In this episode, we reflect on inequity and varied levels of accessibility for persons of diverse abilities to engage respectfully in the electoral and civic process with disability advocate and Bridge Alliance intern Caleb Railsback.
The brutality of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the related cohort of federal officers in Minneapolis spurred more than 30,000 stalwart Minnesotans to step forward in January and be trained as monitors. Attorney General Pam Bondi’s demands to Minnesota’s Governor demonstrate that the ICE surge is linked to elections, and other ICE-related threats, including Steve Bannon calling for ICE agents deployment to polling stations, make clear that elections should be on the monitoring agenda in Minnesota and across the nation.
A recent exhortation by the New York Times Editorial Board underscores the need for citizen action to defend elections and outlines some steps. Additional avenues are also available. My three decades of experience with international and citizen election observation in numerous countries demonstrates that monitoring safeguards trustworthy elections and promotes public confidence in them - both of which are needed here and now in the US.
The willingness of Minnesotans to take to the frozen streets as monitors is a testament to the bravery of everyday people in the face of federal agents wantonly killing Renée Good and Alex Pretti, accosting civilian nonviolent observers, ignoring court orders, and violating fundamental rights of immigrants. In addition to monitors, thousands are engaged in sounding alarms and mutual aid efforts in Minneapolis neighborhoods, in some cases reactivating networks started when George Floyd was murdered by police in 2020.
Similar efforts are taking place in other cities and even in conservative, less populated areas. Last year, millions of Americans participated in No Kings and similar protests in more than 2,000 cities, and civic infrastructure - including women's, civil rights, and religious organizations, unions, and informal digital groups - mobilized for them. Those mobilizations undoubtedly helped to propel immigration enforcement monitoring and mutual aid initiatives.
That civic infrastructure could embrace protecting elections. Planning for election protection is needed, and now is the time to consider how to do it. There are at least five avenues to direct such energies.
Join election administration or party/candidate voter protection efforts
Sign up to be a polling station official. That is vital to safeguarding trustworthy elections. Secretaries of State and local election board websites typically provide a way of signing up. Turnover among such officials is high. “Election deniers” are pressuring election officials and attempting to sign up themselves, which makes it all the more important for trustworthy citizens to join the 100,000s of polling officials across the country.
Become a political party or candidate polling observer (sometimes called a poll watcher). They are trained and credentialed to be present inside (or, in some cases, outside) polling stations and to be present at ballot counting and other processes. Hotlines back them with legal expertise. They can flag improper actions, help seek redress, and testify to the credibility of the election administration that predominates in the US. These voter protection efforts typically start well before election day to assist people with voter registration problems or election-day issues and to help ensure their ballots are counted.
Enlist in or initiate nonpartisan election defense initiatives
Join the multistate Election Protection 866-OUR VOTE initiative led by Common Cause in concert with a broad array of partner organizations. This effort places volunteers outside polling stations where there has been a history of problems or where hotly contested races are expected, to help voters understand their rights and address voting obstacles. It trains the volunteers and backs them with a hotline connected to legal experts. Common Cause Pennsylvania organizes Watchdogs for Democracy to attend monthly county election board meetings and note developments, which could be replicated elsewhere.
Join or create a nonpartisan election monitoring network. This is relatively new in the US but well established worldwide. There is a statement of principles and code of conduct for nonpartisan election monitoring and a global network of over 200 such organizations from 89 countries and territories. There are also online materials on techniques for monitoring various stages of elections.
The Carter Center’s democracy program is assisting such efforts this year in Georgia, New Mexico, Nevada, Michigan, and Montana. The nonpartisan group Observe New Mexico Elections provides a solid example of how such monitoring can be done. In Maine, South Carolina, and probably elsewhere, chapters of the League of Women Voters have also conducted nonpartisan election observation. The Movement Advancement Project developed a map of states that explicitly permit nonpartisan election monitoring, plus the National Conference of State Legislatures provides information on relevant state laws.
