“We’re all sort of on the same track, which to us sort of seems like this is the Holy Spirit. It’s the right thing,” she said.
We’re in a time when everybody wants to do something, she said. And, referencing Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, she pointed out: Who better to embody peace in physical places of stress than “church people”?
Christian clergy aren’t the only ones planning to show up as a supportive presence in precincts around the country.
The Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism is also partnering with Lawyers and Collars and other groups this election season, encouraging clergy and laypeople to serve as nonpartisan election protection volunteers, according to its director, Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner.
Voting rights are “personal” for Reform Judaism, Pesner said. Among other things, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. used to use the group’s offices in Washington, D.C., and the Voting Rights Act was drafted in its conference room, he said.
He pointed to a teaching in the Talmud that says a leader should not be selected without the community being consulted. In the United States, he said, that consultation means every voice should be heard and every vote counted.
This year, that work may need to continue after Election Day, too.
Pesner said Reform Judaism is preparing rabbis to reassure their congregations should it take days or even weeks for all votes to be counted this year.
“Our rabbis’ role is not only to be a nonanxious presence at the polling sites,” he said.
“We think it’s also really critical that they are community leaders — joining together, by the way, with pastors, imams, priests — all in a full court press in the weeks after the election to reassure the public and say, ‘Take a breath. American democracy is more than 200 years old. We can wait a few weeks if need be.’”
So far, Honor said, nothing very dramatic has happened during early voting at the polling places he’s visited.
He has explained the law to one police officer who tried to turn away poll monitors. He also has seen a lot of voters of all ages and ethnicities.
As of Monday, 58 million voters already had cast their ballots across the country, according to NBC News. That number could reach 100 million before Election Day, roughly doubling the number of people who voted early in the last presidential election.
“This is the most active and exciting early voting I’ve ever seen,” Honor said.
He hopes Election Day will be uneventful for voters, too.
But, anecdotally, tensions have been high at some early voting sites, The Washington Post reported.
And the Trump campaign has raised concerns for some about voter intimidation and possible election-related violence.
Unlike nonpartisan efforts, a video on the campaign’s “ Army for Trump ” website is encouraging Trump supporters to volunteer for “Election Day operations” and monitor every polling place in the country. During the first presidential debate, the president himself urged his supporters to “go into the polls and watch very carefully.”
Nobody is quite sure what to expect in a year that continues to surprise.
The New Georgia Project is prepared for anything, even training poll chaplains how to respond in active shooter situations, Honor said during the RNA conference.
“We hope it’s an overreaction and none of it happens, but we don’t have the luxury of just ignoring it, so we are preparing people in that event,” he said.
For people of faith, Honor said, the right to vote is too important.
“I believe the reason why we have poll chaplains and others out there is because I believe that diversity is our strength,” he said.
“It’s also the image of God, and when you suppress the voices and when you suppress the presence of individuals who are among us in our community, you suppress the image of God being clearly seen and expressed in our collective democracy.”
This article originally appeared on ReligionNews.com.
