How Trump and his GOP allies are mobilizing to send monitors to the polls on Election Day

Thomas Werner/Bloomberg/Getty Images/File

President Donald Trump and his allies inside and outside his administration are aiming to blanket polling places with an expanding network of party and federal election monitors this November, intensifying scrutiny of the nuts and bolts of voting as Trump hunts for what he claims, without evidence, is widespread cheating and fraud in US elections.

Trump’s Justice Department says it will dispatch more than 1,000 monitors on Election Day in what Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon has called the “biggest DOJ election observer effort in history” — hundreds more than the Biden administration deployed in 2024. New records reviewed by CNN suggest that several DOJ monitors deployed during this year’s primaries helped challenge Trump’s 2020 election loss. Another pleaded guilty to illegally accessing a government elections website in 2016.

While most jurisdictions that hosted DOJ monitors during the primaries reported no issues with their presence, federal observers sent to Wyoming were accused of disruptive behavior by Republican officials in the state.

Critically, there is no evidence that the monitoring efforts will disrupt polling places or prevent anyone from voting in November. Justice Department monitors and partisan observers have long been part of Election Day.

Separately, the Republican National Committee is training new “special monitors” to scrutinize voting machines — recording serial numbers, inspecting security seals and photographing results tapes — and report any concerns or discrepancies to the party’s legal team through a special hotline, according to RNC training materials from Wisconsin that have not previously been reported on.

The effort comes as Trump and his allies intensify claims that voting machines are vulnerable to hacking and fraud, with some seeking to ban them altogether.

“Having you all on the ground, notifying us of issues, allows us to take direct action,” an RNC official told a group of special monitors in Wisconsin on a July training call. “And this leads to real outcomes that benefit Republicans across the state.”

It marks the latest expansion of a Republican election monitoring apparatus that has grown dramatically since 2020 and helped generate anecdotes, allegations and legal challenges questioning whether recent elections were run properly and transparently.

But some fear the widening web of party and federal monitors could mean far more incidents — even minor errors or baseless claims of fraud — are elevated and could be used by Trump and his allies to reinforce claims that US elections are not secure, or even rigged against Republicans.

“All of this sounds typical, but these are not typical times,” said Tammy Patrick, chief program officer for the National Association of Election Officials. “In the past few years, election officials have said to me, ‘It’s like they’re showing up looking for the body.’”

Both the RNC and DOJ have defended their observation initiatives, saying they will follow the law and reject concerns that the efforts will fuel unwarranted disputes or unfounded challenges.

“DOJ staff are expected to do their job consistent with all legal and ethical obligations. No exceptions,” DOJ spokesperson Kiersten Pels told CNN in a statement. “To imply that our team will act improperly based on nothing more than speculation would be dishonest.”

The second Trump administration has undertaken a dramatic overhaul of the Justice Department and particularly its Civil Rights Division. The division’s voting section — where nearly all career attorneys were pushed out early into Trump’s second term — has shifted its focus to identifying non-citizen voters and other potential evidence of fraud.

The administration’s plans to flood November’s election with monitors has dovetailed that message. During this year’s primaries, some monitors deployed by DOJ to states like Arizona and Virginia were recently hired attorneys who previously helped challenge or try to overturn Trump’s 2020 loss, according to communications obtained by Democracy Forward and shared with CNN. Here’s what we know about those individuals:

The administration also dispatched David Levin to Arizona and Minnesota as a monitor during the primaries. Levin, a conservative attorney hired at DOJ earlier this year, was accused in 2016 of carrying out a cyberattack to obtain credentials and enter restricted sections of a county elections website in Florida. He pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors and served 20 days in jail, calling the episode a “silly political stunt” intended to expose weaknesses in the election office’s cybersecurity.

Reached by phone this week, Levin told CNN he has “no comment” on his work at DOJ or whether he will be deployed on Election Day. Gardner, Voiland and Matheis did not respond to requests for comment.

