At balloon-adorned tables in red, white and blue, a handful of voters inside a church gymnasium listened as Medina Moore explained what to do if federal agents show up at the polls. Call a hotline, she told volunteers, where attorneys will be ready to respond. Take videos, report what you see and remove yourself from any situation that becomes intense, she advised. It was one of Moore's final poll monitor trainings in the Phoenix area before election day, preparing a few new "peacekeepers" to join the ranks of about 200 she has recruited from local faith groups in the Phoenix area to greet voters, answer questions and keep an eye out for issues at voting sites on Tuesday.

"It feels very urgent this year," said Moore, the voting rights organizer for the Arizona Faith Network, a coalition of religious groups. "We're in an era of information overload. Being able to educate voters on what's true and what's not is very important." As lawyers nationwide prepare defenses against possible election interference by the Trump administration and election officials train for worst-case scenarios, ordinary citizens across the country are also readying to help. Through nonpartisan groups, parents are training to be poll monitors, law students are staffing legal hotlines, veterans are holding voting events and business owners areg pledges to back local election officials.

The grassroots efforts, underpinned by various voting and democracy nonprofits, amount to a striking push by American voters to help uphold the nation's election system in the face of possible threats from its own government. More than 21,000 people nationwide have been trained as nonpartisan poll monitors through the Election Protection coalition, the program that Moore used, along with thousands of others through other nonprofit and partisan efforts.

The effort is aimed at helping ensure voter turnout at a time when Trump's rhetoric has eroded public trust in the system and many GOP-led states have enacted new ballot rules for voters to navigate. Worry among voters about whether their ballots will be counted has accelerated, according to organizers; in a recent AP-NORC poll, just under half of American voters expressed confidence that midterm votes will be counted accurately.

"People who vote occasionally or it's their first time voting or they haven't voted in a while, they all have questions on 'If I vote, will my vote count?'" said Rebekah Caruthers, president of the Fair Elections Center, a nonpartisan voting rights group that is working with college students to monitor voting on campuses. The best way to combat those fears, she said, is for as many people as possible to "show up and exercise their right." Since returning to office, Trump has undertaken a sweeping effort to exert control over and cast doubt on U.S. elections, and the administration has intensified its efforts as the midterms draw closer.

In recent days, the Justice Department has sued California, arrested residents and threatened to prosecute election officials over an unsubstantiated government claim of 20,000 "likely noncitizen" voters; moved to block certification of Alaska's election results if the Republican candidate for Senate there loses narrowly; and began notifying counties of its plan to send federal monitors to polling places in every state. "Be careful of the voter fraud," Trump said at a Texas rally Tuesday. "We're going to watch that voter fraud."

This week, Trump offered $1 million to anyone who reports voter fraud that leads to a conviction, the latest in a string of incentives he has floated related to the midterms and another suggestion of rampant election fraud. U.S. Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche last week said the Justice Department did not intend to interfere with elections.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) committed to a peaceful transfer of power if Democrats win a majority, saying, "We're going to follow the Constitution," but predicted there would be no transfer because Republicans would win the majority. Trump told reporters Tuesday that he would respect the election results "if they're honest elections." Preparations by lawyers, nonprofits and Democratic lawmakers to anticipate how the Trump administration could try to interfere with the midterms have been underway for months.

Courts have already blocked many of the administration's steps, including attempts to access state voter rolls, restrict voting by mail and demand states change some election rules. The grassroots effort has grown out of existing programs — the Election Protection coalition has been operating since 2000 — but interest from volunteers is particularly high this year, organizers from several groups said. "Voters are responding to the moment that we're in right now," said Saige Draeger, a senior policy associate at Verified Voting, a nonprofit that advises states on the use of voting technology and is part of the Election Protection coalition.

"I think they feel like it's incumbent upon everybody to make sure this election goes smoothly." In Arizona, an epicenter of Republican efforts to deny the 2020 election results, partisan tensions have long been high, and residents cite concerns about potential political violence surrounding the election. Now, election denialism is on the ballot: The Republican nominees for governor, secretary of state and attorney general each played a role in Trump's denial of the 2020 results.

Alex Kolodin, the Republican candidate for secretary of state, filed lawsuits challenging the 2020 election results. The outcome of the race could be consequential for the 2028 election, because secretaries of state play a key role in certifying their states' results, and presidential elections can come down to a single swing state.

Along with the Arizona race, those in Nevada, Michigan and Georgia are being closely watched by pro-democracy groups. On street corners, the campaign signs for Kolodin and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, the Democratic incumbent, duel: "Protect every vote," say Kolodin's. "Protect your vote," Fontes' read. Organizers focused on election protection efforts stress that the goal is to ensure every voter casts their vote and the person who gets the most votes is declared the winner — all regardless of political party.

"With the level of polarization that we have nationally right now, people might mistake and think that calling for a free, fair, democratic election is somehow partisan," said Hardy Merriman, an organizer with the Hold the Line project, which has recruited about 650 volunteers to ask their local leaders to sign on to a pledge affirming they back free and fair elections. "It’s really important for actors to get off the sidelines ... and say, no, actually it's not.”

The mission of the poll monitors is to answer voters' procedural questions, ensure no one is incorrectly turned away from voting and provide a friendly nonpartisan face — "be a peaceful presence," Moore said. They can help voters navigate state laws — in Arizona, for instance, a requirement to show an approved form of identification when voting. The monitors are also trained to call the attorney-staffed hotline to report anything out of the ordinary: long lines that may deter people from voting, people being turned away from the polls, aggressive electioneering from partisans outside the polling place or law enforcement showing up at voting locations.

Monitors trained through the Election Protection coalition will be stationed in 40 states and the District of Columbia, while about 3,000 legal professionals will be staffing the hotline, said Camille Wimbish, national director of campaigns and field programs for the Election Protection coalition, which is a project of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. "It gives voters reassurance that there is someone who has their back at voting locations," Wimbish said. "It also just shows our determination as a community to stand up and say that we care about our elections, we want election day to be a joyful, peaceful, celebratory experience for all of us."

PJ Boone-Edgerton Longoni, 70, who attended Moore's mid-October training in Chandler at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, said the idea of poll monitoring made her a little nervous, but she believes there is a "high-stakes need" for citizens to show up. "I want to be a support," she said. "All this misinformation gets people not to trust anything, and that lack of trust causes things to fall apart — because democracy is based on trust."