THE FIRST TIME I voted, at age 18, I was both nervous and filled with a sense of sacred responsibility. As someone mesmerized by the Civil Rights Movement, I was painfully aware that my African American mother couldn’t vote in most of the South when she was 18 in 1959, due to pernicious barriers such as poll taxes, grandfather clauses, and the threat of violence.
The freedom to vote underpins almost all other rights we hold dear in the United States. The idea that voters will replace politicians who fail to protect our rights is key to a democratic system. Yet free, fair, and safe elections require more than casting a ballot. Votes have to be accurately tabulated, reported, and certified before an election result is official. Pro-democracy advocates are seeing post-election day “election subversion” as posing some of the greatest dangers to the 2026 midterms.
The freedom to vote underpins almost all other rights.
“Executive Override,” a recent report from the nonpartisan group Protect Democracy, names three major ways the Trump administration is pursuing election subversion. First, it is supercharging lies about widespread voting by noncitizens as a pretext to subvert our elections. Second, the Trump administration seeks to suppress political activity it doesn’t like and manipulate election rules. Third, the administration is prepared to contest and reverse election results it deems unfavorable to it. Elements of these tactics are already evident in President Trump’s dangerous rhetoric that “the only way Democrats can win is by cheating” and his threats to federalize key elections, ban voting by mail, confiscate voter machines, and more.
What can people of faith do to defend both the right to vote in this midterm election and the election itself from the threat of subversion? At Sojourners, we partner with the Skinner Leadership Institute and the Georgetown Center on Faith and Justice for a nonpartisan voter and election protection project called Faiths United to Save Democracy. In 2022 and 2024 FUSD had three phases of work: “Know Your Rights” and “What’s at Stake” voter education; “We Are Watching” meetings with senior election officials to tell them we’re observing the process and will hold them accountable to conducting free, fair and safe elections; and coordinating hundreds of volunteer poll chaplains at vulnerable polling places in key states to be a moral presence to de-escalate conflict and ensure voters can cast their ballots free of intimidation or interference.
With the increasing threat of election subversion, we’ve now added a post-election phase to help ensure every vote is counted and election results are respected. We will mobilize and organize with key local leaders if local or state election officials refuse to certify the election and be prepared to participate in noncooperation and mass mobilization activities to ensure a peaceful, lawful, orderly transfer of power at all levels of government.
Building on the legacy of freedom fighters such as Fannie Lou Hamer and John Lewis, people of faith play a critical role in securing and defending the right to vote. We need the same kind of faithful response to election subversion and other evolving threats to our democracy. I’m confident that people of faith and conscience working together can effectively counter election subversion in all its forms and ensure that the will of “we the people” prevails.
Rev. Adam Russell Taylor is president of Sojourners and author of A More Perfect Union: A New Vision for Building the Beloved Community. Follow him on Bluesky @revadamtaylor.
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