2026-09-25T09:00:29.332Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/25/politics/trump-election-monitors-voting-machines-vis
唐纳德·特朗普总统及其政府内外的盟友正计划在今年11月的选举中，通过不断扩张的党派和联邦选举监督员网络全面覆盖投票站，同时加强对投票具体流程的监督——此前特朗普毫无根据地声称美国选举存在广泛的作弊和欺诈行为，此番举动正是为了配合他的这一指控。
特朗普领导的司法部表示，将在选举日派遣超过1000名监督员，助理司法部长哈米特·迪隆称这是“司法部历史上规模最大的选举观察员行动”，人数比拜登政府2024年部署的多出数百人。美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）审查的新记录显示，今年初选期间部署的多名司法部监督员曾参与质疑特朗普2020年选举失利的活动。另有一名监督员曾在2016年因非法访问政府选举网站认罪。
尽管大多数在初选期间接待过司法部监督员的选区都表示其在场未引发任何问题，但派往怀俄明州的联邦观察员被该州共和党官员指责存在干扰行为。
至关重要的是，没有证据表明此次监督行动会干扰投票站运作或阻止任何人在11月投票。司法部监督员和党派观察员长期以来都是选举日的一部分。
另据CNN此前未报道过的威斯康星州共和党全国委员会培训材料显示，共和党全国委员会正在培训新的“特别监督员”，负责审查投票机——记录序列号、检查安全封条并拍摄结果纸带——并通过专门热线将任何问题或差异报告给该党的法律团队。
此举正值特朗普及其盟友加紧宣称投票机易遭黑客攻击和欺诈，部分人甚至呼吁彻底禁用投票机之际。
“你们在现场收集情况并通知我们，就能让我们采取直接行动，”一名共和党全国委员会官员在7月的一次威斯康星州监督员培训电话中告诉一群特别监督员，“这将带来真正有利于全州共和党人的实际结果。”
这标志着共和党选举监督机构的最新扩张，该机构自2020年以来大幅扩张，并催生了一系列质疑近期选举是否公正透明的轶事、指控和法律挑战。
但一些人担心，不断扩大的党派和联邦监督员网络可能意味着更多事件——哪怕是微小失误或毫无根据的欺诈指控——会被放大，并被特朗普及其盟友用来强化美国选举不安全甚至针对共和党存在舞弊的说法。
“这一切听起来都很常规，但现在并非寻常时期，”全国选举官员协会首席项目官塔米·帕特里克表示，“过去几年，选举官员对我说：‘他们看起来就像是来找尸体的。’”
共和党全国委员会和司法部都为各自的观察计划辩护，称他们将遵守法律，并驳斥有关这些行动会加剧无端争端或毫无根据的质疑的担忧。
“司法部工作人员应按照所有法律和道德义务履行职责，没有例外，”司法部发言人基尔斯滕·佩尔斯在一份声明中告诉CNN，“仅基于猜测就暗示我们的团队会行为不当，这是不诚实的。”
特朗普第二届政府对司法部，特别是其民权司进行了大幅改革。该司的投票部门——在特朗普第二届任期初期几乎所有职业律师都被排挤走——已将工作重点转向识别非公民选民和其他潜在的欺诈证据。
政府计划在11月的选举中派遣大量监督员，这与该部门的这一工作方向相契合。据“民主向前”组织获取并分享给CNN的通信记录显示，在今年初选中，司法部派往亚利桑那州和弗吉尼亚州等州的部分监督员是近期受聘的律师，他们此前曾参与质疑或试图推翻特朗普2020年的选举失利结果。以下是我们了解到的相关人员情况：
政府还在初选中派遣戴维·莱文前往亚利桑那州和明尼苏达州担任监督员。莱文是今年早些时候受聘于司法部的保守派律师，2016年他被指控发动网络攻击获取凭证并进入佛罗里达州一个县选举网站的受限区域。他对两项轻罪指控认罪并服刑20天，称这一事件是一场“愚蠢的政治噱头”，旨在揭露选举办公室网络安全的弱点。
本周通过电话联系到莱文时，他告诉CNN他“不对自己在司法部的工作或是否会在选举日被部署发表评论”。加德纳、沃伊兰和马塞伊斯未回复置评请求。
“这令人担忧，”“民主向前”组织的特别监察专员丹·麦格拉思在一份声明中告诉CNN，他补充道，选择某些选举监督员“引发了人们对选民投票权是否会得到政府尊重的担忧”。