Organize and deploy monitors around polling places, including drop boxes and other early voting locations. Publicizing that monitors will expose attempts to interfere with potential balloting can help instill voters’ confidence to cast their ballots. This requires training monitors about what constitutes interfering with voting, which is a crime. Training on documenting interference should include how to minimize the risk of physical confrontations with immigration or other officers and aggressive civilians. Organizing legal support for monitoring efforts is needed. Plus, where possible, it is best to be in communication with Election Protection volunteers and nonpartisan election monitors.
Ruthless immigration raids, deployment of military forces to cities under various pretexts, the FBI seizure of Georgia’s 2020 Fulton County election records, and President Trump’s renewed demand to take control of elections, notably saying, “We should take over the voting, the voting, in at least 15 places”, all indicate an urgent need to monitor and defend the upcoming elections.
As monitoring of immigration enforcement abuses proliferates and election defenders map the course to the November midterms, hopefully, a bridge will be built and complementary efforts secured. Trustworthy elections are the means to end abusive policies and practices across a broad array of urgent matters. We all have a stake and a responsibility to step forward.
Pat Merloe provides strategic advice to groups focused on democracy and trustworthy elections in the U.S. and internationally. He has engaged with those promoting credible elections in more than 60 countries.
Bad Bunny performs onstage during the Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show at Levi's Stadium on February 08, 2026 in Santa Clara, California.
Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl performance was the joy we needed at this time, when immigrants, Latinos, and other U.S. citizens are under attack by ICE.
It was a beautiful celebration of culture and pride, complete with a real wedding, vendors selling “piraguas,” or shaved ice, and “plátanos” (plantains), and a dominoes game.
The show paid homage to Puerto Rico while also featuring other Latino cultures.
There were shoutouts to Mexican food with a vendor from the Los Angeles-based taco stand, Villa’s Taco.
There were real boxers sparring, Puerto Rican Xander Zayas and Mexican-American Emliano Vargas. A highlight was a guest performance by Puerto Rican icon Ricky Martin, in the music business for 40 years, who started his career with the island boy band “Menudo.” Also dancing in the “casita,” the little house, were Colombian superstar Karol G, and the Bronx-born rapper and songwriter Cardi B, of Dominican and Trinidadian descent. Dancing with the “casita” guests were Chilean actor Pedro Pascal, Latina actor Jessica Alba, Venezuelan baseball star Ronald Acuña, and the rising Puerto Rican rapper and singer-songwriter Young Miko.
Also featured in the show was María Antonia “Toñita” Cay, owner of Brooklyn’s Caribbean Social Club, one of the last surviving Puerto Rican social clubs in New York City.
I’m not Puerto Rican. I'm a fourth-generation Mexican American, but I felt represented in this halftime show. I watched it with my 88-year-old Mexican American mother, and a few friends, including a Peruvian American and a European American.
We dined on my mother’s Mexican chicken and rice, but we also made Puerto Rican “tostones” (fried plantains) and also drank “coquito,” a Puerto Rican coconut nog. We didn’t watch the game at all, except to check how many minutes until halftime. We spent the first half of the game eating and dancing to Bad Bunny songs.
Bad Bunny is popular not just with Latinos but worldwide. A video of people exercising in China while singing Bad Bunny songs in Spanish recently went viral. Leading up to the Super Bowl, Bad Bunny challenged people to learn Spanish, and hundreds of viral videos showed people of all races and ethnicities trying to learn his lyrics.
Bad Bunny had his critics, who were upset he planned to sing all in Spanish, and some falsely claimed he’s not a U.S. citizen. Only 6 million of them tuned in live to an alternative Super Bowl show.
Bad Bunny’s show is expected to be the most-watched halftime show ever with 135 million viewers. Indeed, Bad Bunny has topped Spotify as the #1 Global Artist for the fourth time in as many years. .
Bad Bunny didn’t go on tour on the U.S. mainland for his last album, as he voiced concerns that his fans could be harassed by immigration enforcement agents. He did not criticize ICE during the halftime show, as he had when he won a Grammy a week earlier.
"Before I say thanks to God, I'm going to say 'ICE out.' We're not savages, we're not animals, we're not aliens. We are humans, and we are Americans," he said at the Grammys.
At the end of his Super Bowl show, Bad Bunny sent a message: America is more than just the United States.