“This is alarming,” Dan McGrath, Special Counsel, Oversight at Democracy Forward told CNN in a statement, adding that the choice of some election monitors “raises concerns that people’s right to vote will not be respected by the administration.”

Election officials in a half-dozen jurisdictions that were sites of DOJ monitoring this primary cycle told CNN that, despite the hype around this year’s observation program, the government attorneys’ conduct at their election locations was professional, non-disruptive, and, as one local election chief put it, “business as usual.”

In several places, the monitors were focused on confirming jurisdictions were meeting requirements to offer language assistance for voters – in line with how federal observers have typically operated.

Election officials also noted that some of the observers had extensive experience, and that the DOJ official overseeing the monitoring program has spent decades in the department’s voting section.

“Every monitor will go through the same standard election monitor training which was given by DOJ for every election under previous administrations,” Pels told CNN in a statement. “The Department hired qualified individuals to serve our country in a non-partisan manner.”

But the plans to dispatch several hundred DOJ observers on Election Day have raised questions about whether all those attorneys will adhere to the department’s traditional standards – particularly as thousands of career attorneys have left the Department since the beginning of Trump’s second term.

The episode in Wyoming highlights how even in a red state, tensions can flare.

According to Laramie County Elections Director Debra Lee, her office got no heads up the two DOJ attorneys would be observing the Cheyenne-area polling sites — emails obtained by CNN show that DOJ initially sent notice of its plans to election officials in Wisconsin instead of Wyoming.

Local and state officials say that the DOJ attorneys quizzed election staff about their protocols and demanded information about the voting machines. They’re also accused of seeking to interview voters at the polling place. (DOJ election monitors have historically asked voters to voluntarily discuss their experiences at election sites, but according to a former official in the voting section, such interviews did not happen within the polling places.)

“If anything, their presence may make voters think twice about voting at the polls on Election Day,” Lee, a Republican, said in a statement last month. “My advice to my fellow county clerks in Wyoming and to election administrators in other ‘red’ states is don’t think this won’t happen to you.”

Records from Laramie County indicate the monitors were John Casali and Jake Bachand, both of whom joined the department under this administration.

Casali had served as an attorney at the Trump-aligned America First Policy Institute. Bachand previously worked for Republican Reps. Troy Nehls of Texas and Matt Gaetz of Florida, two staunch Trump allies.

Casali and Bachand did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment. Dhillon met with Wyoming’s governor after the incident, according to DOJ, which has defended its monitors’ actions.

“We ask questions to ensure polling locations are complying with federal law, including those related to language and disability access,” Pels told CNN.

She added: “Attempting to spin these questions to make our team appear fixated on the integrity of voting machines is dishonest and does not accurately portray our monitoring efforts.”

The interest in Wyoming’s voting equipment comes as Trump and his allies have launched other efforts to scrutinize voting technology. Machine-related conspiracy theories dominated Trump-world beliefs that the 2020 election was rigged against him.

Gathering information about voting machines has now become a priority for the RNC’s election observation activities as well.

Party observers play a different role from federal monitors. They represent a political organization and report back what they observe. Depending on state law, they may also be authorized to raise or formally challenge irregularities.

The RNC has spent the last several years aggressively rebuilding the infrastructure for the monitoring of the voting process, after a decades-old consent decree that limited observation activities expired in 2018.

This year, the party is organizing an effort to monitor how the operation of voting equipment works as well, according to materials obtained by CNN.

The RNC training materials cast the party’s new “special monitors” — who are separate from the Justice Department monitors — as the “bookends” of the voting process, concentrating on what happens to voting machines from preelection testing through Election Day.

The records, which include training documents and recordings of calls in July and August with “special monitor” volunteers in Wisconsin, were obtained by Fair Fight Action, a non-profit voting-rights organization founded by former Democratic state lawmaker and gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, and shared exclusively with CNN.

Attendees of the Wisconsin training were told that their information-gathering operation during the state’s August primary was a pilot program that the RNC hoped to expand to other states during November’s general election.