在本次初选中接受司法部监督的六个选区的选举官员告诉CNN，尽管今年的观察计划大肆宣传，但政府律师在其选举地点的行为专业、无干扰，正如一位地方选举负责人所说，“一切如常”。
在多个地方，监督员的工作重点是确认各选区是否满足为选民提供语言援助的要求——这与联邦观察员一贯的工作方式一致。
选举官员还指出，部分观察员拥有丰富的经验，负责监督项目的司法部官员在该部门投票部门工作了数十年。
“每位监督员都将接受与往届政府历次选举中相同的标准选举监督员培训，”佩尔斯在声明中告诉CNN，“司法部聘请了合格的人员以非党派方式为国家服务。”
但派遣数百名司法部观察员参与选举日工作的计划引发了疑问：这些律师是否都会遵守司法部的传统标准——尤其是自特朗普第二届任期开始以来，已有数千名职业律师离开司法部。
怀俄明州的事件凸显了即便在红色州，紧张局势也可能爆发。
据拉勒米县选举主任黛布拉·李透露，她的办公室未收到任何关于两名司法部律师将观察夏延地区投票站的提前通知——CNN获取的电子邮件显示，司法部最初将其计划通知发送给了威斯康星州的选举官员，而非怀俄明州。
地方和州官员表示，司法部律师就选举程序盘问工作人员，并要求提供有关投票机的信息。他们还被指控试图在投票站采访选民。（历史上，司法部选举监督员会邀请选民自愿讨论他们在选举现场的经历，但据前投票部门官员透露，此类采访不会在投票站内进行。）
“如果说有什么不同的话，他们的在场可能会让选民在选举日投票时三思，”共和党人李在上个月的一份声明中表示，“我给怀俄明州其他县书记员和其他‘红色’州的选举管理人员的建议是：别以为这事不会发生在你身上。”
拉勒米县的记录显示，这两名监督员是约翰·卡萨利和杰克·巴钱德，两人都是在本届政府期间加入该部门的。
卡萨利曾在支持特朗普的美国优先政策研究所担任律师。巴钱德此前曾为德克萨斯州共和党众议员特洛伊·尼尔斯和佛罗里达州共和党众议员马特·盖兹工作，两人都是坚定的特朗普盟友。
卡萨利和巴钱德未回复CNN的置评请求。据司法部称，迪隆在事件发生后会见了怀俄明州州长，司法部为其监督员的行为进行了辩护。
“我们提出问题是为了确保投票站遵守联邦法律，包括与语言和无障碍设施相关的法律，”佩尔斯告诉CNN。
她补充道：“试图将这些问题歪曲成我们的团队痴迷于投票机的完整性，这是不诚实的，也没有准确描述我们的监督工作。”
特朗普及其盟友发起其他审查投票技术的行动之际，他们对怀俄明州投票设备的兴趣也随之而来。与投票机相关的阴谋论主导了特朗普阵营认为2020年选举对他不利的观点。
如今，收集投票机相关信息也已成为共和党全国委员会选举观察活动的优先事项。
党派观察员与联邦监督员扮演着不同的角色。他们代表一个政治组织，并汇报其观察到的情况。根据州法律，他们还可能被授权提出或正式质疑违规行为。
在一项限制观察活动的数十年 consent decree（注：此处应为“ consent decree”，即法院同意令）于2018年到期后，共和党全国委员会在过去几年中积极重建选举过程监督的基础设施。
据CNN获取的材料显示，今年该党正在组织一项监督投票设备运作情况的行动。
共和党全国委员会的培训材料将其新的“特别监督员”——与司法部监督员分开——描述为投票过程的“书挡”，专注于从选举前测试到选举日期间投票机的相关情况。
这些记录包括培训文件以及7月和8月与威斯康星州“特别监督员”志愿者的电话录音，由公平战斗行动组织获取并独家分享给CNN。该组织是由前民主党州议员、州长候选人斯泰西·艾布拉姆斯创立的非营利性投票权利组织。
威斯康星州培训的参与者被告知，他们在该州8月初选中的信息收集行动是一个试点项目，共和党全国委员会希望在11月的大选中将其扩展到其他州。
“审计跟踪和安全问题：这是我们本次选举周期将重点关注的新内容，”主持培训的威斯康星州共和党全国委员会官员表示，“我们正在本州为初选测试和试点这一行动，以便在11月的大选中更全面地启动这项工作。”