Bad Bunny sang all his music in Spanish but also said, “God Bless America” in English. Then he proceeded to name all the countries in the Americas, including his native Puerto Rico, and ended by saying the “United States” in English. Then he named Canada and his homeland of Puerto Rico.
Many people don’t know that Puerto Rico is a territory of the U.S., and since 1917, all Puerto Ricans have been U.S. citizens, a move by then-President Wilson to draft Puerto Rican men into World War I. But those living on the island are not allowed to vote for president, and their representative in Congress cannot vote on the House floor on any final legislation.
Some of Puerto Rico's struggles were demonstrated in the halftime performance, which featured those who labored in the sugar cane fields, and the electrical poles represented the frequent power outages in Puerto Rico, exacerbated by the devastating Hurricane María in 2017.
The power went out after Hurricane Maria in 2017, and it took nearly a year for power to be fully restored. When President Trump visited the island, he threw paper towels, and many Puerto Ricans took it as an insult, reinforcing their belief that their treatment as second-class citizens by the government in Washington is not an illusion.
Bad Bunny’s song “El Apagón” is about the all-too-often power outages on the island, made worse by government corruption and gentrification of the island.
The power went out after Hurricane Maria in 2017, and it took 11 months for all the power to be restored. When President Trump visited the island, he threw paper towels, and many Puerto Ricans took it as an insult, reinforcing their treatment as second-class citizens.
Trump’s insistence on renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America reflects his failure to understand that America is not just the United States.
Bad Bunny ended by saying, “We’re still here." Then he spiked a football that was inscribed with the message, "Together We Are America."
Bad Bunny’s performance was one of resistance and resilience.
Behind him, a large video board displayed the message, "The only thing more powerful than hate is love."
I can’t think of a more unifying message. We are all Americans, and we danced, cheered, and some of us even cried as we saw our American culture represented in one of the biggest stages imaginable.
Teresa Puente teaches journalism at Cal State Long Beach and is a fellowship coach with The OpEd Project.
Yosemite National Park.
While Trump declares himself ruler of Venezuela, sells off their oil to his megadonors, and threatens Greenland ostensibly for resource extraction, it might be easy to miss his plot to pillage precious natural wonders here at home. But make no mistake–even America’s national parks are in peril.
National parks promote the environment, exercise, education, family bonding, and they transcend our differences—John Muir once said, "One touch of nature makes the whole world kin." Thanks to Teddy Roosevelt, who championed these treasures with the Antiquities Act, national parks are (supposed to be) federally protected areas. To the Trump administration, however, these federal protections are an inconvenient roadblock to liquidating and plundering our public lands. Now, they are draining resources and morale from the parks, which may be a deliberate effort to degrade America’s best idea.
First and foremost, Trump is responsible for a dramatic slashing of staffing. Over the past year, the administration fired 4,000 dedicated professionals, or a quarter of its workforce. These rangers once maintained trails, educated visitors, and protected endangered species. Their absence is already being felt across the park system, with longer wait times, fewer services, and less capacity to address environmental threats. Adding insult to injury, the administration has implemented a new performance review system that seems designed to demoralize the remaining staff and make further layoffs easier. By artificially limiting the number of top marks given in evaluations, this policy violates federal regulations and sets the stage for potential "reduction in force" layoffs. It's a move that threatens to crush the spirit of those who have dedicated their careers to preserving our natural heritage, and who are already spread thin, filling the holes left by the mass firings.
In a brazen attempt to rewrite history and downplay environmental concerns, Trump officials have also ordered the removal of signs and displays related to climate change, conservation efforts, and the mistreatment of Native Americans and slaves. This gaslighting and whitewashing of our parks' educational materials flies in the face of the National Park Service's mission to provide accurate information to visitors. Even the simple act of visiting a park has become more complicated and exclusionary. New policies require staff to question visitors about their residency status, leading to longer wait times and potential discrimination. For non-U.S. residents, steep surcharges have been implemented, making our national parks less accessible to international visitors and contradicting the idea that these are spaces for all to enjoy.
The cumulative effect of these changes is clear: a diminished experience for visitors, demoralized staff, and parks that are less able to fulfill their crucial role in conservation and education. This systematic undermining of our national parks system feels suspiciously like a precursor to more drastic measures.
