Thousands of Americans are preparing to protect the midterm elections and mobilize quickly if President Trump interferes with the results. Organizers are studying the American civil rights era and international resistance to authoritarianism while asking volunteers what risks they would accept to defend voters’ will.

“There’s a deeper, broader, bolder set of efforts afoot to prepare people for much more existential scenarios that could come our way that would call into question the pillars of our democracy itself for what it’s for and who it’s for,” said Jackson Potter, vice president of the Chicago Teachers Union. “People are zeroing in.”

Potter is organizing with May Day Strong, which hosted more than 750 solidarity school training sessions nationwide this month. The group also launched a week of direct action urging corporate executives to use their influence to defend the midterms.

Organizers told the Prospect that confronting corporate power gives volunteers practical preparation ahead of Election Day. Their plans also extend beyond voting itself, with participants preparing to respond if Trump or his allies in the states refuse to accept the results.

The American Civil Liberties Union and its affiliates are preparing volunteers while spending a record $25.5 million on voter education. More than 67,000 new volunteers have joined the organization’s People Power list since June, according to Molly McGrath, director of national democracy campaigns at ACLU.

McGrath described the increase as the largest the organization has ever seen and evidence that voters want to work collectively to safeguard elections. “I used to take my team to brunch on Wednesday but that is no longer the case,” McGrath said. “Now we get ready for phase two.”

The AFL-CIO has recruited and trained more than 50,000 volunteers to protect polling locations, particularly in communities of color and places targeted by ICE. Freedom Trainers, Indivisible, the Immigrant Defense Network, unions, faith groups, and community organizations are also conducting training before November 3.

In San Antonio, a solidarity school brought together the Texas Organizing Project, San Antonio DSA, and labor unions. Participants prepared voter turnout efforts and discussed how the community would respond if voting rights or access were threatened during the election period, including documenting intimidation and appearing in large numbers.

“We’re basically looking at each other and saying, ‘Yeah, I’m committed to doing these things because I care about our community and I care about our future,’” said Alejandra Lopez, president of the San Antonio Alliance of Teachers and Support Personnel.

Public confidence is already badly shaken. Fewer than half of Americans expect next month’s elections to be “free and fair,” according to a September survey by UC San Diego researchers that partly attributed the uncertainty to fears about federal immigration officers appearing at polling places.

The survey found that 39% of Asian American and Pacific Islander respondents, 31% of Hispanic respondents, and nearly a quarter of Black respondents worried that voting could expose them to questioning by federal immigration officers despite their United States citizenship.

The Trump administration plans to send what it called “a historic number” of election monitors to polling locations and has continued attacking mail ballots. Trump is also blocking the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe from overseeing the election, a role it has performed for two decades.

On Monday, Trump met with Tina Peters, the former Mesa County, Colorado, clerk criminally convicted of attempting to overturn the 2020 election results. According to 9News in Denver, they discussed a plan to seize ballots nationwide to force a hand recount.

At a recent Chicago solidarity school, 300 people studied South Korea’s response when then president Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law during an attempted coup on December 3, 2024. Thousands gathered at the National Assembly, while nearly 200 lawmakers reached the building and unanimously voted down the decree.

Participants focused on the importance of preparation, speed, collective action, and personal risk. Potter said some attendees who had never considered risking arrest told him afterward that they were considering it for the first time.

A Phoenix workshop organized by Organized Power in Numbers drew about 80 participants ranging from high school students to people in their seventies. They discussed direct action if votes were not counted, ballots were stolen, or Trump discarded the results.

Jeff H., an ACLU volunteer in the Atlanta area and former Marine, said monitoring polling places and conducting training reflected his sense of duty. “Patriotism to me is not about waving a flag … To me patriotism is doing whatever is necessary to defend our country. It’s why I used to carry an M16 for a living, why I wore a mask during the pandemic.”