Some GOP-led states won’t allow federal poll monitors at voting locations, officials say

Some Republican-led states will not allow federal poll monitors at voting locations on Election Day, officials told ABC News on Thursday.

The Department of Justice has a long-held tradition of deploying election monitors across the country to “help assess compliance with federal voting laws,” according to the department. But recently, in some states, Republicans have blocked federal authorities from monitoring both federal and non-federal elections.

In Texas, a spokesperson for the state’s Republican secretary of state told ABC News in a statement that federal monitors are not authorized to be inside polling locations.

Instead, state inspectors will be deployed to “various locations” throughout Texas, the spokesperson said.

Texas Democrats have raised concerns about the decision, penning a letter to the Department of Justice in September asking federal officials to intervene and exercise its authority to monitor the state’s five most populous counties.

“Recent actions by Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton have increased the urgency for federal election monitors in our state,” the letter said of the governor and attorney general, who are both Republicans.

The group of Texas Democrats also said in the letter that the move by the state to block federal monitors affects minority voters.

“As the largest minority state under total conservative control, Texas voters — particularly minority voters — are constantly under attack for merely attempting their rights,” the letter said.

The Civil Rights Division of the DOJ, which was created in 1957 to enforce laws that prohibit discrimination, has regularly dispatched poll monitors to ensure compliance with federal voting laws, particularly in communities with vulnerable populations.

Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee, who signed on to the letter, pushed back against the state inspectors that will be deployed by the Texas secretary of state’s office, telling ABC News he believes a “neutral third party” should monitor the polls in the state.

“It’s so important to have an objective, neutral third party set of monitors come into these jurisdictions to ensure that the state doesn’t have its thumb on the scale and isn’t trying to intimidate people who are merely trying to make our democracy work.” Menefee, a Democrat, said.

The development was first reported by The Washington Post.

In Arkansas, a spokesperson for Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders told ABC News that the office will not permit DOJ poll monitors in the state.

“Gov. Sanders will not permit the Department of Justice to improperly intimate or unduly influence Arkansas voters which would be a violation of state law,” spokesperson Sam Dubke said.

And in Missouri, where Republicans banned federal monitors in 2022, a spokesperson for Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft said the secretary will “again reject any push by the DOJ to interfere in Missouri elections.”

“The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has long monitored elections in jurisdictions around the country to protect the rights of voters,” said a DOJ spokesperson. “We will continue to use every tool at our disposal to enforce the federal voting rights laws and ensure that all eligible voters are able to vote and have their vote counted, including by deploying monitors wherever we deem appropriate.”

In Florida, federal poll monitors are allowed to be outside a polling location but not inside. In a letter to the DOJ in 2022, the Florida Department of State said that federal monitors inside polling places “would be counterproductive and could potentially undermine confidence in the election.”

“They can certainly be outside the polling place, that’s been the practice throughout many election cycles,” Secretary of State Cord Byrd said at a press conference in 2022. “When they told us they wanted to go into our polling places, we wanted to make it clear that those are places for election workers and for voters.”

Officials in Missouri also banned DOJ monitors in 2022.

During the 2020 election, the Justice Department under then-President Donald Trump sent poll monitors to 44 jurisdictions in 18 states.