A left-wing donor network is preparing activists who have monitored Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity to take on a new role during the 2026 midterms: monitoring elections.

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Movement Voter Fund (MVF), which conducts its grantmaking through a fund at Tides Foundation, has published a plan that explicitly includes “training ICE watch volunteers to be election monitors.” The proposal places the effort within a broader $450,000 training budget and points to Minneapolis and North Carolina as places where the transition is already occurring.

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From Natalie Winters on Substack:

The document points to Minneapolis and North Carolina as places where that transition is already happening. The proposed $450,000 budget covers the broader training effort, including instruction for other poll monitors and election observers.

MVF collects donations and directs them to organizing groups, conducting its grantmaking through a fund at Tides Foundation. Its priorities include youth and immigrant voters, media campaigns and organizing that continues between elections.

The pitch names three training partners: Freedom Trainers, the Horizons Project and States at the Core. Each operates through a nonprofit sponsor.

Those organizations are connected to a broader network of progressive nonprofits. Freedom Trainers is fiscally sponsored by Community Change, while the Horizons Project operates through New Venture Fund. States at the Core identifies Hopewell Fund as its sponsor. The Horizons Project also traces its origins to PartnersGlobal, which launched the initiative in 2021 with funding from Humanity United, an organization founded and chaired by Pam Omidyar.

The source notes that MVF’s fundraising pitch does not explain exactly what ICE-watch volunteers will be taught as they prepare to become election monitors. Freedom Trainers’ publicly available materials, however, promote methods including nonviolent resistance, boycotts, strikes, and other forms of noncooperation. Its examples include “cities blocking raids” and “insiders leaking and slowing harmful policies.”

Freedom Trainers’ election resources extend from voter outreach through the aftermath of Election Day. Its “People’s Election Playbook” begins with voter outreach, registration checks, and early voting before moving to Election Day volunteering, correcting ballot problems, and organizing gatherings as votes are counted. If election results are not honored, the final stage contemplates economic noncooperation and mass mobilizations at state capitals and economically significant locations. The playbook describes such action as a last resort, stating, “Economic noncooperation is the escalation tool of last resort.”

With the midterms approaching, intercessors should be aware of the organizations preparing to play a role in and around America’s elections. Election monitoring can serve legitimate purposes, but the involvement of activists already trained in protests and noncooperation raises questions about how these networks may operate if disputes emerge before or after Election Day. Let’s pray that every lawful vote is counted accurately, election officials act with integrity and impartiality, disputes are handled through lawful processes, and attempts to intimidate voters or disrupt the peaceful administration of our elections are prevented.

Share your prayers and scriptures for integrity and peace in the 2026 elections in the comments.

(Excerpt from Natalie Winters on Substack. Photo Credit: Lorie Shaull from St Paul, United States – Vote Here sign in Minneapolis, Minnesota., CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=97565551)