WASHINGTON: The US Department of Justice said late on Wednesday that agents and employees from the FBI and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency will not be serving as monitors during the midterm elections.

Here are some details: In a court filing in a federal court case brought by civil rights organisation NAACP, which advocates for racial justice and rights for Black Americans, the Justice Department said election monitors will not be acting as law enforcement personnel while monitoring. The poll monitors will mainly observe polling places, take notes and will be prohibited from carrying firearms, the filing said.

The Justice Department said monitors have been trained not to interfere in voting and to follow state and local rules, consistent with past practice. Employees from the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) will serve as monitors. The Justice Department said no FBI or ICE employees will serve as monitors.

Trump, Obama trade barbs a week ahead of midterm elections

The filing came after the NAACP sued to bar prosecutors and other law enforcement personnel from serving as monitors, arguing the Trump administration’s plans amount to voter intimidation. The Trump administration has taken an increasingly aggressive approach to election oversight, pressing states for voter-registration data and arguing stricter measures are needed to ensure public confidence in the vote. Some officials said this month that they are preparing for potential federal interference in the midterm elections.

Campaign blitz

Neither man is on the ballot but Republican President Donald Trump and Democratic former President Barack Obama took prominent roles on the campaign trail on Wednesday, with less than a week to go before congressional races that could shift the balance of power in Washington.

While Trump has been on a weeks-long campaign blitz that has underlined Republican concerns about losing control of Congress for the final two years of his presidency, Obama had kept a relatively low public profile until the past week, during which he has delivered blistering speeches criticising Trump.

Thirty-five of the 100 Senate seats and all 435 seats in the House of Representatives are being contested next Tuesday. Nonpartisan analysts generally favour Democrats’ chances of capturing a majority in the House, with the contest for the Senate seen as very close.

On Wednesday, Obama appeared in Morrow, Georgia, near Atlanta, where he urged voters to support Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff, who faces a challenge from Representative Mike Collins, a Republican.

While delivering the standard Democratic critique of Trump for imposing tariffs and going to war in Iran, Obama also said America’s values were on the ballot, as he recalled the vision of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., who is buried in Atlanta.

“There is a moral component to the choices we face right now,” Obama said. “We are not going to fix the system that’s broken, we’re not going to unrig our economy, so long as we’ve got a culture where anything goes, where people in the highest offices of the land think it’s OK to lie and cheat and bully, if we continue to have a culture where money is deemed the only measure of our worth,” Obama said.

Trump’s public approval rating has fallen to a near record low, with Americans increasingly sour on the high cost of living and the Iran war, but he remains an animating force in the party and has campaigned hard to increase Republican turnout.

Published in Dawn, October 30th, 2026