If everyone who visited Yosemite and Yellowstone had a bad time, it would be easier to justify further budget cuts or further exploitation and extraction. This means eliminating restrictions on mining, drilling, and logging, to the detriment of the wildlife habitats. It also means selling off public lands to the highest bidder, who may harvest the parks for resources (drill, baby, drill?). Trump has already signaled his goal by hand-picking Steve Pearce–a multi-millionaire who made his fortune in oil and gas, known as Sell-Off Steve by conservation groups as a result of his ongoing efforts to privatize public lands–to run the Bureau of Land Management, overseeing 245 million acres of public land. These tactics resemble the Big Short–a significant investment strategy where an investor bets that the price of an asset, such as a stock, will decline–and Trump is insider trading with himself. Don’t fall for it.
Luckily, in January, the Senate introduced a three-bill appropriations package that rejected what National Parks Conservation Association President and CEO Theresa Pierno referred to as “the Trump administration’s reckless $1 billion funding cut that would have devastated our parks” (this proposed cut came from the same president who managed to find $74.85 billion in the couch cushions to appropriate to paramilitary thugs, more than ICE spent in the last eight years combined). Still, Congress must do much more to prevent national parks from getting sold off in the future, which could mean, at a minimum, ensuring they remain federal lands.
Our national parks are scenic vistas, living classrooms, biodiversity hotspots, and sources of national pride. By preserving nature for future generations, we acknowledge that some places are too precious to be developed or exploited. As citizens, we must contact our representatives, ask them to oppose Pearce’s nomination, fully fund and staff parks, and push back against policies that threaten their integrity. We should also keep visiting our parks, share our positive experiences, and help maintain these spaces when possible. There is no Lorax to fight for our home. Only YOU can prevent the theft of our public lands.Julie Roland was a Naval Officer for ten years, deploying to both the South China Sea and the Persian Gulf as a helicopter pilot before separating in June 2025 as a Lieutenant Commander. She has a law degree from the University of San Diego, a Master of Laws from Columbia University, and is a member of the Truman National Security Project.
“In four years, you don't have to vote again. We'll have it fixed so good, you're not gonna have to vote.” - Donald Trump, July 26, 2024
“I should have” seized election boxes in 2020. - Donald Trump, Jan. 5, 2025
President Trump, Republicans, and conservative billionaires are determined to dominate the 2026 and 2028 elections, using federal power to steal elections where necessary. Their strategy is to create sufficient doubt about the election process that voters will endure Republican vote-tally chicanery. Their tactics feature Presidential Executive Orders, Department of Justice (DOJ) lawsuits sowing doubts about voter rolls and balloting integrity, and Republicans gaslighting voters about Democratic Party election criminality. Moreover, Putin is likely continuing Russia’s participation in Republican election manipulation.
Trump issued an executive order, for instance, asserting Presidential power to decertify voting machines and limit mail-in ballots. Lower courts have ruled repeatedly against the order, however, noting that the Constitution grants states and Congress exclusive authority to conduct elections. In addition, the DOJ is suing to obtain confidential voter rolls from at least 44 states. Each list creates an opportunity for Republicans to claim they are riddled with nonvoters in instances where elections are won by Democrats – although analyses rebut such claims.
Democratic officials in Michigan, for instance, are dealing with DOJ suits alleging mismanagement of voter rolls, questioning overseas military voter procedures, and challenging absentee ballot signature matching. Moreover, they are contending with suits by Republican state legislators seeking access to confidential Michigan election security instructions. The legislators are even proposing that the DOJ oversee the entire state’s 2026 election, including monitoring “polling places, absentee ballot processing, voter registration activities and central count facilities across Michigan.”
Studies find few if any voting irregularities, and Democrats are resisting, winning suits protecting the integrity of voter rolls. Even so, the Republicans’ ultimate tactic for stealing elections was given a test run in January 2026 when federal agents summarily seized 2020 election ballots from Democratic-leaning precincts in Fulton County, Georgia. Democrats are resisting that unconstitutional tactic also, but its potential for election disruption is evident.