“The audit trail and security: This is something new that we are going to be focusing on this cycle,” said the Wisconsin RNC official conducting the training. “We’re kind of testing and piloting this operation in our state for the primary so that we can launch this more fully for the November general election.”

In Wisconsin, the observers were told to record machine serial numbers, confirm each tabulator starts with zero votes, and inspect seals designed to reveal tampering. After polls close, they’re told to photograph vote totals and check whether the number of ballots cast matches the number of voters who checked in.

The party has also prepared public-records request templates for volunteers to use if local clerks refuse to provide logs documenting the machines’ chain of custody.

“There may be a little bit of pushback from these clerks, but we’ll make sure you have all of the documentation that you need to reasonably obtain these results,” said Jenna Banfield, Election Integrity Director for the Wisconsin GOP, who helped lead the training calls.

Volunteers are instructed to report any concerns or discrepancies through a new party hotline to help RNC lawyers swiftly identify potential challenges against state or local election officials.

The RNC materials said their state teams contributed to more than 175 lawsuits in 2024 and that the party is on track to surpass that figure in 2026.

“This is the first real evidence we’ve seen that the RNC intends to aim their national grassroots poll operation directly at voting machines,” Fair Fight Action CEO Lauren Groh-Wargo told CNN in a statement. “A steady stream of machine-centered clips and complaints is designed to leave voters unsure the count can be trusted, which is exactly the ground they need to contest a race they lose.”

The volunteers will also scrutinize absentee ballot processing, which Trump and his allies have claimed is rife with fraud. They’ve been told to keep interactions with voters and workers measured, avoid any appearance of harassment and even “get to know” their local clerks.

“That is how we gain more access and trust and transparency,” Banfield said.

The RNC told CNN its Election Integrity operation is active in 22 states and will “serve as eyes and ears, helping us quickly identify and respond to issues to ensure smooth Election Day operations and to protect the ballot box.”

It will concentrate observers in places with narrow Republican margins or a history of alleged procedural problems.

“All these notes that you’re taking,” Banfield told a group of volunteers, “if they are handwritten with timestamps, that’s the gold standard because that’s something we can use as evidence.”

That infrastructure, the RNC training manual says, will allow the party to “deploy real-time legal and political resources that are critical to successful election outcomes for our top-ticket and down-ballot candidates.”

The RNC defended its operation, telling CNN that its election integrity teams previously identified testing errors in Virginia that were later corrected and flagged preelection testing delays across dozens of Texas counties.

During and after the 2020 election, the RNC, Trump campaign and allied activists mobilized a network of partisan observers, lawyers and activists who collected a trove of allegations of voting irregularities and pursued many in court.

Claims about “suitcases” of fraudulent ballots in Georgia and Arizona poll workers using Sharpies to invalidate Trump votes became pillars of the election-fraud narrative pushed by Trump and his allies. Investigations, court proceedings and probes by election officials found little evidence to support these allegations. Yet some continue to circulate today.

“On the on the one hand, having trained observers might cause fewer misinterpretations, but on the other hand, you have more people – especially if they have an orientation that the election is being stolen – that could create some additional narratives,” former Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson, a Republican, told CNN.

Thomas Werner/Bloomberg/Getty Images/文件

唐纳德·特朗普总统及其政府内外盟友的目标是在今年11月用不断扩大的政党和联邦选举监督员网络覆盖所有投票站，加强对投票细节的审查，因为特朗普正在搜寻他声称的（但没有证据的）美国选举中普遍存在的作弊和欺诈行为。

特朗普的司法部表示，将在选举日当天派出超过1000名观察员，助理司法部长哈米特·迪伦称之为“司法部历史上规模最大的选举观察行动”——比拜登政府在2024年部署的观察员人数还要多数百人。CNN查阅的新记录显示，今年初选期间部署的几名司法部观察员曾参与质疑特朗普2020年的败选结果。另一名观察员还承认在2016年非法访问政府选举网站。

