Some police officers are being trained in voting rights

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Police officers who work as lawyers. It’s a derogatory phrase muttered in some legal circles to describe cases in which police officers misinterpret the laws they enforce.

It may also reflect a broader cynicism about police interference in matters better left to lawyers or, in the case of the upcoming Nov. 5 election, election experts.

Justin Levitt, a law professor at Loyola University, understands these sentiments so much that it might seem like a contradiction for him to advocate for a new requirement that all police officers in Georgia take a one-hour course in election law.

Levitt served as the White House’s first senior policy adviser on democracy and voting rights under President Joe Biden, and as a constitutional law scholar, he is well versed in the history of police disenfranchising some voters, particularly during the Jim Crow era. Still, he wants to explain why it’s a good idea for members of your local police force to learn as much as they can about issues like voter intimidation and election interference.

The most important part of the training, he said, should be to ensure that an official’s first instinct when faced with technical issues related to voting is to call a lawyer or election official rather than trying to interpret the laws themselves. On that basis, Levitt adds, the main benefit of election training for police officers is that they do not impede the voting that should be taking place at U.S. polling stations.

“There are times you want them there and there are times you don’t want them there,” Levitt said of police. “In any case, it’s better if they know what they’re doing.”

In particular, Levitt believes that officials who are aware of election laws may prevent them from allowing politicians to use them to control the electoral process, while ensuring that they properly enforce the laws that apply to their jurisdiction – such as gun bans at polling places .

This summer, through a vote by the Georgia Peace Officer Standards and Training Council, the state became the first state in the nation to require a course in election law as part of basic training for new officers at police academies. Although the course will not become an official part of the curriculum until January, council officials urged all current officers to complete the course immediately so they will be ready for next month’s presidential election.

Chris Harvey, the council’s deputy executive director, is also a member of the Committee for Safe and Secure Elections, a bipartisan group of experts on election administration and law enforcement. Harvey said he has conducted nine regional law enforcement training sessions across Georgia since January and has also held sessions in states such as South Carolina, Michigan and Hawaii.

Harvey said the essence of the training is not for officials to know the intricacies of local election laws, but rather to know what responsibilities they have to ensure elections run smoothly.

Take, for example, Georgia’s ban on voters wearing clothing bearing a candidate’s name at a polling place. Harvey says it’s up to a poll worker to ask a voter wearing a candidate’s T-shirt to change it, turn the clothing inside out or cover it. Law enforcement should only intervene if the voter refuses to vote, threatens the worker, or otherwise causes a disruption that prevents other people from voting.

“Our first rule is like the Hippocratic Oath to do no harm,” Harvey said. “But if this is a matter that clearly required law enforcement to intervene, even if it didn’t happen at a polling place, then police shouldn’t have to call someone to know they need to intervene.”

In other places, such as Maricopa County (Arizona) and Green Bay (Wisconsin), police chiefs and sheriffs have independently decided to conduct election training for their officers. This includes meeting with local election officials to understand their specific needs on Election Day.

In San Marcos, Texas, police officers are being trained on how to properly respond to voter intimidation, but only as part of a $175,000 settlement last year between the city and four Biden-Harris campaign supporters. The supporters sued police for failing to stop a caravan of Trump supporters from harassing a Biden campaign bus on a Texas highway days before the 2020 election.

As much as police can hinder the election by not doing enough, critics say doing too much on Election Day can be just as bad. In Indiana, after Secretary of State Diego Morales sent a letter to election officials urging them to have local law enforcement present at the polls in case of problems, a coalition of voter rights organizations fought back.

A letter from Common Cause Indiana, the ACLU and other groups expressed concerns that voters will face the same officials at the polls who are excessively policing some of their neighborhoods.

“The presence of law enforcement will not create a welcoming environment for voters and could cause intimidation and have a chilling effect on voter turnout,” coalition members wrote in the June 11 letter.

Green Bay Police Chief Chris Davis said earlier this year that he concluded it would be best for his officers to stay as far away from polling places as possible during the election. He said they have developed an alternative plan to help election officials maintain a smooth voting process.

These strategies could be as simple as ensuring that police officers are available to quickly deal with matters that could indirectly impact a person’s right to vote. A car accident or a stolen wallet, for example, is a hindrance on a normal day, but on Election Day it could deprive a voter of their only chance to cast their ballot if police take too long to respond. Harvey says having plainclothes officers at polling places can also put other police departments in positions where they can assist when needed, without their presence intimidating voters.

But Levitt and others emphasize that voting rights training for police officers should have begun months ago. Any crash course that begins in a police department today is happening far too late, Levitt said.