在威斯康星州，观察员被告知要记录机器序列号、确认每个计票器初始票数为零，并检查旨在显示是否存在篡改的封条。投票结束后，他们要拍摄投票总数，并核对已投选票数量与登记投票的选民人数是否一致。
如果地方书记员拒绝提供记录机器监管链的日志，该党还为志愿者准备了公共记录申请模板。
“这些书记员可能会有一点抵触，但我们会确保你拥有合理获取这些结果所需的所有文件，”威斯康星州共和党选举诚信主任珍娜·班菲尔德说道，她协助领导了培训电话。
志愿者被指示通过新的党派热线报告任何问题或差异，以帮助共和党全国委员会的律师迅速识别对州或地方选举官员的潜在质疑。
共和党全国委员会的材料称，其州级团队在2024年参与了超过175起诉讼，该党有望在2026年超过这一数字。
“这是我们看到的第一个确凿证据，表明共和党全国委员会打算将其全国基层投票站行动直接瞄准投票机，”公平战斗行动组织首席执行官劳伦·格罗夫-瓦戈在一份声明中告诉CNN，“源源不断的以投票机为中心的视频片段和投诉旨在让选民怀疑计票结果的可信度，这正是他们在输掉选举后用以质疑选举的基础。”
志愿者还将审查缺席选票的处理过程，特朗普及其盟友称这一过程充斥着欺诈行为。他们被告知要与选民和工作人员保持适度互动，避免任何骚扰的迹象，甚至要“了解”当地的书记员。
“这就是我们如何获得更多访问权限、建立信任和透明度的方式，”班菲尔德说道。
现场的“耳目”
共和党全国委员会告诉CNN，其选举诚信行动在22个州展开，将“充当耳目，帮助我们快速识别和应对问题，确保选举日运作顺利并保护投票箱”。
该组织将观察员集中在共和党优势微弱或存在程序性问题历史记录的地区。
“你记录的所有这些笔记，”班菲尔德告诉一群志愿者，“如果是带有时间戳的手写笔记，那就是黄金标准，因为这是我们可以用作证据的东西。”
共和党全国委员会的培训手册称，这一基础设施将使该党能够“部署实时法律和政治资源，这对我们的最高级别和下议院候选人的选举成功至关重要”。
共和党全国委员会为其行动辩护，告诉CNN其选举诚信团队此前曾发现弗吉尼亚州的测试错误，这些错误后来得到了纠正，并标记了得克萨斯州数十个县的选举前测试延误情况。
在2020年选举期间及之后，共和党全国委员会、特朗普竞选团队和相关活动人士动员了一个由党派观察员、律师和活动人士组成的网络，收集了大量关于投票违规行为的指控，并在法庭上追究了许多此类指控。
关于佐治亚州“行李箱”装着欺诈选票以及亚利桑那州投票工作人员使用马克笔使特朗普选票无效的说法，成为特朗普及其盟友推动的选举欺诈叙事的支柱。调查、法庭程序和选举官员的审查几乎没有发现支持这些指控的证据，但其中一些说法至今仍在流传。
“一方面，训练有素的观察员可能会减少误解，但另一方面，人数更多——尤其是如果他们抱有选举被窃取的观点——可能会制造一些额外的叙事，”前肯塔基州州务卿、共和党人特雷·格雷森告诉CNN。
How Trump and his GOP allies are mobilizing to send monitors to the polls on Election Day
2026-09-25T09:00:29.332Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/25/politics/trump-election-monitors-voting-machines-vis
President Donald Trump and his allies inside and outside his administration are aiming to blanket polling places with an expanding network of party and federal election monitors this November, intensifying scrutiny of the nuts and bolts of voting as Trump hunts for what he claims, without evidence, is widespread cheating and fraud in US elections.
