US OPM evaluates cost of observer program looking at race discrimination in voting

By Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON, March 12 (Reuters) – The U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the federal government’s human resources office, said on Thursday it was evaluating the cost of an ​election observer program that aimed to tackle race discrimination ‌in voting.

The OPM said that in consultation with the Justice Department it was evaluating whether the costs of the program, which were about $2.5 million in 2025, were justified and whether reforms would be implemented.

It also said the ‌observer ​program is confined to instances where the ⁠U.S. attorney general has received ⁠a “written meritorious complaint” of race discrimination in voting.

The federal observer program was scaled back earlier by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2013 involving Alabama’s Shelby County. The ruling gutted ​a Voting Rights Act provision that had required states and locales with a history of racial discrimination to get federal ⁠approval to change voting laws.

The Voting ⁠Rights Act of 1965 was a signature legislative achievement ​of the 1960s civil rights movement.

CBS News reported earlier on Thursday ​that the White House is considering ending funding for ‌the election observer program aimed at protecting the rights of minority populations to vote.

The White House referred questions to the Justice Department.

A Justice Department spokesperson cited by CBS News said the department ⁠has no plans to end its own separate election monitoring program in the civil rights division.

The federal election observer program currently has operations going ⁠in three locations ‌where court orders have been issued, the OPM ⁠said on Thursday. They included Union County ​in New ‌Jersey, Pawtucket in Rhode Island, and two areas ​in Alaska.

Midterm ⁠elections in the U.S. are scheduled for November. President Donald Trump’s Republican Party currently holds a narrow majority in both chambers of Congress.

Trump has pressed Republican lawmakers for voting restrictions ahead of the elections.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh and Jasper Ward; Editing by Daphne Psaledakis ​and Tom Hogue)