As the Trump administration plans to send an unprecedented number of federal election monitors to polls across the country, the NAACP is working to monitor these monitors. Specifically, the civil rights organization is suing for more information about the administration’s plans, including details about who is being hired and sent to the polls, as the NAACP accuses Trump of attempting voter intimidation.
NAACP sues over Trump election monitoring plan
The NAACP announced that it is taking legal action against the Department of Justice (DOJ) over a plan by the DOJ to deploy about 1,000 “election monitors” across the country during November’s midterm elections. The NAACP’s latest legal actions accuse Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division, of failing to comply with a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for documentation surrounding the monitoring plan. The NAACP is requesting that the DOJ be compelled to immediately hand over information regarding the election monitoring. The move is part of an effort by the NAACP, announced in September, to investigate the election monitoring plan by demanding information including “a list of all jurisdictions where the Department plans to send election monitors, training materials for monitors, any information on the qualifications to serve as an election monitor, information on the Department’s plans to adhere to state laws that prohibit or restrict the activity of monitors, and more.”
In filing its latest lawsuit, the NAACP wrote, “This unprecedented deployment of federal officials stands to jeopardize the election and interfere with the right of voters to participate in the election free from intimidation.” The organization added, “Courts have recognized that unnecessary law enforcement and government presence at polling sites can cause fear, create confusion, impose burdens on election officials, and have a chilling or coercive effect on the electorate.” The lawsuit is being led by NAACP general counsel Kristen Clarke, who led DOJ’s Civil Rights Division under President Biden from 2021 to 2025. “To be clear, there is no federal statute that gives the U.S. Department of Justice the right to send their so-called ‘election monitors’ to polling sites across the country, and this administration has made clear its intent to disrupt and interfere with the way elections are run in our country,” Clarke said of the Justice Department’s monitoring plan.
Questionable monitors highlight the Trump administration’s shady voting rights history
The NAACP’s investigation into the DOJ’s election monitoring plan follows reporting by Democracy Docket about the program. As that watchdog organization noted in its exclusive investigations into the DOJ’s election plans, federal election monitoring is not a new activity for the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, which has previously sent monitors to ensure that states and localities were adhering to laws such as the Voting Rights Act. However, the plan to recruit and send about 1,000 monitors is an unprecedented expansion of monitoring work that would involve significantly more people than are currently employed by the entire Civil Rights Division. Moreover, Democracy Docket has reported that a lawyer who appears to have joined the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, David Michael Levin, took part in the department’s monitoring of Minnesota’s August primary. The DOJ did not respond to Democracy Docket’s request to confirm his employment. Levin previously pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges and served 20 days in jail for hacking into Florida election websites, including a county elections site and the state Division of Elections site. Levin later said he was “curious about the integrity of elections,” though at his plea hearing he called the hacking a “silly political stunt.” The DOJ has not publicly explained who will make up the monitoring force, and the plan has stoked concern among some voting advocates.
President Trump and other members of his administration have constantly pushed unfounded narratives of extensive voter fraud in U.S. elections. Trump used such accusations to falsely claim that he won the 2020 election, a claim he continues to hold. Trump is currently using the claim of voter fraud to justify restrictions on mail-in voting and to attempt to push restrictive voter ID requirements that Democrats and some Republicans worry will prevent eligible voters from casting their ballots. The administration has defended its current election monitoring plan in similar fashion, with Attorney General Todd Blanche saying monitors “are going to every state to make sure our elections are carried out legally, fairly and appropriately.” The NAACP’s lawsuit notes that federal monitors who were deployed earlier this year in primary elections drew complaints of being “aggressive” and “irregular” and asked questions that seemed to be “outside the scope of federal voting rights law.”
With the administration seemingly desperate to influence the course of midterm elections in which Republicans are expected to perform poorly, the NAACP and others are concerned that federal election monitors may be part of a scheme of voter intimidation. Now, the civil rights organization is seeking immediate answers about the monitoring plan, looking to ensure that these agents of the Trump administration do not hinder voters’ rights under the guise of protecting them.
