Linda Reedy has long been convinced that voter fraud was afoot, with ballots cast even by people who were not American citizens.
But it wasn't until after Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump began to allege rigged elections and asked supporters _ particularly in hotly contested battleground states _ to monitor polling stations that Reedy, of Laguna Niguel, Calif., finally decided to become an Election Day observer.
Reedy not only trained to become an observer, she also opened her home this past week for others to learn from a coordinator for the private Election Integrity Project how to watch for irregularities Tuesday.
"I just want to make sure that people who are eligible to vote are able to vote," Reedy said. "And that they aren't being cheated or manipulated by any party."
She waved off studies that stated that voting fraud is rare. Those researchers, she said, just aren't "looking in the right places."
A victory by Hillary Clinton in Democratic California is expected _ with some polls showing her with a large lead. But that hasn't stopped some people in Orange County _ mostly conservative and overwhelmingly white _ from signing up to try to find voter fraud.
Overall, researchers have found that instances of voter fraud are minuscule, with only a few of cases that would be highly unlikely to swing a national election. In 2014, professor Justin Levitt of the Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, who studies elections, found 31 credible claims of someone pretending to be someone else at the polls from more than 1 billion ballots cast since 2000.
Orange County has a controversial history when it comes to poll observing. In 1988, the Orange County registrar of voters was told that mostly Latino residents arriving at 20 Santa Ana polling locations were greeted on the day of the presidential election by uniformed guards holding signs with a message in Spanish and English that read: "Non-Citizens Can't Vote."
The guards had been hired by the campaign of a Republican state Assembly candidate, and the incident produced allegations of voter intimidation and racism _ and a lawsuit that eventually was settled.
Richard L. Hasen, an election law expert who teaches at the University of California, Irvine, said allegations of voter fraud have long been used as part of a political strategy.
"There have been Republican operatives who have used unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud as means of trying to rile up the Republican base," Hasen said, though he added that "many of the people who will go and volunteer in these so-called integrity efforts really do believe that there is a major problem, and there is no amount of evidence to convince them otherwise."
Trump's calls for supporters to watch for fraud by urban voters, including in places like Philadelphia _ with a population that is about 50 percent black _ has led many critics to accuse him of bigotry. Trump also has said that immigrants in the country illegally are being allowed to pour into the U.S. to cast votes in the election.
Trump's statements have put the Republican National Committee in an uncomfortable position. For three decades, the party has been under a federal court order that bars efforts to police the polls on Election Day, arguing that it might intimidate minority voters.
Friday, the committee told a federal judge that the party can't be held accountable for what Trump says. The party said it is careful to steer clear of poll monitoring.
Katherine Gerdis, a coordinator with the Election Integrity Project _ which says it is nonpartisan but advocates for conservative issues such as strict voter identification laws _ said the organization has trained more than 100 people in Orange County.
The group recently led a poll-observer training seminar in Los Alamitos.
Many of the 15 mostly white and older women who were there said they were motivated to observers out of fear of fraud and malfeasance during the election. Some believe voting by noncitizens is widespread and agreed with Trump's allegations of a "rigged" election.
"I believe the future of our nation is at stake" with this election, said Gloria Pruyne, of Fountain Valley. "I'm extremely concerned about America's future."
Janice Heaney, a retiree who lives in Cypress, attended the Los Alamitos seminar with two friends who are equally concerned about the election.
"I just feel like there is a lot of invalid voting," she said. "I just feel like I would like to keep it honest."
Moments earlier, Heaney listened to a video of an Election Integrity Project trainer listing the dos and don'ts of poll observing.
Ruth Weiss, statewide director of education and training for the Election Integrity Project, laid down the ground rules:
"Be professional, not intimidating," she said. Do not photograph or record. Do not touch election material.
"If you observe anything that feels illegal or wrong or suspicious to you, step out and call the EIP hotline immediately," Weiss said.
Gerdis stressed that two poll workers must be in the same vehicle and not in separate vehicles when they drop off ballots at the end of Election Day. If that's not the case, she urged the participants to report it to the EIP hotline.
But in Orange County, poll workers are allowed to drive separately as long as they follow each other.
It's a discrepancy that worries Nia Hartman, an electrical engineer from Rossmoor who has worked Orange County polling stations for 22 elections. She attended the seminar out of curiosity.
Though she said she was glad to meet other concerned citizens, she said she was taken aback by the generic information provided at the seminar, which in some cases did not match official Orange County procedures.
She said she worried that this could result in observers documenting correct actions as infractions and unnecessarily inflate peoples' fears.
"I'm concerned that they are doing some fear-mongering with some of the issues they brought up," Hartman said. "It's as if they want to find fraud."
Hartman also wondered why the participants didn't attend poll worker and observer classes hosted for free by the county.
"Anybody can go to the Registrar of Voters and take the two- or three-hour poll-worker class, and it'll answer all their questions," she said. "They can get the education for free, and it will be accurate."
Orange County Registrar of Voters Neal Kelley said only about 11 people had signed up for the poll observer class put on by the county. That's a departure from the 2012 election cycle, when the county trained 60 observers. He said he welcomes anyone to come observe on Election Day.
"My desire is to have full transparency because I think there is a lot of misinformation out there," Kelley said.
