Seasoned Polish diplomat Amb. Urszula Gacek is a veteran of hotly contested elections in places like Ukraine and Armenia. But observing the 2020 U.S. polls as chief of the U.S. mission from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which observes elections in 56 member states, is proving to be a task of three-dimensional-chess-level complexity. More Americans are expected to vote by mail than ever before during the pandemic, and a record number of court cases are “are changing the rules of the game while the game is on,” Gacek tells TIME.