In a filing before the US District Court for the District of Columbia on Wednesday, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) stated that FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel will not serve as poll monitors during the 2026 midterm elections.

Eric Neff, acting chief of the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ, said in a declaration that no law enforcement personnel with the ability to effect an arrest will be sent to monitor polling places. Instead, the monitors will be DOJ volunteers. He affirmed that no FBI or ICE employees would serve as monitors. Neff stated that employees from the ATF and DEA would serve as monitors, but would not act as law enforcement personnel and instead would be unarmed and only observe and take notes.

He explained that the DOJ Voting Section’s monitoring efforts are to ensure compliance with federal civil rights voting laws, and that these monitors will be unarmed, unidentifiable, and trained in federal and local laws. This training will include prohibitions on interfering with voters or election officials, wearing federal insignia, or speaking with voters inside polling places.

The statement comes during a lawsuit brought by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) against Assistant Attorney General of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division Harmeet Dhillon for failing to respond to the Association’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for information about the DOJ’s use of election monitors in the 2026 midterms.

While the FBI and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have never said that they would be deploying agents to monitor elections, MS NOW reported that thousands of observers would still be dispatched to polling venues across the country to monitor potential voter intimidation. The NAACP requested that the DOJ explain the legal basis of the monitors, and provide information about any complaints about their deployment during the 2026 midterm elections, about the personnel being deployed and their locations, and whether personnel from the FBI, DHS, ICE, or any other federal law enforcement agency have been deployed to monitor elections.

Neff could not provide information about the locations where the monitors would be deployed, explaining that the division had not yet finalized monitoring times and locations. He also said that releasing a full list would undermine the monitoring effort and put the monitors at risk, because the NAACP would publicly disclose any responsive records, making them accessible to groups organizing to monitor DOJ personnel.

The NAACP alleges that deploying one thousand election monitors “stands to jeopardize the election and interfere with the right of voters to participate in the election free from intimidation.” Dhillon defended the use of election monitors, saying that DOJ has used its authority under the Voting Rights Act for decades to send poll monitors and is cooperating with local officials. The NAACP alleged that the DOJ’s monitoring effort is aimed at uncovering evidence of voter fraud, a function the organization argues falls outside the Civil Rights Division’s authority.