Show Up or Shut Up

If you’re genuinely concerned about the integrity of American elections, consider applying to become a poll official for the next election. If all you’re interested in is the fundraising power of rage, feel free to stop reading.

I recently published a story arguing that participation is the best answer to the confusion surrounding election integrity. This is the less polite follow-up.

Give Me Money and Give Me Rage

I’ve wondered how much money a person could make by doomscrolling for an hour about election integrity and then venting online for clicks. Even with a subject as complex as elections, the formula is simple: repeat claims that have already been disproven, frame questions as proof, and keep people angry enough to come back.

Conflict entrepreneurs have learned that they do not need expertise as long as their audience mistakes suspicion for evidence. In that environment, attention is currency. Anger becomes a business model. The work is not to prove anything; it is to provoke, repeat, monetize, and move on.

The election integrity debate has produced a familiar cast of influencers who present themselves as experts without doing the work expertise requires. They are neither investigators nor reformers. They are charlatans. They may not even know whether what they are saying is true, and worse, they may not care. The late Princeton philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt called this speech bullshit and warned that it's dangerous precisely because it is indifferent to truth.

Be a Patriot. Do Your Civic Duty

Election integrity isn’t best addressed through outrage, mockery, or conflict-driven arguments. Instead, it’s through participation.

We should not dismiss sincere concerns about election integrity. As citizens, we have a responsibility to understand how the process works, and the best way to understand it is to participate. Much of the confusion around recent elections has come from a process most citizens never see firsthand. Understanding builds trust, not ridicule.

I’ve served as a poll worker in more than a dozen elections in my community. Working inside a polling place has given me a practical education in how voting actually happens: how voters are checked in, how ballots are issued, how records are reconciled, and how ordinary people protect the process by doing careful, unglamorous work.

Citizens Run Our Elections

Elections are not a spectator sport. They require more than casting a ballot. They require regular citizens willing to serve their communities.

American elections are decentralized across thousands of local jurisdictions. They happen because ordinary people agree to check in voters, issue ballots, process records, assist neighbors, reconcile totals, and document the results.

The solution to our integrity concerns is often right in front of us: the person at the check-in table, the neighbor issuing a ballot, the worker reconciling totals after a long day. These are your friends, your family, and your neighbors. Democracy thrives because ordinary people do ordinary work faithfully.

So where are you? Are you sitting behind a screen, overwhelmed by everything you have been told to fear? Turn that heat into civic participation. If you genuinely have concerns about the process, show your civic pride. Your local elections office is ready for you to apply.

If you genuinely have concerns about the process, your local elections office is ready for you to apply.

Author

Poll workers receive training and modest compensation. The work is temporary, but the hours can be long, tedious, technical, and tiring. It can also be deeply rewarding. From the outside, election procedures may look repetitive or counterintuitive. From the inside, you learn why those steps exist: to prevent mistakes, maintain accurate records, and identify problems before they become bigger ones.

Of course people have questions about the process. Questions are healthy. But questions alone are not evidence. The most effective way to answer many of them is to learn how ballots are issued, handled, counted, reconciled, reported and stored.

Once you have done the work firsthand, sweeping conspiracy theories tend to lose their force. Elections are local, decentralized, and staffed by people from the community. Let’s be honest: we can barely keep a cousin’s surprise birthday party secret. How could a vast conspiracy involving thousands of low-paid poll workers remain hidden? Impossible.

Poll workers encompass a diverse range of individuals, including retired teachers, veterans, grandparents, students, civil servants, and neighbors. They are not a faceless bureaucracy; they are us.

If you vote in person, you have the opportunity to meet them. If you vote by mail, they process your ballot in your own community. Political parties and election officials are well aware of the identities of these individuals. When asked why they participate, they often provide a simple response: “I love my country and I love this work.”

Made By and For You and Me

Poll workers are you and me. Every political party, every political persuasion, and every kind of community member has helped make the electoral process work for generations.

In presidential elections over one million Americans give their time to work at the polls. Their responsibilities include checking in voters, issuing ballots, assisting with equipment, processing mail ballots, reconciling totals, documenting exceptions, and reporting results.

That is why sweeping claims about election fraud sound different once you have worked the polls. You learn the process, the checks, the documentation, and the sheer number of people who would have to cooperate to change results in secret. At some point, the theory collapses under the weight of the neighbors it would have to accuse.

The bottom line is simple: more of us need to work at a polling place during the next election. No law has to change for that. We just have to show up by applying to work. In a republic, showing up still matters.

Trust Is Not Blind Faith

The American system was built for argument, dissent, oversight, and reform. Citizens should ask hard questions. Institutions should be tested, corrected, and improved. But that work requires evidence, process, and participation—not fake certainty.

Audits, recounts, canvasses, and investigations are not signs of failure. They are part of the system. They verify numbers, review records, and confirm that results match ballots.

In the coming weeks ahead of the 2026 mid-terms I'll be posting a series of detailed accounts of how elections are held in our nation.

Author

Two truths should guide us: allegations must be tested through evidence and due process, and trust cannot be restored by evidence alone if citizens remain disconnected from the work itself.

If we want more trust in elections, more of us need to participate. Serve as a poll worker. Attend training. Observe what your local rules allow you to observe. Learn what happens before the polls open and after they close.

Elections are not a spectator sport. If you care about election integrity, show up.