虽然大多数在初选期间接待司法部观察员的地区都表示没有出现任何问题，但派往怀俄明州的联邦观察员却被该州的共和党官员指控有扰乱秩序的行为。

至关重要的是，没有任何证据表明这些监督行动会扰乱投票站秩序或阻止任何人参加11月的投票。司法部监督员和党派观察员长期以来一直是选举日的重要组成部分。

另外，据此前未曾报道过的威斯康星州共和党全国委员会培训材料显示，该委员会正在培训新的“特别监督员”，以审查投票机——记录序列号、检查安全封条和拍摄结果录像带——并通过一条专门的热线向该党的法律团队报告任何问题或差异。

特朗普及其盟友不断声称投票机容易受到黑客攻击和舞弊，一些人甚至试图彻底禁止使用投票机，而此时，这项努力应运而生。

“你们这些身处一线、向我们汇报问题的人，使我们能够采取直接行动，”一位共和党全国委员会官员在7月份威斯康星州的一次培训电话会议上对一群特别监督员说。“这会带来实实在在的成果，使全州的共和党人受益。”

这标志着共和党选举监督机制的最新扩张。自 2020 年以来，该机制已大幅发展，并引发了诸多轶事、指控和法律挑战，质疑最近的选举是否进行得当且透明。

但有些人担心，政党和联邦监督员网络的扩大可能意味着更多事件——甚至是轻微的错误或毫无根据的舞弊指控——都会被放大，并可能被特朗普及其盟友用来强化美国选举不安全，甚至是被操纵以不利于共和党的说法。

“这一切听起来都很正常，但现在并非寻常时期，”全国选举官员协会首席项目官塔米·帕特里克说。“过去几年里，选举官员们曾对我说，‘感觉他们就像是来找尸体的。’”

共和党全国委员会和司法部都为他们的观察行动辩护，称他们将遵守法律，并驳斥了这些行动会引发不必要的争端或毫无根据的挑战的担忧。

“司法部工作人员必须遵守所有法律和道德规范履行职责，没有任何例外，”司法部发言人基尔斯滕·佩尔斯在一份声明中告诉CNN。“仅仅基于猜测就暗示我们的团队会采取不当行为是不诚实的。”

特朗普第二任期对司法部，特别是其民权司进行了大刀阔斧的改革。该司的投票权部门——几乎所有资深律师都在特朗普第二任期初期被撤换——已将工作重心转移到识别非公民选民和其他潜在的舞弊证据上。

政府计划在11月的大选中部署大量监督人员，这与上述信息不谋而合。据“民主前线”（Democracy Forward）获取并与CNN分享的通讯记录显示，在今年的初选期间，司法部派往亚利桑那州和弗吉尼亚州等州的某些监督人员是近期聘用的律师，他们此前曾帮助挑战或试图推翻特朗普2020年的败选结果。以下是我们对这些人的了解：

政府还派遣大卫·莱文前往亚利桑那州和明尼苏达州担任初选监督员。莱文是一名保守派律师，今年早些时候被司法部聘用。他曾于2016年被指控发动网络攻击，试图获取凭证并进入佛罗里达州某县选举网站的受限区域。他承认犯有两项轻罪，并被判入狱20天。他称此事是“愚蠢的政治噱头”，旨在暴露选举办公室网络安全的漏洞。

本周通过电话联系到莱文时，他告诉CNN，对于他在司法部的工作以及是否会在选举日被派往现场，他“无可奉告”。加德纳、沃兰德和马泰斯没有回应置评请求。

“这令人震惊，”民主前行组织（Democracy Forward）的特别顾问兼监督官丹·麦格拉斯（Dan McGrath）在一份声明中告诉 CNN，并补充说，一些选举观察员的选择“令人担忧，即政府不会尊重人们的投票权”。

