The Justice Department deployed monitors to polling sites in Minnesota during the state’s primary elections on Tuesday.
Federal officials said the initiative is to “ensure transparency, ballot security, and compliance with federal law,” with polls in Hennepin and Ramsey counties to be monitored by about 20 officials.
Officials in the two Democrat-run counties are denying the DOJ access, telling the feds to stay 100 feet from polling locations.
Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, a Democrat, said his office will have “people watching the watchers, just in case.”
He added that the monitors will help ensure that Minnesotans with disabilities or who speak languages other than English don’t face any barriers while voting.
The federal monitors may try to interview voters as they leave the polling place, but voters don’t have to speak to them, according to election officials.
“Our office is fully prepared to protect and defend your right to vote,” Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said in a statement. “Any reports of threats, harassment, or intimidation directed at voters or election workers will be reviewed and, if appropriate, prosecuted.”
The DOJ regularly deploys staff from the Civil Rights Division and U.S. Attorneys’ Offices to monitor compliance with federal civil rights and voting rights laws in communities across the country during primary and general elections.
“Minnesota is DOJ’s next stop on its nationwide effort to ensure free and fair elections,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the Civil Rights Division said in a statement. “The DOJ is committed to nondiscriminatory monitoring throughout the primary and general election seasons.”
The DOJ previously monitored elections in Minnesota, deploying staff during elections under President Trump in 2020 and under President Biden in 2022 and 2024.
Mr. Simon acknowledged that federal monitors at the polls were not unusual.
“This has been done the last several election cycles under multiple presidents, including President Biden, and Minnesotans may well have voted at a polling place with a federal observer there and not even noticed a thing,” Mr. Simon said during a briefing with election officials. “But I certainly understand why reports of agents of the federal government at the polls would alarm people, especially here in Minnesota.”
In July, President Trump said he believed Minnesota’s elections were rigged, writing on Truth Social that he “thought I won it all three times, only to be disappointed in the end.”
Around the same time, Ms. Dhillon sent a letter to Mr. Simon asking how Minnesota intends to ensure it’s complying with federal election laws and how the department can assist.
In response, Lauren Bethke, general counsel for the state’s secretary of state, said, “Minnesota has always complied with, and will continue to comply with, federal election laws.”
The Justice Department said it has stationed over 50 monitors across seven counties this primary season.
Ms. Dhillon said DOJ would also send monitors to 15 jurisdictions across six states: Arizona, Michigan, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Virginia.
She also said the monitoring “does not target one party over another” and has framed it as a decades-old practice, though critics note all the targeted states but New Hampshire have Democratic governors.
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