Trump’s Justice Department says it will dispatch more than 1,000 monitors on Election Day in what Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon has called the “biggest DOJ election observer effort in history” — hundreds more than the Biden administration deployed in 2024. New records reviewed by CNN suggest that several DOJ monitors deployed during this year’s primaries helped challenge Trump’s 2020 election loss. Another pleaded guilty to illegally accessing a government elections website in 2016.
While most jurisdictions that hosted DOJ monitors during the primaries reported no issues with their presence, federal observers sent to Wyoming were accused of disruptive behavior by Republican officials in the state.
Critically, there is no evidence that the monitoring efforts will disrupt polling places or prevent anyone from voting in November. Justice Department monitors and partisan observers have long been part of Election Day.
Separately, the Republican National Committee is training new “special monitors” to scrutinize voting machines — recording serial numbers, inspecting security seals and photographing results tapes — and report any concerns or discrepancies to the party’s legal team through a special hotline, according to RNC training materials from Wisconsin that have not previously been reported on.
The effort comes as Trump and his allies intensify claims that voting machines are vulnerable to hacking and fraud, with some seeking to ban them altogether.
“Having you all on the ground, notifying us of issues, allows us to take direct action,” an RNC official told a group of special monitors in Wisconsin on a July training call. “And this leads to real outcomes that benefit Republicans across the state.”
It marks the latest expansion of a Republican election monitoring apparatus that has grown dramatically since 2020 and helped generate anecdotes, allegations and legal challenges questioning whether recent elections were run properly and transparently.
But some fear the widening web of party and federal monitors could mean far more incidents — even minor errors or baseless claims of fraud — are elevated and could be used by Trump and his allies to reinforce claims that US elections are not secure, or even rigged against Republicans.
“All of this sounds typical, but these are not typical times,” said Tammy Patrick, chief program officer for the National Association of Election Officials. “In the past few years, election officials have said to me, ‘It’s like they’re showing up looking for the body.’”
Both the RNC and DOJ have defended their observation initiatives, saying they will follow the law and reject concerns that the efforts will fuel unwarranted disputes or unfounded challenges.
“DOJ staff are expected to do their job consistent with all legal and ethical obligations. No exceptions,” DOJ spokesperson Kiersten Pels told CNN in a statement. “To imply that our team will act improperly based on nothing more than speculation would be dishonest.”
The second Trump administration has undertaken a dramatic overhaul of the Justice Department and particularly its Civil Rights Division. The division’s voting section — where nearly all career attorneys were pushed out early into Trump’s second term — has shifted its focus to identifying non-citizen voters and other potential evidence of fraud.