在司法部监督本初选周期的六个司法管辖区中，选举官员告诉 CNN，尽管今年的观察计划引起了广泛关注，但政府律师在选举地点的行为是专业的、没有造成干扰的，正如一位地方选举负责人所说，“一切照常”。

在一些地方，监督员们重点确认各辖区是否满足向选民提供语言帮助的要求——这与联邦观察员通常的做法一致。

选举官员还指出，一些观察员经验丰富，而负责监督监督计划的司法部官员在该部门的投票部门工作了几十年。

佩尔斯在一份声明中告诉CNN：“每位选举监督员都将接受司法部为历届政府每次选举提供的相同标准选举监督员培训。司法部聘请了合格人员，以不偏不倚的方式为国家服务。”

但司法部计划在选举日派遣数百名观察员，这引发了人们的质疑：所有这些律师是否都会遵守该部门的传统标准——尤其是在特朗普第二个任期开始以来，已有数千名职业律师离开了司法部。

怀俄明州的这起事件凸显了即使在共和党占优势的州，紧张局势也可能爆发。

据拉勒米县选举主任黛布拉·李称，她的办公室事先没有收到任何通知，称司法部的两名律师将要观察夏延地区的投票站——CNN获得的电子邮件显示，司法部最初将其计划通知给了威斯康星州的选举官员，而不是怀俄明州的选举官员。

地方和州政府官员称，司法部律师就选举流程质询了选举工作人员，并要求提供有关投票机的信息。他们还被指控试图在投票站采访选民。（司法部选举监督员历来都会邀请选民自愿分享他们在投票站的经历，但据一位前投票部门官员称，此类采访从未在投票站内发生。）

“如果说有什么影响的话，那就是他们的出现可能会让选民在选举日当天重新考虑是否去投票站投票，”共和党人李上个月在一份声明中说。“我对怀俄明州的各位县书记员以及其他‘红色’州的选举管理人员的建议是，不要以为这种事不会发生在你们身上。”

拉勒米县的记录显示，监督员是约翰·卡萨利和杰克·巴尚，他们两人都是在本届政府领导下加入该部门的。

卡萨利曾担任与特朗普关系密切的“美国优先政策研究所”的律师。巴尚此前曾为德克萨斯州共和党众议员特洛伊·内尔斯和佛罗里达州共和党众议员马特·盖茨工作，这两位都是特朗普的坚定盟友。

卡萨利和巴尚德没有回应CNN的置评请求。据美国司法部称，迪伦在事件发生后会见了怀俄明州州长。司法部为其监察员的行为进行了辩护。

佩尔斯告诉 CNN：“我们会提出问题，以确保投票地点遵守联邦法律，包括与语言和残疾人无障碍设施相关的法律。”

她补充道：“试图歪曲这些问题，让我们的团队看起来只关注投票机的完整性，这是不诚实的，也不能准确地反映我们的监督工作。”

人们对怀俄明州投票设备的关注正值特朗普及其盟友发起其他审查投票技术的行动之际。与投票机相关的阴谋论主导了特朗普阵营关于2020年大选被操纵以对他不利的说法。

收集有关投票机的信息现在也成为共和党全国委员会选举观察活动的一项优先事项。

政党观察员与联邦监督员的角色不同。他们代表某个政治组织，并汇报他们的观察结果。根据州法律，他们也可能被授权提出或正式质疑违规行为。

在限制观察活动的数十年同意令于 2018 年到期后，共和党全国委员会在过去几年里积极重建了投票过程监督的基础设施。

据 CNN 获取的资料显示，今年该党还组织了一项工作，以监督投票设备的运行情况。

共和党全国委员会的培训材料将该党新设立的“特别监督员”（与司法部监督员分开）描述为投票过程的“两端”，重点关注从选举前测试到选举日期间投票机的运行情况。

这些记录包括培训文件以及 7 月和 8 月与威斯康星州“特别监督员”志愿者的通话录音，由非营利性投票权组织 Fair Fight Action 获得，该组织由前民主党州议员兼州长候选人斯泰西·艾布拉姆斯创立，并独家分享给了 CNN。

