Monitoring the Situation

This Week in Democracy

• A Justice Department official announced that it plans to send roughly 1,000 federal officials to monitor polling places across the country in November and ensure compliance with federal law. Election monitors are normal: In past elections, federal, state, and local officials have worked together to implement strict procedures and ensure that federal monitors’ presence doesn’t interfere with voting. (In fact, they’ve already been present at voting locations this year during primary elections, without incident.)

  But federal officials must follow state law. They have no authority to demand immediate access to voting equipment or otherwise interfere with the administration of elections. And most importantly, they cannot stop any eligible American from casting their ballot.

  ➡️ MORE: What’s Breaking Through About Public Safety at Polling Places

• President Trump reiterated his false claim that he won the 2020 presidential election in a social media post, this time citing an unusual report from the U.S. Census Bureau purporting to show that thousands of noncitizens voted. But experts say the report’s methodology and conclusions are dubious, and that the lack of an attribution to an author is unusual. According to NPR, affiliates of a Trump-aligned think tank were involved in its creation.

  “The federal government has once again made sweeping claims regarding noncitizen voting allegations, without showing the public the proof behind the numbers,” Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar told NPR. “These kinds of claims, without fully explaining how they came to these determinations, just cause chaos and fear ahead of a critical midterm election.”

  ➡️ MORE: Here’s How We Know the 2020 Election Was Free, Fair, and Secure

• The top election official of Shasta County, California, is planning to hire Tina Peters, an Election Denier, as his deputy. Peters is a former Colorado county clerk who was convicted of participating in a security breach of election equipment as part of an effort to prove that Trump won the 2020 election. She was released from prison earlier this year, ahead of schedule, after Trump pressured Colorado officials by cutting federal funding for the state.

  The hiring announcement drew bipartisan criticism. A member of the California county’s board said hiring Peters “would continue to stoke controversy, divisiveness and increase distrust in our elections.”

State of the States

In Minnesota and Nevada, federal judges threw out the Trump administration’s lawsuits seeking voters’ private data, the 22nd and 23rd such cases to be dismissed. The Justice Department brought 31 lawsuits in total seeking voter data; it has yet to win any of them.

U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche told NBC News that his department may ask the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene. The Justice Department could ask the justices to review its loss in Michigan, as that case is the only one that has been decided at the appellate level.

➡️ MORE: Sharing the Facts About Federal Efforts to Compile State Voter Data

In Nevada and New York, federal appeals courts ruled that the Trump administration unlawfully appointed U.S. attorneys, and that the prosecutors currently in charge of those offices cannot perform the duties of the role under a different title.

In March 2025, former U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi appointed Sigal Chattah and John Sarcone III to serve as the top federal prosecutors for Nevada and the northern district of New York, respectively, on an interim basis. But before their interim terms expired, the administration used a series of unlawful maneuvers to install them in their roles indefinitely and circumvent the Senate’s role in confirming U.S. attorneys.

The administration has attempted to appoint federal prosecutors across the country using similar maneuvers, but judges have repeatedly rejected them. Lower courts previously ruled that Chattah and Sarcone were both illegitimately serving in their roles and disqualified them from overseeing certain investigations and prosecutions. The Justice Department appealed both rulings.

The Society for the Rule of Law, represented by States United, filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the appeal of Sarcone’s disqualification urging the court to uphold the lower court’s ruling.

“The consequences of the administration’s attempted end-run around federal law are clear,” the brief explained. “Its actions threaten the legitimacy of prosecutions, the credibility of U.S. Attorney’s offices, and the fair and impartial administration of justice.”

➡️ MORE: About the brief

In Texas, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison sued Gov. Greg Abbott and the sheriff of Cameron County. The Minnesota officials are asking a federal judge to order Abbott to comply with Walz’s request to transfer an ICE agent, currently in custody in Texas, to Minnesota to stand trial.

Walz sent an extradition request to Abbott in June after the agent was arrested in Texas under a nationwide warrant. A Minnesota judge issued the warrant shortly after the top prosecutor for the Minneapolis area filed charges against the agent, alleging that he shot into a house during Operation Metro Surge, hitting a man in the leg, and later lied about the incident.

Extradition is a standard procedure when someone is charged with a crime in one state and arrested in another. Ellison’s office noted in a press release that Abbott has typically authorized extradition requests in about 30 days. But in this case, the Texas governor has declined to authorize Castro’s transfer and refused Minnesota officials’ requests for information.

The Minnesota officials are also asking the judge to bar the sheriff from releasing Castro before he is transferred to Minnesota. Under Texas law, if Castro is not transferred, he could be eligible for release as soon as next week.