The White House is considering ending funding for a longtime civil rights election program aimed at protecting the rights of minority populations to vote, sources familiar with the matter tell CBS News.
The federal observer program, authorized under the Voting Rights Act and launched in 1966, is an Office of Personnel Management operation that partners with the Justice Department to send neutral, third-party observers to monitor election sites to ensure voters don’t experience discrimination at the polls — whether it’s due to race, language barriers or disabilities.
The observers, who are both recruited and trained by the Office of Personnel Management, are expected to watch, listen and take notes without interfering in the voting process. Those observers then turn over their findings to the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.
The White House is exploring whether to cut spending for the program, sources say, in a discussion that comes as the country gears up for crucial midterm elections this November that will determine which party controls Congress.
As Republicans worry about the prospect of losing control of the House or Senate, President Trump is being lobbied by far-right activists who are encouraging him to declare a national emergency in order to assert federal control over voting in America.
At the same time, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division is suing more than two dozen states in a bid to collect sensitive voter roll data that the Department of Homeland Security wants to use for criminal and immigration enforcement efforts, according to sources with direct knowledge of the matter.
The federal observer program is relatively inexpensive — Congress allocates several million dollars for it each year, a former federal official said.
An OPM official confirmed the program is being evaluated, noting that it has only been used at a handful of locations since 2013 that are under a court order to do so. The cost to send observers to those locations has risen from about $2.2 million to $2.5 million, the official said.
A White House spokesperson did not immediately comment on the review.
The Voting Rights Act was enacted in 1965 to prevent states with a long history of discriminatory election practices from disenfranchising primarily Black voters.
Originally the Justice Department used a formula to determine which states and municipalities had a history of discriminatory practices. Those who met the criteria were then required by the law to obtain preclearance from the Justice Department before making changes to any of its voting laws.
At one time, the Justice Department sent OPM-trained federal observers to over 100 counties across the nation on Election Day, according to data seen by CBS News. During the 2012 elections, more than 1,000 federal observers were sent to polling sites across America, a former federal official told CBS News.
A large portion of the law was gutted by a 2013 Supreme Court decision, Shelby County v. Holder, which found that the formula used by the Justice Department to ascertain which states or counties had a history of discrimination was outdated and unconstitutional.
That decision in turn has substantially hindered the Justice Department’s ability to enforce its provisions.
Without the ability to review potentially discriminatory new voting laws from going into effect, the Justice Department or private parties such as legal advocacy groups must now rely on trying to litigate them after they’ve been passed.
Now, federal observers may only be sent into jurisdictions in which there is a court order.
There are only a few court orders in effect that call for the use of federal observers: Union County, New Jersey, Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and two areas in rural Alaska.
In 2016, more than 300 federal observers were dispatched to polling places, while approximately 250 were used during elections that took place in 2024, the former federal official said.
Since that court decision, the Justice Department has heavily relied on its own election-monitoring program, in which it sends lawyers from the Civil Rights Division to polling places that are not eligible for the assignment of federal observers.
A Justice Department spokesperson said the department has no plans to end its own monitoring program in the Civil Rights Division.
“The Department of Justice is committed to ensuring our elections remain free, fair, and transparent, and has no plans to end its monitorship program which is integral to assessing compliance with federal voting rights laws across the country,” the spokesperson said.
If the White House eliminates funding for the federal observer program, it will strike another blow to the department’s ability to protect Americans’ rights under the Voting Rights Act.
Despite the existence of the Justice Department’s own election monitoring program, the federal observer program has historically been a favored approach for a few reasons.
First, federal observers are regarded as neutral and do not work for the Justice Department section that also litigates against counties and states over voting rights issues.
And by law, federal observers are allowed to be located inside polling places.
In recent years, Republican-controlled states, like Texas and Florida, have refused to permit Justice Department election monitors to enter polling sites.
Further, even when the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division was fully staffed, it often lacked the manpower to cover all of its election-monitoring, forcing the department to seek volunteers elsewhere in the department, according to sources with direct knowledge of the matter.
At this point, the Civil Rights Division now has lost more than 75% of its historic staffing levels.
