Who's Watching the Vote? US Shuts Out International Election Monitors for First Time in 24 Years
The Trump administration has declined to invite OSCE observers to the November midterms, ending a monitoring tradition that dates back to 2002 and drawing warnings from rights groups.
For the first time since 2002, the United States will hold a federal election without international observers watching the polls. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe confirmed in late September that Washington never sent it an invitation to monitor the November midterms, according to multiple reports, breaking a bipartisan practice that has survived five presidential administrations.
The OSCE has observed 12 federal U.S. elections since 2002, including both the 2018 and 2024 midterm-adjacent cycles. Member states, including the U.S. itself, created the observation program decades ago partly to hold other democracies — including fragile post-Soviet states — to the same transparency standard America expected of itself.
Washington's Explanation
Asked about the decision, a State Department spokesperson said the OSCE "should focus its limited resources on elections where it can have the greatest impact," according to a report on the administration's reasoning. No fuller explanation from the White House has surfaced. Some reporting ties the snub to earlier friction between Washington and the OSCE over the organization's budget, after the U.S. reportedly pushed the OSCE to cut its annual spending by at least €15 million.
"THAT'S USUALLY SOMETHING A COUNTRY IN A POSITION OF WEAKNESS DOES."
That warning came from Dan Baer, a former U.S. ambassador to the OSCE, who argued that refusing outside election observers is typically the move of a government trying to hide something — not one confident in its own process. The OSCE itself called the decision "regrettable," while Human Rights Watch said it could heighten broader concerns about the conduct of the vote.
The midterms, now less than a month away, will determine control of both chambers of Congress, with Republicans defending narrow majorities. Without OSCE monitors, independent international assessment of the vote will rely largely on domestic watchdog groups and whatever ad hoc observation individual embassies choose to conduct — a far thinner layer of outside scrutiny than Americans have had in any midterm since George W. Bush's first term.
Neither the White House nor the OSCE has indicated the decision could be reversed before Election Day.