Voting rights experts skeptical over Trump pledge of 1,000 election monitors

Voting rights experts skeptical over Trump pledge of 1,000 election monitors

Department of Justice plan raises questions over its ability to recruit so many people – and what they would do

Former officials and voting rights experts have expressed skepticism over a pledge by the Trump administration to dispatch 1,000 monitors across the country to scrutinize November's US midterm elections.

While the Department of Justice (DoJ) has expressed hope that the operation will be the largest in its history, its plan raised questions over its ability to recruit so many people – and what they would do.

The US president has repeatedly denied the results of election defeats, including his 2020 loss in the presidential election to Joe Biden, and in recent months has escalated concerns that he will seek to meddle in November's elections.

Harmeet Dhillon, who leads the justice department's civil rights section, told Bloomberg News of the plan to send out 1,000 election monitors earlier this week, which she claimed was "probably going to be a historic number for a Republican administration".

But experts suggested the justice department's target should not spark alarm. "This DoJ has amply earned the public's distrust, but this announcement isn't reason to freak out," said Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles who has worked on voting rights issues at the justice department and White House.

"I'm skeptical they'll actually get to 1,000. Even if they did, that wouldn't be so different from the number in prior years; that's a national number suitable for observing but not nearly enough to disrupt; and local election officials can, and will, toss anyone who makes trouble," said Levitt. "As in the primaries, the most anyone should expect from this group is a handful of suits standing quietly in the back of the room."

Observing elections is a routine part of the department's work, but the discourse around such activity has caused unease during the second Trump administration.

The justice department has taken an adversarial position, suing some states in a bid to access private voter data, and some state officials have said they don't feel the federal government is a partner in protecting elections. The president has said he wants the federal government to take over elections, and issued executive orders to exert such power, which the courts have largely curtailed.

Still, state and local election officials around the country who had federal election monitors observe their areas in the last year said they did not know of any instances in which the monitors caused concerns, though several also declined to comment.

"For decades, DoJ has sent hundreds of monitors and attorneys to polling places during each federal election," said a former DoJ official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid professional repercussions. "In the last year, DoJ has sent monitors to off-cycle and primary elections, and they have done little to nothing.

"DoJ may try to send 1,000 monitors into the field this November, but they probably won't be able to coordinate a deployment of that size. Even if they manage the logistics, 1,000 DoJ monitors will only give us more videos of lawyers standing around with clipboards, following instructions from poll workers and being ignored by voters."

## Monitoring the monitors

The justice department has long sent personnel to monitor elections across the country to ensure compliance with federal voting laws and court orders in certain jurisdictions. CBS News reported that the DoJ sent 289 monitors in 2022, during the last midterm election. During the last presidential election, in 2024, the department sent 714 people.

This time around, the justice department said: "We hope to have the largest monitoring effort in the department's history."

It's not yet clear where the DoJ intends to send the monitors in November, or whether it will be able to achieve its goal – especially after scores of personnel have left the justice department's civil rights division under Trump. Its monitors will be spread across the country's tens of thousands of polling places.

So far this election cycle, the department says it has sent 75 monitors to more than 200 polling locations across five states. Those include Minnesota, Michigan and Arizona earlier this cycle, with more going to Florida and Wyoming this week for those state's primaries. Several California jurisdictions and a New Jersey county saw federal monitors during special elections late last year.

When monitors were sent to Minnesota – which saw an immigration enforcement surge earlier this year where two people were killed and thousands deported, leaving a deep distrust of federal authorities – during the state's primaries earlier this month, state officials decided to monitor the monitors.

Steve Simon, Minnesota's secretary of state, estimated there were six or seven teams of two to three federal monitors across its Hennepin and Ramsey counties, where Minneapolis and St Paul are located, on primary day. The federal monitors provided real-time updates to the state attorney general's office on where they were going, he said. They stayed a short time at each precinct. He estimated they visited more than 50 precincts out of thousands throughout the state.

"There was no cat-and-mouse game. They were very straightforward about that," Simon said. "And there were no major disruptions or obstructions."

There were a couple instances of reports where observers were inside a 100ft boundary, as captured in a video from a local news outlet, and were asked to move further out. They did, Simon said.

Monitors need permission from local jurisdictions to enter polling places. In this year's Minnesota primaries, Hennepin and Ramsey counties declined to allow the justice department to observe inside the polling places. This meant the observers needed to stay outside a 100ft boundary, as any member of the public not actively voting would be required to do.

Local residents had been concerned "about safety and the presence of federal officials in their communities", Joshua Yetman, a Hennepin county spokesperson, said. "Although we have had no issues with previous DoJ election monitoring, we determined that prioritizing a safe, orderly and welcoming environment for voters was necessary this year."

The monitors were present in three cities within the county, remaining outside the 100ft boundary, and there were no disruptions to voting, Yetman said.