .. in areas where really the need is exceptionally great we hope that, through these incredible partner organizations, we can target some of those communities,” Gustafson said.
Retired Gen. George Casey, who in addition to serving as Army chief of staff also supported elections in Bosnia, Kosovo and Iraq, is helping launch the effort.
Casey said he got involved in Vet the Vote after he had already signed up to be a poll worker in Arlington, Va.
“Even though that might seem like it's a small thing, confidence in our election process is fundamental to sustaining any democracy,” he said. “And it struck me that, by getting involved, I might just be able to do something to help restore a level of confidence to our electoral system.”
One of the factors driving experienced poll workers away has been a rise in threats made against them since the 2020 election, when Donald Trump and many of his backers claimed, without evidence, that the election had been stolen from him. Many still do not feel safe.
The organizers of Vet the Vote believe they can help alleviate this problem.
“What a perfect call to action for our veteran community, people who are trained at remaining calm under pressure, are trained at actually diffusing complex situations, are trained because of what they do as military members to put country over party and make sure that everyone is mission focused and not getting distracted by by any kind specific small sets,” Gustafson said. “I think that's that really is part of why we think this is a perfect community to step into this opportunity and and again to do this going forward, not just for these 2022 midterms but really going forward.”
Organizers stressed that this is a nonpartisan campaign, regardless of the political beliefs of members of the military community.
For us this is 100 percent purely a pro-democracy effort that has zero connection or affiliation to any level of partisanship,” said Nathan.
Coalition partners include Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, the NFL, Civic Alliance, the National Military Family Association and the Military Officers Association of America.
“We believe that the threat to democracy is real and we're proud to be a part of this initiative in order to strengthen the legitimacy of our elections and ensure that Americans get involved in the electoral process,” said Janessa Goldbeck, CEO of coalition partner VetVoice Foundation.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivers a keynote speech at the 62nd Munich Security Conference on Saturday, Feb. 14, 2026, in Munich, Germany.
Marco Rubio is the only adult left in the room
Finally free from the demands of being chief archivist of the United States, secretary of state, national security adviser and unofficial viceroy of Venezuela, Marco Rubio made his way to the Munich Security Conference last weekend to deliver a major address.
I shouldn’t make fun. Rubio, unlike so many major figures in this administration, is a bona fide serious person. Indeed, that’s why President Trump keeps piling responsibilities on him. Rubio knows what he’s talking about and cares about policy. He is hardly a free agent; Trump is still president after all. But in an administration full of people willing to act like social media trolls, Rubio stands out for being serious. And I welcome that.
But just because Rubio made a serious argument, that doesn’t mean it was wholly persuasive. Part of his goal was to repair some of the damage done by his boss, who not long ago threatened to blow up the North Atlantic alliance by snatching Greenland away from Denmark. Rubio’s conciliatory language was welcome, but it hardly set things right.
Whether it was his intent or not, Rubio had more success in offering a contrast with Vice President JD Vance, who used the Munich conference last year as a platform to insult allies and provide fan service to his followers on X. Rubio’s speech was the one Vance should have given, if the goal was to offer a serious argument about Trump’s “vision” for the Western alliance. I put “vision” in scare quotes because it’s unclear to me that Trump actually has one, but the broader MAGA crowd is desperate to construct a coherent theory of their case.
So what’s that case? That Western Civilization is a real thing, America is not only part of it but also its leader, and it will do the hard things required to fix it.
In Rubio’s story, America and Europe embraced policies in the 1990s that amounted to the “managed decline” of the West. European governments were free riders on America’s military might and allowed their defense capabilities to atrophy as they funded bloated welfare states and inefficient regulatory regimes. Free trade, mass migration and an infatuation with “the rules-based global order” eroded national sovereignty, undermined the “cohesion of our societies” and fueled the “de-industrialization” of our economies. The remedy for these things? Reversing course on those policies and embracing the hard reality that strength and power drive events on the global stage.
“The fundamental question we must answer at the outset is what exactly are we defending,” Rubio said, “because armies do not fight for abstractions. Armies fight for a people; armies fight for a nation. Armies fight for a way of life.”
I agree with some of this — to a point. And, honestly, given how refreshing it is to hear a grown-up argument from this administration, it feels churlish to quibble.
But, for starters, the simple fact is that Western Civilization is an abstraction, and so are nations and peoples. And that’s fine. Abstractions — like love, patriotism, moral principles, justice — are really important. Our “way of life” is largely defined and understood through abstractions: freedom, the American dream, democracy, etc. What is the “Great” in Make America Great Again, if not an abstraction?
This is important because the administration’s defenders ridicule or dismiss any principled objection critics raise as fastidious gitchy-goo eggheadery. Trump tramples the rule of law, pardons cronies, tries to steal an election and violates free market principles willy-nilly. And if you complain, it’s because you’re a goody-goody fool.
As White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said not long ago, “we live in a world … that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world that have existed since the beginning of time.” Rubio said it better, but it’s the same idea.
There are other problems with Rubio’s story. At the start of the 1990s, the EU’s economy was 9% bigger than ours. In 2025 we were nearly twice as rich as Europe. If Europe was “ripping us off,” they have a funny way of showing it. America hasn’t “deindustrialized.” The manufacturing sector has grown during all of this decline, though not as much as the service sector, where we are a behemoth. We have shed manufacturing jobs, but that has more to do with automation than immigration. Moreover, the trends Rubio describes are not unique to America. Manufacturing tends to shrink as countries get richer.
That’s an important point because Rubio, like his boss, blames all of our economic problems on bad politicians and pretends that good politicians can fix them through sheer force of will.
I think Rubio is wrong, but I salute him for making his case seriously.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.