BLN is recruiting approximately 35 attorneys to serve as Legal Poll Observers in 26 targeted counties across North Carolina during Early Voting and on Election Day.

Legal Poll Observers will be deployed to selected voting locations to identify, address, document, and report voting-access issues in real time.

Depending on the needs of a county, attorneys may be assigned to a particular voting location or serve as roving Legal Poll Observers, monitoring multiple voting locations during their assigned deployment.

Attorneys do not need to practice election law to participate. BLN will provide training, written materials, reporting protocols, and support throughout the project.

The Black Legal Network (BLN) is building a statewide network of attorneys prepared to help protect voter access during North Carolina’s 2026 Midterm Elections.

Voting laws, rules, and election procedures continue to evolve, and voters may encounter questions or barriers involving Voter ID, voter challenges, registration, polling locations, provisional ballots, voter assistance, accessibility, intimidation, misinformation, or other issues at the polls.

Lawyers can play an important role in identifying these issues as they occur, advocating for voters when appropriate, documenting what is happening on the ground, preserving evidence, and helping ensure that significant concerns are quickly elevated through established election-protection channels.

BLN Legal Poll Observers are attorneys trained to observe, identify, document, and respond to voting-access issues at the polls. Their role goes beyond simply watching what happens.

-- Monitor implementation of North Carolina’s Voter ID requirements, including issues involving acceptable identification, Photo ID Exception Forms, reasonable impediments, provisional ballots, and other Voter ID-related concerns.

-- Monitor voter challenges, including challenges to voter eligibility and circumstances in which a voter’s ability to cast a regular ballot is questioned.

-- Identify and document voting barriers, voter intimidation, harassment, misinformation, potential voter suppression, accessibility concerns, unusually long wait times, polling-place problems, and other issues affecting voter access.

-- Gather and preserve evidence regarding significant incidents, including relevant facts, timelines, observations, photographs, or other documentation when legally permissible.

-- Gather voter witness statements, when appropriate and with the voter’s consent, to preserve first-hand accounts of incidents or voting problems that may require legal follow-up.

-- Advocate on behalf of voters with poll officials and the precinct chief judge, when appropriate and consistent with applicable law and BLN protocols, to help resolve voting-access issues.

-- Help voters understand available options when they encounter a voting problem, consistent with BLN training and established protocols.

-- Escalate unresolved or significant legal issues through BLN’s rapid-response and election-protection system.

-- Document emerging patterns across polling locations so BLN and its partners can identify issues extending beyond an individual voter, polling location, or county.

Attorneys do not necessarily have to live in the county where they serve. BLN will coordinate assignments based on geographic needs, attorney availability, and the needs of the project.

The BLN Legal Poll Observer Project is intentionally designed around the skills attorneys bring to election protection. Our attorneys are not simply counting incidents. They are trained to spot legal issues, ask the right questions, gather facts, preserve evidence, advocate for voters, and recognize when a problem needs to be escalated.