U.S. President Donald Trump watches a match during the UFC 327 event at Kaseya Center in Miami, Florida, U.S., April 11, 2026; REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque.
On the same day that he was humiliated for the 25th time before a court for trying to force states to hand over their voter rolls, President Donald Trump continued rolling out another aspect of his voter suppression plan — namely, sending Justice Department workers to polling places.
"[Assistant Attorney General Harmeet] Dhillon has the authority to deploy only monitors, not observers," reported Democracy Docket's Jacob Knutson on Tuesday. "Her comments could be a troubling sign that the DOJ may intend to assert expansive powers — far beyond the scope of the department’s traditional monitoring program — for the 1,000 monitors it plans to deploy."
Knutson quoted Dillon as saying, "Federal election monitors from the department are — observers, I should say — are similar to other types of observers you see, so they’re not going to be interfering in any way or running the election."
The Democracy Docket journalist also wrote, "Dhillon went on to refer to observers' rather than monitors for the rest of the interview. She also framed the upcoming federal poll-watching push as the 'biggest DOJ election observer effort in history.'"
Knutson then explained why the distinction between "monitors" and "observers" is such a big deal.
"The difference is important, and her switch seemed deliberate," Knutson wrote. "Under federal law, monitors and observers are two distinct types of poll watchers the federal government can deploy — and observers have a lot more power."
He continued, "Stemming from the Voting Rights Act (VRA), observers have explicit legal authority to enter polling places and closely watch election workers, voters and voting systems at all stages of the election process. Monitors, on the other hand, have no legal authority to enter election sites or watch any specific aspect of the voting process. They are subject to state poll access laws, and several states have already refused to permit them access to polling locations for primary elections this year."
Dan Vicuña, Senior Policy Director for Voting and Fair Representation at the nonprofit good government group Common Cause, explained to AlterNet in June how Trump's suppression efforts like demanding states hand over their voter rolls, sending Justice Department officials to "observe" elections, stop mail-in voting and other measures are anti-democratic.
“What they all add up to is a desire to avoid any accountability to the voters in the midterm elections — to ensure, to preordain the outcome of a midterm that he thinks is going to go badly for him,” Vicuña told AlterNet at the time. “We know, from the Big Lie of the 2020 election to spurring on a violent revolt to overthrow a free and fair election, that he has no respect for democratic norms, for the voice of the people. This is entirely about his own power and his own ego. He will even invest in protecting that ego and protecting his power at the expense of the needs of the public. People are suffering with high gas prices and affordability issues, and he does not care. All that matters is protecting his power, and he has no interest in whether he does that through democratic means.”
He added, “I think this all adds up to a desire to ensure that his party stays in power and his ability to do what he wants — to attack vulnerable communities — remains intact.” The expert also pointed out that some of Trump's nationalization efforts may be illegal.
“I think some of these attempts to federalize, to nationalize elections are clearly illegal,” Vicuña concluded. “You've seen some of that overreach already struck down — attempts to order independent agencies to force a strict voter ID requirement on people. That has been rejected. Common Cause is in court challenging the latest executive order to turn the United States Postal Service into some election administration agency and to create a further bureaucratic layer to make it more difficult to vote by mail. In terms of the president's authority to order around USPS, it's illegal. In terms of USPS's authority to become some sort of national election administration agency, it far exceeds the legal authority that Congress gave to the postal service. The statute describing what kind of work the postal service would do is about postal service work — processing mail and selling stamps. It has nothing to do with election administration.”
Speaking with AlterNet last week about the 2026 midterm elections, Sabato's Crystal Ball editor Kyle Kondik detailed why Trump is expected to suffer setbacks — and likely lose control of one or both houses of Congress — in the 2026 midterm elections.
"It's primarily the president's weak approval rating combined with the usual difficulty that the presidential party has in a midterm," Kondik explained to AlterNet. "I also think there may be even more for voters to react to in 2026 compared to even 2018, because Trump has acted as more of an imperial president and there is more dissatisfaction both with the economy as well as the president's foreign policy choices."
He also said, "Generally speaking, a president who is this unpopular should see his party lose a lot of ground in Congress. That said, Joe Biden also had poor approval in 2022, but Republicans didn't do all that well—they flipped the House but not the Senate. However, the Republican lead in the generic ballot was not as large as the Democratic lead is now."