Clergy are a great fit, according to Honor, because the role draws on the things they already do best: providing spiritual care, encouraging people and offering a “ministry of presence.”
And Georgia is “ground zero for the voting rights fight,” he said.
By Election Day, the New Georgia Project, along with Candler School of Theology and Ebenezer Baptist Church, both in Atlanta, will have trained about 200 poll chaplains and assigned them to polling places it has identified as high priorities, he said.
But the idea has spread beyond Georgia. Honor also has been invited to lead online trainings for Middle Church in New York City and the United Church of Christ.
Other groups are offering similar trainings.
The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, led by the Rev. William Barber and the Rev. Liz Theoharis, is partnering with Forward Justice and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund to train nonpartisan poll monitors in 10 states, according to its website.
The Episcopal Church also hosted an online training on Oct. 20 to encourage clergy to offer a “prayerful presence at the polls.” The training was led by Lawyers and Collars, a partnership between Sojourners, Skinner Leadership Institute and the National African American Clergy Network to educate and protect voters in Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
During the training, the Rev. Adam Russell Taylor, acting president of Sojourners, said voter fraud is an “exaggerated myth” and allegations the election is already rigged are “dangerous rhetoric.” But voter suppression, he argued, is a real threat.
Taylor stressed the role poll chaplains can play in deescalating any tension at voting sites. He encouraged them to wear collars or robes — anything identifying them as clergy.
“Just your presence at a polling site is going to be a very important and potentially decisive deterrent to some folks who were planning to instigate violence or that were planning to intimidate voters,” he said.
The Rev. Melanie Mullen, director of reconciliation, justice and creation care for the Episcopal Church, said the mainline denomination has partnered with Lawyers and Collars for several years.
But the Episcopal Church arrived at the idea for poll chaplains independently this summer while discussing what it could look like to be “church outside the walls” as the COVID-19 pandemic and protests for racial justice continued, Mullen said.