参加威斯康星州培训的人员被告知，他们在该州 8 月份初选期间开展的信​​息收集行动是一项试点计划，共和党全国委员会希望在 11 月份的大选中将其推广到其他州。

“审计追踪和安全：这是我们本轮选举周期将重点关注的新内容，”负责培训的威斯康星州共和党全国委员会官员表示。“我们正在本州进行试点，以便在初选中全面推行这项操作，从而在11月的大选中能够更全面地实施。”

在威斯康星州，观察员被告知要记录机器序列号，确认每台计票机初始计票数为零，并检查旨在检测篡改的封条。投票结束后，他们被告知要拍摄计票结果，并核对实际投票人数是否与登记投票人数相符。

该党还为志愿者准备了公共记录申请模板，以便在当地办事员拒绝提供记录机器监管链的日志时使用。

“这些办事员可能会有些抵触，但我们会确保你拥有所有必要的文档，以便合理地获得这些结果，”威斯康星州共和党选举诚信主任詹娜·班菲尔德说道，她曾协助组织培训电话会议。

志愿者们被指示通过新的党内热线报告任何疑虑或差异，以帮助共和党全国委员会律师迅速确定针对州或地方选举官员的潜在挑战。

共和党全国委员会的资料显示，他们的州团队在 2024 年参与了 175 多起诉讼，而且该党有望在 2026 年超过这个数字。

“这是我们首次看到共和党全国委员会打算将其全国基层民调行动直接针对投票机的真正证据，”公平选举行动组织首席执行官劳伦·格罗-瓦戈在一份声明中告诉CNN。“源源不断地发布针对投票机的视频和投诉，旨在让选民对计票结果的可信度产生怀疑，而这正是他们质疑败选结果的借口。”

这些志愿者还将仔细审查缺席选票的处理过程，特朗普及其盟友声称这一过程充斥着舞弊。他们被告知要谨慎与选民和工作人员互动，避免任何骚扰行为，甚至可以“了解”当地的办事员。

班菲尔德说：“这样我们才能获得更多的渠道、信任和透明度。”

共和党全国委员会告诉 CNN，其选举诚信行动已在 22 个州展开，并将“充当耳目，帮助我们快速发现和应对问题，以确保选举日顺利进行并保护投票箱”。

它将把观察员集中在共和党优势较小的地区或历史上曾出现过程序问题的地方。

班菲尔德对一群志愿者说：“你们做的这些笔记，如果是手写的，并且带有时间戳，那就是黄金标准，因为我们可以用这些作为证据。”

共和党全国委员会的培训手册称，该基础设施将使该党能够“部署实时法律和政治资源，这对于我们顶级候选人和下级候选人的选举成功至关重要”。

共和党全国委员会为其行动辩护，告诉 CNN，其选举诚信团队此前在弗吉尼亚州发现了测试错误，这些错误后来得到了纠正，并且还指出了德克萨斯州数十个县的选前测试延误。

在 2020 年大选期间和之后，共和党全国委员会、特朗普竞选团队和盟友活动人士动员了一个由党派观察员、律师和活动人士组成的网络，他们收集了大量有关投票违规行为的指控，并在法庭上追究了许多此类指控。

关于佐治亚州发现装有伪造选票的“手提箱”，以及亚利桑那州投票站工作人员使用记号笔涂改特朗普选票的说法，成为特朗普及其盟友大力宣扬的选举舞弊论调的核心内容。然而，调查、法庭诉讼和选举官员的调查均未发现多少证据支持这些指控。尽管如此，一些说法至今仍在流传。

“一方面，训练有素的观察员可能会减少误解，但另一方面，更多的人——尤其是那些认为选举被窃取的人——可能会制造一些额外的说法，”肯塔基州前州务卿、共和党人特雷·格雷森告诉 CNN。