The administration’s plans to flood November’s election with monitors has dovetailed that message. During this year’s primaries, some monitors deployed by DOJ to states like Arizona and Virginia were recently hired attorneys who previously helped challenge or try to overturn Trump’s 2020 loss, according to communications obtained by Democracy Forward and shared with CNN. Here’s what we know about those individuals:
The administration also dispatched David Levin to Arizona and Minnesota as a monitor during the primaries. Levin, a conservative attorney hired at DOJ earlier this year, was accused in 2016 of carrying out a cyberattack to obtain credentials and enter restricted sections of a county elections website in Florida. He pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors and served 20 days in jail, calling the episode a “silly political stunt” intended to expose weaknesses in the election office’s cybersecurity.
Reached by phone this week, Levin told CNN he has “no comment” on his work at DOJ or whether he will be deployed on Election Day. Gardner, Voiland and Matheis did not respond to requests for comment.
“This is alarming,” Dan McGrath, Special Counsel, Oversight at Democracy Forward told CNN in a statement, adding that the choice of some election monitors “raises concerns that people’s right to vote will not be respected by the administration.”
Election officials in a half-dozen jurisdictions that were sites of DOJ monitoring this primary cycle told CNN that, despite the hype around this year’s observation program, the government attorneys’ conduct at their election locations was professional, non-disruptive, and, as one local election chief put it, “business as usual.”
In several places, the monitors were focused on confirming jurisdictions were meeting requirements to offer language assistance for voters – in line with how federal observers have typically operated.
Election officials also noted that some of the observers had extensive experience, and that the DOJ official overseeing the monitoring program has spent decades in the department’s voting section.
“Every monitor will go through the same standard election monitor training which was given by DOJ for every election under previous administrations,” Pels told CNN in a statement. “The Department hired qualified individuals to serve our country in a non-partisan manner.”
But the plans to dispatch several hundred DOJ observers on Election Day have raised questions about whether all those attorneys will adhere to the department’s traditional standards – particularly as thousands of career attorneys have left the Department since the beginning of Trump’s second term.
The episode in Wyoming highlights how even in a red state, tensions can flare.
According to Laramie County Elections Director Debra Lee, her office got no heads up the two DOJ attorneys would be observing the Cheyenne-area polling sites — emails obtained by CNN show that DOJ initially sent notice of its plans to election officials in Wisconsin instead of Wyoming.
Local and state officials say that the DOJ attorneys quizzed election staff about their protocols and demanded information about the voting machines. They’re also accused of seeking to interview voters at the polling place. (DOJ election monitors have historically asked voters to voluntarily discuss their experiences at election sites, but according to a former official in the voting section, such interviews did not happen within the polling places.)
“If anything, their presence may make voters think twice about voting at the polls on Election Day,” Lee, a Republican, said in a statement last month. “My advice to my fellow county clerks in Wyoming and to election administrators in other ‘red’ states is don’t think this won’t happen to you.”
Records from Laramie County indicate the monitors were John Casali and Jake Bachand, both of whom joined the department under this administration.
Casali had served as an attorney at the Trump-aligned America First Policy Institute. Bachand previously worked for Republican Reps. Troy Nehls of Texas and Matt Gaetz of Florida, two staunch Trump allies.
Casali and Bachand did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment. Dhillon met with Wyoming’s governor after the incident, according to DOJ, which has defended its monitors’ actions.
“We ask questions to ensure polling locations are complying with federal law, including those related to language and disability access,” Pels told CNN.
She added: “Attempting to spin these questions to make our team appear fixated on the integrity of voting machines is dishonest and does not accurately portray our monitoring efforts.”
The interest in Wyoming’s voting equipment comes as Trump and his allies have launched other efforts to scrutinize voting technology. Machine-related conspiracy theories dominated Trump-world beliefs that the 2020 election was rigged against him.
Gathering information about voting machines has now become a priority for the RNC’s election observation activities as well.
Party observers play a different role from federal monitors. They represent a political organization and report back what they observe. Depending on state law, they may also be authorized to raise or formally challenge irregularities.
The RNC has spent the last several years aggressively rebuilding the infrastructure for the monitoring of the voting process, after a decades-old consent decree that limited observation activities expired in 2018.