Vigorous legal resistance is important. But equally important is Democrats’ need to appreciate their stunningly narrow pathway to victory in 2028, posed by the 2022 upgrade of Presidential election certification procedures - the Election Count Reform Act (ECRA)
ECRA empowers governors in 2028 to determine their state-wide presidential winner. It provides a 36-day window for state and federal courts to resolve post-election controversies. Then by the second Wednesday of December, state governors (and Washington D.C.’s mayor) must submit a slate of electors for their state’s winning presidential candidate to Congress; final Congressional tabulation of Electoral College electors (made infamous by January 6) occurs in early January. ECRA does permit a state’s submitted slate of electors to be rejected by a majority vote of the House of Representatives and separately by the Senate. In that event, the state is stripped of its Electoral College votes – its voters disenfranchised – and the threshold number of electors necessary for election of the president is commensurately reduced below 270.
These rules create two pathways for Russian-Republican election thievery in 2026 that ensure a Republican is elected President in 2028.
First, Republicans win majorities in both Houses of Congress in 2026.
Or second, ensure that 2026 balloting results in a Republican becoming governor in one or more swing states. (That is because - as in recent elections - the 2028 presidential election is highly likely to hinge on results in the swing states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, and perhaps Arizona and Nevada.)
For Democrats, blocking those two pathways dramatizes the importance of a robust 2026 blue wave that elects a Democratic majority in at least one House of Congress and elects Democratic governors (and preferably attorneys general and secretaries of state) in the swing states. Those officials will become the key actors overseeing an accurate and fair presidential election in 2028. Democrats currently occupy all those positions in Arizona, Michigan, and Wisconsin - and partly in Pennsylvania (Democratic governor) and Nevada (Democratic attorney general and secretary of state) – but all of those offices are on the ballot in 2026.
ECRA provides a third pathway for Republicans and Putin to prevail in both 2026 and 2028 by granting final authority to resolve legal election disputes to the Supreme Court.
That is greatly concerning because the Roberts Republican majority is fringe conservatives well out of the mainstream. They support the unconstitutional abuse of executive authority by an administration “embracing Nazi slogans and tropes,” reports the Atlantic.
Moreover, Court Republicans are elitists, comfortable preserving Trump’s wage suppression economy, dissected here by what Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig describes as “one of the most important studies you’ve probably never heard of.”
Finally, they are racists. They overturned a fifty-year-old unanimous precedent last year to rule that people can be arrested (aka “Kavanaugh Stops”) solely on the basis of how they look, speak, or where they work – a fulsome embrace of racial profiling. That portends placing their partisan thumbs on the 2026 elections by ruling this year in Louisiana to eviscerate what remains of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. That ruling may well induce a wave of frantic partisan gerrymandering, creating as many as 10-12 net new Republican House districts – and perhaps securing a House of Representatives majority in 2026.
History is discouraging. The Rehnquist court, for instance, abandoned democracy in a partisan panic to issue Bush v Gore – rejecting an orderly recount – elevating an election loser to be president. The Roberts Republican apparatchiks are even more partisan. They may well exploit an orchestrated MAGA disinformation environment - and bogus claims that they face a presidential decision-deadline – to anoint another losing Republican president.
Perhaps the best option for Democrats - aside from massive public protests – is to refute any contrived Roberts Court rush-to-judgment à la Rehnquist. A deliberate and careful presidential vote count is within its ECRA remit.
James Madison believed the exalted presumption for Supreme Court justices ensured reasoned rulings divorced from the tumult of politics. In contrast, Roberts Republicans mock Madison - the New York Times editorially concluding the Court is failing “to live up to its constitutional role.” And they have mocked numerous other Republican jurists who are displaying the courage to meet Madison’s standard now.
The choice facing the Roberts six is stark. Will they continue to mimic Russian apparatchiks and Weimar era elitists?
Or will several feel the weight of history and find uncommon courage to step away from the abyss - to channel Madison and save the Founders’ 250-year grand experiment in democracy?
George Tyler is a former deputy assistant treasury secretary and World Bank official. He is the author of books including Billionaire Democracy and What Went Wrong.
