Judge denies Missouri's effort to block federal election monitors
People wait in line to cast their ballots at an early voting location in Blue Springs, Missouri, on Oct. 31. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
A federal judge late Monday rejected an effort by Missouri’s Republican leaders to ban Justice Department election monitors from entering polling sites in St. Louis County on Election Day.
In a separate case, the Justice Department reached an agreement with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) that restricts monitors from coming any closer than 100 feet from voting locations in that state. Texas had sued to block the monitors.
The developments came as federal authorities sought to bolster efforts to monitor Tuesday’s elections amid growing fears of improper partisan influence and voter suppression. The Justice Department last week announced plans to send monitors to 86 jurisdictions in 27 states, the most in two decades.
In recent years, federal monitors generally have needed permission from state or local officials to enter polling places. Republican-led states have increasingly attempted to politicize the process and have cast federal authorities as partisans from the Biden administration who the states say cannot be trusted.
Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd (R) also said last week that his office would not permit monitors in four counties in that state.
The different outcomes in Missouri and Texas centered on the scope of the federal government’s statutory authority to enter local polling places.
Legal experts said the federal government lost significant legal recourse in 2013, when the Supreme Court struck down key provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The court eliminated the federal government’s preclearance authority, which required nine states and dozens of counties with a history of voter discrimination, mostly in the South, to request permission before they could change voting regulations.
The ruling also meant that the Justice Department needed a court order or express cooperation from state and local officials to enter polling sites.
In a lawsuit filed Monday, Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft (R) and Attorney General Andrew Bailey (R) argued that state laws do not permit federal monitors inside polling places.
But in her nine-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Sarah Pitlyk cited a legal settlement between the Justice Department and the Board of Election Commissioners for the City of St. Louis signed in January 2021 under the Americans With Disabilities Act.
That agreement, which runs through July 11, 2025, outlines remedial steps that the elections board must take to improve ballot access for disabled people and stipulates that federal authorities be allowed to monitor the progress, including inside polling locations.
Pitlyk wrote that “there is a stronger federal and public interest in ensuring that state law does not stand as an obstacle to the enforcement of federal law.”
She also faulted Missouri officials for seeming to be unaware of the 2021 legal settlement between St. Louis and the Justice Department. Missouri’s assertion that federal authorities had not identified any voting problems in St. Louis was made “apparently without knowledge of the publicized Settlement Agreement,” Pitlyk wrote.
In Texas, the Justice Department said it will monitor elections in eight counties. In response, Paxton filed his lawsuit on Monday, asking a federal court for a temporary restraining order to block the monitors.
In a two-page order, U.S. District Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk noted the current provisions governing federal election observers and monitors under the Voting Rights Act and instructed Texas to formally notify the Justice Department of its objections.
Late Monday, Paxton withdrew his lawsuit after submitting an agreement signed by federal officials that stipulates monitors must remain at least 100 feet away from all polling places in Texas. The monitors are permitted to speak with voters outside.
