Voter intimidation
Voter intimidation is conduct intended to deter eligible voters from voting — at the polling place, by mail, or in the registration process. Concrete forms include armed presence at polling locations beyond what law requires, aggressive challenges to specific voters' eligibility, surveillance of drop boxes in ways that document and identify voters, threats of legal consequences for lawful voting, and the targeted use of mass mailings or robocalls designed to confuse or frighten voters about their rights. Routine election observation by credentialed observers is not intimidation. The standard is conduct that a reasonable voter would understand as discouraging or threatening.
2026 Events (4)
DOJ election observers exceeded legal scope, demanded records, sought voter interviews at Laramie County, Wyoming polls, clerk and governor say
During Wyoming's August 18, 2026 primary election, two U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division attorneys deployed to Laramie County questioned poll administrators about matters Clerk Debra Lee said were outside the scope of federal voting rights law, requested poll-worker training materials and equipment-acquisition records, sought to examine vote tabulators, and attempted to interview voters — a request Lee denied. Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon subsequently asked Attorney General Ryan Schelhaas to examine whether the observers exceeded the authority Congress granted them.
The Justice Department threatened state election officials in more than a dozen states with criminal prosecution over noncitizens on voter rolls
In letters sent to more than a dozen states — including Arizona, Minnesota, Michigan, Georgia, Kentucky, and Tennessee — and obtained by news organizations, the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division warned that state and local election officials who knowingly keep noncitizens on voter rolls or help them cast ballots could face federal criminal prosecution, regardless of intent. Division chief Harmeet Dhillon wrote that any "intentional act that is aimed at diluting the votes of citizens" could be treated as a federal crime. The threats accompanied a broader Department push to prioritize roughly 90 open investigations into potential noncitizen voting and relied in part on the Department of Homeland Security's SAVE database, which a federal judge ruled unlawful on June 22, 2026 for inaccurately flagging citizens as ineligible.
U.S. Department of Justice moved to deploy federal election monitors to Democratic strongholds in Michigan, California, and New Jersey
On July 7, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice confirmed it would send federal election monitors to polling places in Detroit, Lansing, and East Lansing -- three Democratic strongholds -- for Michigan's August 4 primary, and to counties in California and New Jersey for the November 4 elections. The deployments, requested by Republican officials and premised on unsupported claims about the 2024 election, followed late-June letters from the DOJ Voting Section citing alleged irregularities. Michigan officials condemned the move as election interference based on baseless allegations.
ICE's HSI unit obtains individual voter files from Texas and North Carolina counties to investigate alleged noncitizen voting
Election officials in Webb County, Texas, and Forsyth County, North Carolina, turned over individual voter-file records — including registration history, addresses, dates of birth, driver's-license numbers, and voting histories — to agents of ICE's Homeland Security Investigations unit as part of the Trump administration's campaign against alleged noncitizen voting, according to emails obtained by Democracy Forward and first reported by Axios on June 13, 2026. The requests reached Webb County in May 2026 and Forsyth County in November 2025, and on June 9 DHS General Counsel James Percival directed ICE to pursue stricter penalties, including deportation, for noncitizens found to have voted.
2025 Events (1)
Attorney General Bondi deployed federal election monitors to polling sites in New Jersey and California following GOP requests
On October 24, 2025, Attorney General Pamela Bondi announced that the Department of Justice would deploy federal election monitors to polling sites in Passaic County, New Jersey, and five California counties (Los Angeles, Orange, Kern, Riverside, and Fresno), following requests from Republican state officials. The monitors, described as election observers, were positioned at polling locations to oversee election administration.