This year, the party is organizing an effort to monitor how the operation of voting equipment works as well, according to materials obtained by CNN.
The RNC training materials cast the party’s new “special monitors” — who are separate from the Justice Department monitors — as the “bookends” of the voting process, concentrating on what happens to voting machines from preelection testing through Election Day.
The records, which include training documents and recordings of calls in July and August with “special monitor” volunteers in Wisconsin, were obtained by Fair Fight Action, a non-profit voting-rights organization founded by former Democratic state lawmaker and gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, and shared exclusively with CNN.
Attendees of the Wisconsin training were told that their information-gathering operation during the state’s August primary was a pilot program that the RNC hoped to expand to other states during November’s general election.
“The audit trail and security: This is something new that we are going to be focusing on this cycle,” said the Wisconsin RNC official conducting the training. “We’re kind of testing and piloting this operation in our state for the primary so that we can launch this more fully for the November general election.”
In Wisconsin, the observers were told to record machine serial numbers, confirm each tabulator starts with zero votes, and inspect seals designed to reveal tampering. After polls close, they’re told to photograph vote totals and check whether the number of ballots cast matches the number of voters who checked in.
The party has also prepared public-records request templates for volunteers to use if local clerks refuse to provide logs documenting the machines’ chain of custody.
“There may be a little bit of pushback from these clerks, but we’ll make sure you have all of the documentation that you need to reasonably obtain these results,” said Jenna Banfield, Election Integrity Director for the Wisconsin GOP, who helped lead the training calls.
Volunteers are instructed to report any concerns or discrepancies through a new party hotline to help RNC lawyers swiftly identify potential challenges against state or local election officials.
The RNC materials said their state teams contributed to more than 175 lawsuits in 2024 and that the party is on track to surpass that figure in 2026.
“This is the first real evidence we’ve seen that the RNC intends to aim their national grassroots poll operation directly at voting machines,” Fair Fight Action CEO Lauren Groh-Wargo told CNN in a statement. “A steady stream of machine-centered clips and complaints is designed to leave voters unsure the count can be trusted, which is exactly the ground they need to contest a race they lose.”
The volunteers will also scrutinize absentee ballot processing, which Trump and his allies have claimed is rife with fraud. They’ve been told to keep interactions with voters and workers measured, avoid any appearance of harassment and even “get to know” their local clerks.
“That is how we gain more access and trust and transparency,” Banfield said.
‘Eyes and ears’ on the ground
The RNC told CNN its Election Integrity operation is active in 22 states and will “serve as eyes and ears, helping us quickly identify and respond to issues to ensure smooth Election Day operations and to protect the ballot box.”
It will concentrate observers in places with narrow Republican margins or a history of alleged procedural problems.
“All these notes that you’re taking,” Banfield told a group of volunteers, “if they are handwritten with timestamps, that’s the gold standard because that’s something we can use as evidence.”
That infrastructure, the RNC training manual says, will allow the party to “deploy real-time legal and political resources that are critical to successful election outcomes for our top-ticket and down-ballot candidates.”
The RNC defended its operation, telling CNN that its election integrity teams previously identified testing errors in Virginia that were later corrected and flagged preelection testing delays across dozens of Texas counties.
During and after the 2020 election, the RNC, Trump campaign and allied activists mobilized a network of partisan observers, lawyers and activists who collected a trove of allegations of voting irregularities and pursued many in court.
Claims about “suitcases” of fraudulent ballots in Georgia and Arizona poll workers using Sharpies to invalidate Trump votes became pillars of the election-fraud narrative pushed by Trump and his allies. Investigations, court proceedings and probes by election officials found little evidence to support these allegations. Yet some continue to circulate today.
“On the on the one hand, having trained observers might cause fewer misinterpretations, but on the other hand, you have more people – especially if they have an orientation that the election is being stolen – that could create some additional narratives,” former Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson, a Republican, told CNN.