After hearing comments from two dozen citizens at a meeting so packed that many got turned away at the door, the Pulaski County Election Commission voted 2-1 to deny a Department of Justice request to let federal monitors inside the polls on Election Day.
Their vote followed a similar rejection on Monday by Washington County Election Commissioners, who said the request was too last-minute, and that the Department of Justice had provided no reason why Washington County had been singled out for monitoring.
This week’s election commission votes from Washington and Pulaski counties mean federal monitors can still keep an eye on Arkansas elections, but they’ll have to stay 100 feet away from polling entrances like everyone else.
So many people showed up for the meeting at the county election offices in Little Rock Thursday that all seats were claimed 10 minutes before the 7 p.m. start time. Dozens were denied entry, although some people huddled and squeezed into a lobby and were able to peek in through an open doorway.
Anyone not at the Pulaski County Election Commission meeting early found themselves out of luck. Credit: Austin Gelder
Pulaski’s commissioners took their vote after nearly an hour of listening to public comment, which was divided between people who said they welcomed federal oversight as a way to identify weak points and show off how well Arkansas runs its elections, and those who said having federal agents inside the polls could lead to intimidation, confusion and a wholesale chilling effect that might keep both voters and poll workers away completely.
Pulaski County Elections Director Amanda Dickens read aloud a letter outlining the Department of Justice’s request, which explained a plan to send in four monitors: two employees with the United States Attorney’s Office Eastern District of Arkansas and two attorneys with the DOJ. Those four monitors would undergo two hours of training to prepare for Nov. 3. On Election Day, the monitors would be on the lookout for signs of voter intimidation, and would interview voters who appeared frustrated or upset, according to the letter Dickens read. The monitors would be in plain clothes, but would show identification documents to any voters they decided to interview.
An overflow audience watched from the door. Credit: Austin Gelder
The proposal was a non-starter for Gary Bortz of Little Rock, the first public commenter of the night. “It would just be a mess,” he said, suggesting that it’s those monitors, as representatives of what he called the “Trump agenda,” who would be the root cause of any intimidation. “Whether it’s true or not, that would be the perception,” he said. He asked commissioners to at least let the public know which polling sites the monitors might be in so voters could avoid those locations.
Other speakers against allowing federal monitors inside the polls included Pulaski County Judge candidate Wendell Griffen, former Bowen School of Law Dean John DiPippa and Kathy Webb, a Little Rock city director and head of the voter advocacy group Get Loud Arkansas.
“In my opinion this is a bad solution in search of a nonexistent problem,” DiPippa said. He added that he was suspicious of the Trump administration’s motive, based on the two Arkansas counties it singled out to be monitored. Washington County has a high Hispanic population, while Pulaski County has a large number of Black voters. Neither group is solidly in the Republican camp in 2026. “It would be naive to think that was by accident,” DiPippa said.
Griffen’s opponent in this election, Republican Michael Rushin, was among the supporters of allowing federal monitors into the polls on Election Day. Rushin said he was indifferent to the plan, and that it wouldn’t hurt anything.
Other speakers were less middle of the road, cheering the plan to have federal monitors’ eyes on Pulaski voters.
“Our democracy depends on fair elections and public confidence in them. Observation is not interference and oversight not an accusation of wrongdoing,” Erika Eisenring told commissioners. “This is not about politics or partisan advantage. It’s about transparency, accountability and confidence in our public elections. I urge you to vote ‘yes’ and show that Pulaski County has nothing to fear from lawful observation.”
Glimpses of partisanship peeked out during speakers’ comments. One man, a supporter of letting the monitors in, called Donald Trump the greatest president in history.
Marie Hollowell, president of the Little Rock branch of the NAACP, said it was fair to question the motives. “If the Department of Justice says it is coming here to protect voter rights, it is fair to ask why in Georgia they withdrew from a case that alleged discrimination against Black voters.”
Pulaski County election commissioners ran an efficient meeting. The house was full, but we were out in less than 2 hours.
In the end, the two commissioners who voted against allowing the federal monitors in offered different reasoning.
Chairman Raymond Jarvis, a Republican, asked Dickens if county election workers and the 800 poll workers who will be at their posts on Election Day have time to prep for the federal visitors. Dickens said she worried about getting those poll workers trained up on what they might expect from federal monitors, and what they should do if the monitors interfered in some way. She said that with early voting already in full swing, she didn’t think there was enough time.
Jarvis seemed to agree that this last-minute training for poll workers might be a heavy lift. He also noted that Arkansas polling sites can and do have poll watchers in place. These are people who’ve undergone state-provided training and are there representing the interests of parties, candidates or causes. “We have nothing to hide. We are committed to full transparency,” he said.
Election Commissioner Marianne Harrington, a Republican, was the lone “no” vote. She said she had spent a lot of time observing early voting already this month, and did not believe any of the voters were intimidated by her presence, even though she’s a county official. She noted that the Department of Justice has dispatched election monitors across the country for decades, and said she did not believe they would interfere.
Steve Harrelson, the lone Democrat on the commission, said he viewed the night’s vote not as a partisan issue, but as a state versus federal issue. Elections, he said, are a state responsibility. “I believe it’s our duty, not the federal government’s duty, to monitor our own election process.”
Harrelson acknowledged that Arkansas ranks last for voter turnout, and said he thinks sending federal monitors to counties with strong Black and Latino populations was very much on purpose.
“It’s my belief that this is designed to hinder turnout even further, and that’s what I don’t want.”