The Department of Justice is engaging in what it calls its largest election monitoring effort in history and, for the first time, will observe precincts in all 50 states.
The Justice Department said roughly 1,000 monitors will be deployed nationwide on Election Day, compared with 714 in 27 states for the 2024 presidential election and 289 for the 2022 midterm elections.
The department said 126 jurisdictions will be monitored among the 50 states on Tuesday. Election monitors will check for compliance with federal voting rights statutes under the department’s Civil Rights Division, including the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Acts.
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Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Civil Rights Division has said monitors will also seek to ensure citizens’ votes are not canceled out by someone who “shouldn’t be voting.”
Federal poll monitors are not new. The Justice Department has deployed election monitors since the enactment of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.
In the District of Columbia, monitors need permission to enter polling places and must present credentials, according to D.C. Attorney General Brian L. Schwalb. They cannot inspect or seize ballots, interfere with election administration, demand information or documents from voters, intimidate voters, engage in any partisan activity, disrupt voting or decide which votes are counted, he said.
Nationally, rules vary by state. Monitors may enter polling places only with the permission of local election officials.
Federal law makes it a crime for a federal officer or employee to bring or keep “troops or armed men” at a place where an election is held, unless the force is needed to repel armed enemies of the United States. Mr. Schwalb said that bars armed federal law-enforcement officers and National Guard troops from polling places.
The Justice Department said the FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement employees will not serve as monitors. Court filings show monitors include employees from the Bureau of Prisons; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the Drug Enforcement Administration; and one employee of Customs and Border Protection. The department said they are limited to routine Civil Rights Division monitoring duties.
Federal law also makes it a crime to intimidate, threaten or coerce a person to interfere with that person’s right to vote in a federal election. Members of the military are separately barred from interfering with an election officer’s duties.
Some states are limiting monitors.
Colorado, Indiana and Wyoming have said they will not allow Justice Department monitors within a certain distance of polling places. Kentucky officials have said monitors must remain outside.
“Election integrity has been one of the top priorities for this Administration and this Division,” Ms. Dhillon said in a statement. “I am very proud we are deploying the largest monitoring effort in DOJ history, and pursuing transparency for elections in an assertive and nondiscriminatory manner.”
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