This story was written by Teen Vogue's 2024 Student Correspondents, a team of college students and recent graduates covering the election cycle from key battleground states.
Some Arizona youth leaders have recruited people to help safeguard voters at the ballot box in the event of any physical or verbal attacks that occur on election day.
Militia movements and armed non-state actors stormed the streets during the 2020 election cycle, eventually consolidating in the January 2021 right-wing riot at the U.S. Capitol. The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) project says far-right extremists resumed public operations in its aftermath and says Arizona boasted most far-right activity of any state that year because of high rates of vigilantism and enlistment.
Abolitionist organization Arizona Democracy Resource Center coordinated election protection training over the past several months to build a paid participatory defense team called the Democracy Defense Front, which does not rely on law enforcement agencies. The organization, which has trained its volunteers in non-violent de-escalation and conflict resolution tactics, will deploy defenders to polling locations in counties across the state to support voters who may experience threats or intimidation. This expanded effort is part of its program to envision what it describes as a people-focused system of governance that transcends elections and builds “beyond tomorrow.”
To distinguish themselves from voters, poll workers, observers and political parties at polling locations, organizers will wear “Beyond Tomorrow” T-shirts.
“People most impacted by community and state violence face the greatest level of voter intimidation and active attempts to suppress the right to vote,” communications organizer Fernanda Ruiz Martinez said during a virtual education session on polls and election threats. “The Democracy Defense Front is one tactic we use to confront this. We are coordinating training and capacity building to enable our community to provide nonpartisan safety and security, knowing that only we can keep us safe—nobody else.” Ruiz Martinez pointed to recent findings from the Department of Justice that the Phoenix Police Department has engaged in excessive force, unlawful arrests, racial discrimination and more, as reasons why many locals are distrusting of state and local authority figures.
ACLED believes extremist group mobilization has declined nationally since 2023 with falloff accelerating this year. Yet, neo-Nazi and white nationalist groups don’t fit the trend as they have expanded chapters locally over the past two years. “For now, data on extremist groups and demonstration trends gives little indication that 2024 will see a repeat of the patterns that characterized 2020,” a September ACLED report found. Still, “that is not to say there is little risk of political violence in 2024.”
An Arizona Democratic Party field office in Tempe that was targeted with gunfire closed last month. And Republican U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake told a crowd of followers in April to “strap on a Glock” ahead of the 2024 campaign. “Election administrators are trying to blunt any swatting calls that crop up during the election by taking steps like sharing their home address and that of key election sites with law enforcement,” Politico reports. Ahead of election day, concrete barriers, chain-link and steel security fences were set up to reinforce the election center of Arizona’s most populous county, Maricopa, according to Votebeat Arizona.
On recent Arizona Democracy Resource Center calls, Ruiz Martinez, 23, gave potential defenders a primer on recent political challenges in Arizona and taught folks a brief history of organizers like Fannie Lou Hamer, who fought against the institutions of racism and Jim Crow. “This just proves that voter intimidation, it's not new,” Ruiz Martinez said.
At conflict scenario training sessions in South Phoenix, Ruiz Martinez showed attendees how to recognize anti-government groups, such as the Proud Boys, that could potentially show up at election centers.
Co-executive director of the Arizona Democracy Resource Center, Guadalupe Mabry Torres, is “thinking about the trauma that exists for our grandparents and our parents and the experiences that they've had with these systems, specifically with immigration and police violence.”
“I think it's so important for this program to exist because a lot of us are, sometimes, the first generation to have people to vote in our family and that's radical,” she said. “I'm really grateful to see young folks, especially young Black and Latinx folks, show up and do this work and break those barriers that have existed to our people participating in democracy.”
The Beyond Tomorrow program was created this year “to provide skill sets to people who live this life and who are in our communities, to be able to de-escalate situations and to be able to participate in democracy in this particular way,” Mabry Torres says. The organization also runs a legal clinic that helps people who were formerly incarcerated get their right to vote restored. “We're expanding on to beyond elections - beyond today, tomorrow and in the next 20 years - to be able to hold space for continued community.”
This role is not for everyone. It requires open-mindedness, adaptability and a “belief that we keep our community safe,” Ruiz Martinez told Teen Vogue. “Some people are not equipped to handle certain types of stress, or they're just easily triggered by different actors that we cannot control. And that's something that we tell our defenders.” When defenders confirm their commitment, they get plugged into the Defense Front’s control center through an encrypted communications channel, where they will send dispatches from polling places for legal advice or bail services.
General intern Natalie Alexandra Romero Ortiz, 16, shared the job opportunity with her family and friends. “As they went through the training, they were really saying, ‘Oh, this opened my eyes. Because I didn't think people were like this when it came to voting, I thought it was like you just do it and you're good,’” Romero Ortiz said. In addition to responders, the Arizona Democracy Resource Center will have staff providing nutritional and communications aid.
Romero Ortiz hopes that more young people will join their future initiatives. “Community safety is not just [for] elections,” Romero Ortiz said. “It's year-round.”
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