WASHINGTON — The Justice Department said late Wednesday that no FBI or Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel will serve as monitors in the midterm elections, in a court filing that sets out limits on how federal monitors will behave at polling places less than a week before the November 3 vote, according to Reuters.
The filing, made in a federal case brought by the NAACP, says election monitors will not be acting as law enforcement personnel while they monitor, Reuters reported. They will mainly observe polling places and take notes, they will be prohibited from carrying firearms, and they have been trained not to interfere in voting and to follow state and local rules, consistent with past practice. Employees of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Drug Enforcement Administration will still serve as monitors, the department said.
The NAACP had sued to bar prosecutors and other law enforcement personnel from serving as monitors, arguing that the Trump administration’s plans amount to voter intimidation, according to Reuters. The administration has taken an increasingly aggressive approach to election oversight, pressing states for voter-registration data and arguing that stricter measures are needed to build public confidence in the vote. Some state and local officials told Reuters this month that they are preparing for potential federal interference in the elections.
Federal election monitoring itself is not new. The Justice Department has deployed monitors since the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and its Civil Rights Division enforces the federal laws that protect the right to vote, including the Voting Rights Act and the Help America Vote Act, according to the department. U.S. Attorney’s offices have also named district election officers for the November 3 general election to handle Election Day complaints about voting rights, fraud allegations and threats against election workers — in Wyoming, for example, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jesse Naiman will lead that work, the department announced.
Wednesday’s filing draws a line inside that long-standing program: career staff and some agency employees may observe, but the two agencies most associated with federal law enforcement and immigration arrests — the FBI and ICE — will not be at the polls in a monitoring role, and no monitor will act as a law enforcement officer or carry a firearm. That distinction is the heart of the NAACP’s case, and the filing is the administration’s clearest statement of it before Election Day.
Voting in the midterms concludes on Tuesday, November 3, and the results will decide which party controls Congress for the last two years of President Donald Trump’s term. The Justice Department’s election-day program, including how to report irregularities, is described in its district election officer announcements.
