Merloe is a member of the Election Reformers Network Advisory Council and provides strategic advice on democracy and elections in the U.S. and internationally.
Donald Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee recently announced “the most extensive and monumental election integrity program in the nation’s history,” involving 100,000 “dedicated volunteers and attorneys across every battleground state.” The plan is to deploy election workers, poll watchers, challengers and “aggressive attorneys” to targeted areas in “an historic collaboration between the RNC, the Trump Campaign, and passionate grassroots coalitions who are deeply vested in fighting voter fraud.”
Should this be cause for alarm about potential disruptions of the 2024 elections? The answer is: It depends — on their actions and what others do to better ensure a credible process.
In the announcement, RNC Chair Michael Whatley said the lawyers and volunteers “are committed to the sanctity of our elections.” Who can take issue with that — unless the effort spuriously depicts non-existent widespread election fraud as has been proclaimed by passionate groups welcomed into the initiative by, among others, the director of the RNC’s Election Integrity Department, Christina Norton, during an April 4 call posted online.
The New York Times reported in late April that the RNC effort will target Democratic districts, including cities and African-American neighborhoods. The reporters pointed to new RNC leadership driving this initiative, including Whatley, Norton, Co-chair Lara Trump and Christina Bobb, senior council for election integrity. Bobb is among the 18 people indicted April 24 on felony charges for her role in the Arizona scheme to undo Joe Biden’s election by presenting fraudulent presidential electors to Congress.
One concern about deploying election monitors who are both partisan and convinced that widespread fraud exists is that they may see things that are not there or interpret things incorrectly (like believing someone passing a ginger mint is really illegally passing a USB drive). Having lost more than 60 court challenges, when wrongly declaring the 2020 elections suffered widespread fraud, election deniers only doubled down. And, they have since concocted bogus theories and faulty evidence of voter registration fraud (a rising battle arena), mailed ballot fraud and conspiracy theories about “rigged” election technologies. And now they are falsely claiming that throngs of undocumented immigrants are pouring into the country to illegally vote for Biden.
Needless to say, if such passionate grassroots volunteers are to be integral to the 100,000 strong effort, they will face a daunting challenge in developing accurate observations required for genuine election monitoring and reliable evidence required to back up legal cases. Given the flood of post-election challenges following the 2020 election and the breadth of 2024 cases already lodged, it is possible to see the risks of challenges based on flimsy evidence. We can only hope that rigorous training based on established principles and good practices will lead to accurate, constructive reports.
The 100,000 person effort will monitor logic and accuracy testing of voting machines as well as procedures for early voting, Election Day voting, mailed ballot processing, and post-election canvassing (vote counting and tabulation), audits and recounts. The passionate volunteers are to be linked with a hotline in each key state that is tied to a state party “war room” and litigators at the ready. All of this will take place in the age of social media and the likelihood of deep fakes. Any problem — real or imagined — could easily become a viral source of information or disinformation potentially affecting voter participation and public confidence in the elections.
The potential for physical confrontations at the polls and other election facilities also is concerning in light of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the peaceful transfer of the presidency, Trump not ruling out violence should he lose the 2024 election and his inflammatory campaign rhetoric. Passionate volunteers on a crusade against improbable election fraud going to precincts with heavy Democratic Party support, including large cities and African American neighborhoods, could generate confrontations, with images that negatively affect public opinion about the elections.
What should be done to safeguard the elections?
The first thing to do is educate yourself about election processes, whether you are a voter, an activist or a journalist. It will be invaluable to know what procedures prevent illegal voter registration and ensure the proper functioning of electronic voter lists (pollbooks) at voting places, what mechanisms protect the security of voting and vote tabulation, how the integrity of mailed ballots is secured, what the proper roles of poll watchers are, and more. Simultaneously, get a sense of how your state and local election administration conduct themselves.
Such learning is important for personal understanding and interactions with others should incidents flare up in the heat of elections. Good places to start are secretary of state websites, which often describe election procedures. Some media outlets are developing learning tools, like SpotlightPA ’s Elections 101 pages, while the Election Reformers Network and the Bridge Alliance are collaborating in the Election Overtime Project to present such materials for six battleground states. Plus, the Brennan Center for Justice, Votebeat and others are reliable sources.
Direct civic engagement is crucial for safeguarding elections. Engaging with efforts to recruit polling officials is important. That can be done by reaching out to local county election boards about poll worker opportunities and encouraging other reliable people to do so. The Election Assistance Commission provides resources on being a polling official and a way to contact local boards across the country as National Poll Worker Recruitment Day (the Aug. 1) approaches.
Joining or otherwise supporting voter registration efforts helps to realize universal and equal suffrage. Nonpartisan national efforts, like VoteRiders, engage volunteers nationally while providing information and assistance to individuals in each state. There is an array of national and state-specific organizations that focus on voter-registration and turnout, some targeting traditionally disenfranchised communities.
Volunteering with candidates and political parties to encourage voting and safeguard electoral integrity is also crucial. Party/candidate poll watching and related monitoring is a public service, not a gladiatorial contest. Such monitors can reassure their party’s supporters that the process is being protected and can help encourage officials to ensure smooth processes, even identifying and alleviating problems as they develop. Proper training emphasizes cooperation, rather than conflict with election officials, opponents’ poll watchers and voters — both inside and outside voting and canvassing centers.
In many elections that I’ve observed, internal reports of party election monitors played a critical role in helping candidates accept that the process was credible, even when they lost, and at times provided the factual basis for electoral challenges. Those circumstances typically required strong election administration and good-faith actions of well-trained party agents. Many other countries have the advantage of respected nonpartisan election monitors and international observers who are trusted to report accurately, but who, unfortunately, do not play major roles in the United States. That places a heightened obligation on journalists to understand election intricacies and accurately cover electoral controversies.
“All eyes on the election process” is a fitting call this year, but like observing any phenomenon, accurate monitoring requires refining one’s understanding of it. Learning and engaging are essential to safeguarding the credibility of elections, and helping others to see accurately is part of bolstering democracy. No time is more important for that than the next few months as we move toward Nov. 5, 2024, and Jan. 6, 2025.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
____
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.