DOJ to deploy about 1,000 election monitors for Nov. 3 midterms

The Justice Department plans to send about 1,000 monitors to polling places for the Nov. 3 midterm elections, according to Civil Rights Division head Harmeet Dhillon. Meanwhile, Democrat- and Republican-aligned groups are deploying thousands of their own volunteers. 

“This is going to be the biggest DOJ election observer effort in history,” Dhillon said on Real America’s Voice. She said the monitors will only watch and take notes and will not interfere with voters or run the election.

A department email sent Oct. 20 to the Marion County, Indiana, Election Board by a Civil Rights Division trial attorney said, “Our monitors only observe. They do not intrude or interfere in any way in the voting process.” The email cites federal voting laws, including the Voting Rights Act, the National Voter Registration Act, and the Help America Vote Act. 

David Yates, the clerk for Jefferson County, Kentucky, which covers Louisville, explained in an Oct. 26 press release that monitors will “focus on language assistance for voters, accessibility at polling locations, and the use of provisional ballots.” 

Some local officials, including Yates, have pushed back on the behavior of federal election monitors, citing the need for them to follow local access laws around voting and not take actions that exceed their authority. 

“We will be in all 50 states doing the routine election monitoring the department has done for decades,” a Civil Rights department spokesperson told the Daily Caller. 

The civil rights group NAACP filed a lawsuit Oct. 16 to block the DOJ from sending prosecutors and other law enforcement personnel to serve as monitors at polling stations. “The DOJ’s plan stands to have a chilling effect on voters, cause chaos on Election Day, and disrupt the conduct of the election,” NAACP said in a press release announcing the lawsuit. 

Spokesperson Kiersten Pels said in comments to Reuters that monitors will not identify themselves as prosecutors, adding that the NAACP lawsuit is rooted in “unwarranted fear and baseless speculation.” A senior department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the outlet that it is unlikely voters would be able to notice a difference between prosecutors and other DOJ staff. The official also said that monitors will not check voters’ citizenship, though their reports could feed later investigations. 

The Association of State Democratic Committees, an arm of the DNC, said in an Oct. 26 X post, “Democratic state parties are sending thousands of trained Democracy Protectors to polling places this November, so every voter has someone in their corner.” 

The Republican National Committee has trained around 22,000 volunteers to watch over the polls through its Protect the Vote initiative.