WASHINGTON — The Justice Department plans to deploy about 1,000 election monitors across all 50 states before the Nov. 3 election, expanding a federal observation program that covered 64 jurisdictions in 24 states during the 2022 midterms.
The department will not release its complete list of monitoring locations until Election Day. Monitors will observe voting activity and report possible violations of federal law for departmental review after the election.
Kiersten Pels said, “Every monitor will merely observe and report any potential violations of federal law to the Department, which will be reviewed after Election Day.”
Known deployments include King County, Washington; the Portland area in Oregon; Salt Lake County, Utah; and Portland and Lewiston, Maine. Salt Lake County is set to receive at least one monitor.
Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson said monitors will not interact with voters or display identifying insignia. “They won’t be approaching voters. They won’t be wearing any sort of insignia,” Henderson said.
Federal election monitors may not interfere with voting. More than 95,000 polling places were included in the 2024 election.
Election Litigation and Records Dispute
The expanded program comes as the Justice Department pursues election-related litigation in several states. The department sued California over ballots from roughly 20,000 voters it says are suspected noncitizens, and it sued Alaska over certification of its U.S. Senate election.
The department has also lost 27 lawsuits seeking voter lists, without a win in those cases.
Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon has expressed reservations about the planned deployment of federal monitors. The NAACP has sued the Justice Department seeking records concerning the program. Judge Sparkle Sooknanan denied the group’s request for an emergency order that would have required immediate production of those records, while the underlying case remains pending.
Category: Republic
Tags: Elections, Justice Department, Kiersten Pels, NAACP