DOJ Will Send Federal Election Monitors to Maine for the First Time Since 2021
Observers will be posted at polling places in Portland and Lewiston as part of a record push for about 1,000 monitors nationwide. Maine's secretary of state says their role is "observation only."
The Justice Department plans to station federal election monitors at polling places in Portland and Lewiston, Maine, on Nov. 3, part of the Trump administration's broader effort to deploy a record number of observers for the midterm elections.
Maine's Democratic Secretary of State, Shenna Bellows, confirmed the plan and discussed it Wednesday on CBS News' "The Daily Report." She said the monitors' role is "observation only." News from the States reported that the deployment is the first time federal observers have been sent to Maine since Bellows took office in 2021. In recent years the Justice Department has sent observers to other states, usually on a smaller scale and often in response to a civil rights concern.
The Maine deployment sits inside a much larger program. The Justice Department announced in August that it planned to send about 1,000 monitors to polling places across the country for the midterms. That is far above the 289 observers it sent for the 2022 midterms and the 714 it sent for the 2024 presidential election. The department has not said how many of those monitors will go to Maine.
Bellows said she does not expect the monitors to change how voting runs. Her office says the rules limit what they can do: they can watch, but they cannot touch ballots or voting equipment, speak with voters, or disrupt voting. Bellows said her office will keep a close eye on them. Local election supervisors across the state have been told to contact the state if federal monitors ask for permission to observe.
The deployment follows an existing fight between Maine and the Justice Department over voter data. In 2025, Bellows formally denied a Justice Department request for all of the state's voter information.
The Justice Department has not publicly explained why it chose Portland and Lewiston, two of Maine's largest cities. The expanded program has drawn scrutiny nationally, with PBS NewsHour reporting that the monitoring plans and separate Homeland Security voter checks have raised concerns about election interference.
Election Day is less than a week away. With early voting already under way in many states, the monitor program gives both parties another flashpoint in a midterm cycle already marked by court fights over ballots and certification. State officials in Maine say they will treat the monitors as observers, nothing more, and expect polls in Portland and Lewiston to open and close on schedule. Polls open on Nov. 3, and the first test of the arrangement will be whether observers and local clerks keep to the line Bellows has drawn.
