Three Ohio County Boards to Host Federal Election Monitors Next Week

Cuyahoga County voters will see federal observers at polling sites next week after the Justice Department told three Ohio boards of elections that monitors will be on hand to watch how voting is run. The notices went out by email to the boards in Cuyahoga, Franklin and Medina counties.

The Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department plans to send observers to all 50 states, an effort the agency expects to be its largest election monitoring operation to date. Trial attorney James Catania, who identified himself in the letters as the regional coordinator supervising the monitors, wrote that they will only observe operations and "won't intrude or interfere in any way in the voting process."

The letters state the observers will check compliance with the Voting Rights Act, the National Voter Registration Act, the Uniformed and Overseas Absentee Voting Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act. The Justice Department has not said why it chose those three counties. Federal observers have been dispatched to elections for years.

Cuyahoga County has hosted them before. The Justice Department sent federal monitors to the county in 2020, 2022 and 2024, along with deployments to other states.

The letters come as President Trump has moved to assert greater federal control over elections. Ohio's boards of elections in Cuyahoga, Franklin and Medina counties are scheduled to conduct next week's election with the monitors present.