The Justice Department has told a federal judge in Washington that the election monitors it plans to send to polling places on Tuesday will be unarmed, will carry no law enforcement authority and will include no employees of the FBI or U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The assurances come in a sworn declaration filed Oct. 28 by Eric Neff, acting chief of the Voting Section of the department’s Civil Rights Division, in a public-records lawsuit brought by the NAACP. Neff wrote that the Voting Section “is conducting its election monitoring efforts in a similar manner and for similar purposes as in past election cycles going back decades,” and that the primary purpose of monitoring is to ensure compliance with the federal civil rights statutes the department enforces, including the Voting Rights Act, the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act.
“There will be no Federal Bureau of Investigation or U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement employees, much less agents, serving as monitors,” the declaration states. The department said it “is not engaging any sworn law enforcement personnel who are legally authorized to effectuate an arrest to act as monitors in a ‘law enforcement agent’ capacity.”
The NAACP, which sued for the records, said in an Oct. 29 statement that the declaration confirmed that personnel from law enforcement agencies will be part of the monitoring this year, while clarifying that they will not be armed or authorized to make arrests.
What the department says monitors will do
According to the declaration, the Civil Rights Division recruited volunteers from inside the Justice Department to serve under its supervision, “in accordance with past practice.” Employees of the Federal Bureau of Prisons; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and the Drug Enforcement Administration will serve as monitors, Neff wrote. One U.S. Customs and Border Protection employee who is detailed to the Justice Department will also serve, “pursuant to the detail and not as a representative of DHS,” and the division said it is not aware of any other Department of Homeland Security employees taking part.
All monitors are barred from carrying firearms and from “undertaking any action while monitoring other than normal CRT monitoring conduct such as observing the polling place and taking notes on their observations,” the filing says. Training, conducted in two sessions, also prohibits identifying clothing or accessories.
Neff listed the instructions monitors have received. They are to:
- not intrude or interfere in any way with anyone voting or with election officials;
- follow all rules of the state and jurisdiction where they are assigned;
- dress in business casual clothing, with no insignia from their federal employment visible;
- not talk with any voter inside the polling place, and speak with voters outside only after they have cast a ballot;
- introduce themselves to election officials on arrival and carry federal credentials to show if asked.
Why the department says it cannot produce more before Tuesday
The NAACP filed its Freedom of Information Act suit, NAACP v. Dhillon, No. 1:26-cv-03461, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (docket; complaint). The case is before U.S. District Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan, who denied the group’s request for a temporary restraining order on Oct. 22, according to the docket.
In the declaration, the department said the division does not track the position titles of its volunteers and that gathering them all before the election “would catastrophically interfere with the election monitoring project.” It said the division has not finished identifying the locations where monitors will be deployed, and that releasing a full list of jurisdictions “would undermine CRT’s monitoring effort and potentially put our monitors at risk,” citing news reports that outside groups are organizing to monitor the federal monitors.
Neff also wrote that the NAACP’s motion to expedite had been “consuming the already limited resources for overextended CRT personnel,” and that division staff and the department’s counsel had nonetheless worked “in a good faith effort to accommodate Plaintiff’s concerns.”
The court’s order and the NAACP’s response
On Oct. 29, the court ordered the department to use reasonable efforts to process and produce records on a rolling basis before the Nov. 3 election, according to the NAACP’s statement and the case file maintained by Democracy Docket. The parties’ next joint status report is due Nov. 12.
The NAACP has said the department plans to deploy more than 1,000 monitors. “We remain determined to pull back the veil on the DOJ’s plans to deploy monitors,” Kristen Clarke, the NAACP’s general counsel, said in the group’s statement. “We will continue to work to ensure that all voters can cast ballots free from intimidation and harassment.”
The group reminded voters that they are under no obligation to speak with Justice Department monitors, and pointed voters who encounter problems to the 1-866-OUR-VOTE hotline.
Related cases
The records fight is one of several pending in federal court over the federal government’s role around the election. A separate NAACP suit against the Department of Homeland Security, No. 1:26-cv-03263, is before U.S. District Judge Loren L. AliKhan in Washington and has been consolidated with LULAC v. DHS; the court there has issued an order on expedited discovery.
The Justice Department was asked for comment on the declaration and on whether it will produce records before Election Day. The NAACP and the D.C. Board of Elections were also asked for comment. This story will be updated with any response.
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