cross-posted from: https://infosec.pub/post/54243760
For the past six months, President Trump and his allies have declined to rule out possible deployments to voting locations during the midterms, even though they would be [illegal under federal law](https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/preventing-voter-intimidation-federal-agents-polls). When asked in May if he would deploy the National Guard or ICE during the midterms, Trump [said](https://x.com/ElizLanders/status/2054265101322993816): “I’d do anything necessary to make sure we have honest elections. We have to have honest elections.”
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But for organizations on the ground interacting with voters in communities that have been targeted by ICE during Trump’s second term in office, the reality feels very different. Hundreds of different groups are part of the fight against possible ICE intimidation at the polls, and they are all working in coordination with each other.
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To combat this scenario, groups like 614 ICE Watch in Columbus are organizing patrols in neighborhoods near polling locations. “We send our folks in pairs or in groups. We never want to send anyone alone; we always want to have multiple people there so they can help take control of the situation,” Baiman says, adding that they have trained volunteers in a unique method of de-escalation: “If it starts to get very tense, we teach our folks to hum, to sing, to calm themselves down.”
The goal is not to interact with ICE agents but to document what they are doing so that events can be properly recorded and shared publicly. In January, just days after [Alex Pretti was shot and killed](https://www.wired.com/story/the-instant-smear-campaign-against-border-patrol-shooting-victim-alex-pretti/) in Minneapolis, more than 200,000 people logged into an “Eyes on Ice” Zoom training session, designed to teach people how to properly document ICE activities. Those skills are now being deployed during the midterm elections, Ezra Levin, cofounder of Indivisible, a group founded to stop the rise of authoritarianism in the US, tells WIRED.
On a much smaller scale, Living United for Change in Arizona has been training volunteers to become “constitutional defenders” in person, as the group prepares for next week’s vote. To track ICE activity, the group created a heat map that volunteers use to log and track ICE activity. The map is not available publicly, but WIRED was given access to the website and reviewed hundreds of recorded incidents of ICE activity in Maricopa and Pima counties.
Groups are also using social media to draw attention to what is happening. Last week in Sutter County, California, six ICE vehicles showed up in the parking lot of the Yuba City board of elections building, where a ballot drop box is located. Following a call from a local resident, NorCal Resist, a mutual aid organization, was able to send one of its trained volunteers and [post an alert on Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/p/DeroPdBGEut/?img_index=1).
“They don’t like the attention, \[and] when there’s more community attention, they do often leave,” Giselle Garcia, programs director with NorCal Resist, tells WIRED.
Standing with their thumbs up their butts like they did in the airports doesnt mean shit to me. I think its just part of the firehouse of bullshit, who is worried about this in real life?
There are just old fucks running the elections near me, and it’s like 4 old ladies, and no one else no cops, no ice…
Is it because im white with a military id that i dont give a shit about this? Are minorities feeling afraid to participate in voting because of this?
I don’t disagree with this. We’ve been voting for 12 days in Texas already, and there isnt any ICE activity that’s different from what they’ve been doing this whole time, which is targeting all immigrants, regardless of legal status. Talarico is going to beat Paxton, and there will be no love lost among Republicans here for Paxton. Donald Trump and the people closest to him will argue, but the audience who will listen to that is increasingly small.
So often on Lemmy I see people saying nobody is really doing anything of note, and deride that all people are doing is posting on the socials with no action. Then when people actually do things, it’s not good enough or not necessary or not the right thing or not violent enough. There’s so much minimisation, and ridicule. Let me tell you though, all actions of resistance are important. At very least all added up they’re death by a thousand papercuts. If 9,999 paper cuts were naysayed for “not being enough”, there’d be no death. It’s not helpful to henpeck actions of resistance. If you think it’s not enough, don’t criticise, start something you think is “real” enough. This is a time when we all stand up and we all support each other.
What are you talking about?
Ask Flint.
What does that mean? Why did you give me a riddle
You said firehouse. I know, it’s so complicated.
Sorry my autocorrect isn’t set to firehose and corrects to firehouse. Didn’t think that’d mean I’d summons Chakravanti the riddler. Making no sense and making no points, just wasting time with elusive nonsense and jokes.
House also changes my point completely oh my oh my doesn’t it. You probably couldn’t even understand my point with that “u” in there. Gosh how tough that must have been.
Your lack of understanding me doesn’t define your understanding of me. IF you think that’s a riddle, you lack access to half your own mind. Truly though, I remember too much of that nonsense.
Why are you treating me like this.
Are your questions serious? They read like sarcasm.
No it’s serious. Theres so much shit right now it’s hard to sort which things are actually scary, and whats just another psyop, or just part of the BS reality TV show.
This isn’t scary to me, it might be privilege or it might be a nothing people are intentionally stirring up into a something to manipulate people.
You’re privileged.
Youe entire comment here lends to itself.
The first paragraph downplays the threat, and the second illustrates why, to YOU- it’s not a threat.
If you had simply reversed the order, you’d have answered your own question.
Love it. Just shut up and don’t comment, why didn’t I think of that?!? I could just never talk or comment then I won’t have to be made to feel small on the internet, fantastic. Thanks sooooo much.