Atlanta (AFP) - Linda Jones has set up a folding chair near a polling station in Atlanta, Georgia, to watch out for anything that might keep people from casting their ballots in the US midterms.

“I want to help people navigate the voting, which has gotten more and more complicated,” said the septuagenarian, who is serving as an election observer for the first time.

She and two other volunteers will keep a close watch on activity around this polling station, set up in a public library, and report any issues that arise.

“In a climate like we are in the country, there’s misinformation, there’s actions that are taken that discourage some people from voting, certain parts of the population,” she told AFP.

The polling station where she is stationed is in Fulton County, the most populous county in the state of Georgia, where Black residents are the largest racial group.

During the 2020 presidential election, won by Democrat Joe Biden, the county became the focal point of baseless allegations of electoral fraud made by President Donald Trump.

- A surge in volunteers -

Rachel Glover, associate director of the election observation program at the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), said the volunteers play a crucial role in ensuring election integrity – from making sure no electioneering takes place near polling stations, to watching for voter intimidation, to noting long lines and ensuring accessible entrances are clearly marked.

Most of all, “it’s making sure that no one walks away from the polling location and wasn’t able to vote if they’re an eligible registered voter,” Glover said.

Some 500 election observers have been deployed by the ACLU in Georgia. About a dozen other organizations are collaborating on the operation.

Glover said the number of volunteers more than doubled compared with the 2024 presidential election won by Trump.

“We have students, older retired people, normal average working professionals who’s just taking a day off to do this,” she said, all with the shared goal of “trying to fight back these attempts to silence them.”

Trump’s administration has sought to insert itself into the voting process in several ways, from trying to curb mail-in ballots to changing the rules for voter registration.

During the early voting period, Glover reported no major malfunctions, nor any sign of the immigration enforcement operations that some had feared.

- Fear -

Retired oncology nurse Rosa Rivera-Ayala, part of the “Vote Safe” initiative, has stationed herself near a polling place in DeKalb County, which has a majority-Black population and a large number of naturalized American citizens.

“We see things daily that just put fear in the hearts of Americans,” she told AFP. “Even people who have papers and are allowed to vote are afraid to come out for fear of being targeted.”

Rivera-Ayala is there, she said, because “our presence makes a big difference. The citizens who come to vote, I think, feel better knowing that there are poll watchers who are making sure that nothing happens to them.”

The Atlanta-based Carter Center – founded by former Democratic president Jimmy Carter and an expert in international election observation – has been working in Georgia since 2020 to address a trust deficit in the electoral process.

For this election, it is focused on the collection and tabulation of results.

“It’s not exciting. It shouldn’t be exciting,” said Jonathan Stonestreet, who leads the effort. But the goal is to ensure “everyone can have confidence that these are the real results,” he said.