Pennsylvania officials respond to Trump DOJ's plan to send election monitors to Philadelphia, 3 other counties – CBS News

Pennsylvania officials respond to Trump DOJ’s plan to send election monitors to Philadelphia, 3 other counties  CBS News

Election monitors will be present in polling places in Philadelphia, Allegheny, Luzerne and Lehigh counties on Election Day, Nov. 3. The Justice Department plans to send election monitors to four Pennsylvania counties for the 2026 midterm election, according to a letter sent to state officials. The election monitors will be present in polling places in Philadelphia, Allegheny, Luzerne and Lehigh counties on Election Day, Nov. 3, the letter to Secretary of State Al Schmidt states. An attorney in DOJ's Civil Rights Division authored the letter sent Oct. 22. "The monitoring by the Civil Rights Division is done in the same way as in the past. Our monitors only observe and take notes," the letter stated.

"They do not intrude or interfere in any way in the voting process. Monitors will introduce themselves to the poll manager and present government ID (and a letter from the jurisdiction permitting entrance to the polls with the monitors' names, if the jurisdiction wants each monitor identified)." In August, the Justice Department announced it would send a record 1,000 election monitors to polling places across all 50 states. Monitors are often sent to polling places to check on compliance with the federal Voting Rights Act — which prohibits voters from discrimination and intimidation that would prevent them from casting a ballot on the basis of