Federal Election Day observers headed to Tennessee 

Teams of federal election monitors will be present in Tennessee on Tuesday as part of the Trump administration plan to “oversee federal voting protections and investigate potential election fraud,” according to a Justice Department spokesperson.

About 1,000 monitors will be deployed across the country, with a presence in each state, according to the spokesperson, who declined to share how many will be present in Tennessee or in which counties. 

“We will not share the full list until Election Day,” the spokesperson said. “Every monitor will merely observe and report any potential violations of federal law to the Department, which will be reviewed after Election Day.”

Shelby County Election Commissioner Linda Phillips confirmed Monday that she had received notification federal monitors will be at Memphis polling locations.

“No reason has been shared regarding why our county was selected, but we are one of three Tennessee counties to receive the notice,” Phillips said in a statement. Phillips  noted the last time election monitors were present in Memphis and Shelby County was 2018. 

Phillips did not identify the other Tennessee counties. A spokesperson for Tennessee Elections Coordinator Mark Goins did not reply Monday to questions about other counties federal monitors are expected to visit.

DOJ observers not uncommon

The presence of DOJ monitors on Election Day is not uncommon, voting rights experts said. Yet the Trump administration decision to deploy 1,000 across the nation, and in each state, is a significant expansion of the federal presence, according to the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan legal advocacy organization. During the 2026 primary, the DOJ dispatched monitors to 11 states. 

The monitors are DOJ employees. Because the Trump administration is deploying so many this year, it has tapped employees outside of the DOJ’s civil rights division and those with voting rights experience who have typically served as election monitors in the past, according to the Campaign Legal Center.

Federal poll workers are charged with observing polling places and documenting compliance with federal civil rights laws such as the Voting Rights Act. They are subject to the same state laws as private and volunteer election observers: they have no authority over poll workers or election officials, cannot interfere with a voter’s right to cast a ballot, attempt to influence votes or intimidate voters. 

“They’re not allowed to enforce state law,” said Adam Altendorf, organizing director of Organize Tennessee, a nonpartisan organization that trains volunteer election observers. They are also not allowed to enforce federal law, he said.

“They’re not allowed to really talk to voters until after they’re done voting,” he said. “They’re prohibited, of course, from engaging in any sort of political activity.”

Altendorf noted that Tennessee would also have many volunteer and bipartisan election monitors on hand to observe polling sites, including observing federal polling workers, too.

“This isn’t the first time DOJ has sent poll monitors to Tennessee,” he said. “They were here in 2018 and in 2016 as well, so it’s not new, but I think it’s a new DOJ for a lot of folks. That’s why we have poll monitors, especially everywhere in Shelby County, because in some cases we’ll be making sure everyone’s following the rules.”

Reporter Cassandra Stephenson contributed.