The move to send 1,000 poll monitors is likely the largest number under a Republican president, a DOJ official said.
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The Justice Department plans to dispatch about 1,000 monitors to the polls this fall — probably the largest number under a Republican president, according to a top assistant attorney general.
The Justice Department routinely sends monitors to polling places to ensure election laws are followed and voters’ rights are protected.
In the past — including during primaries this month — they have limited their involvement to observation but Democrats have raised concerns about what they could do this fall because President Donald Trump this year said Republicans should “nationalize the voting” and “take over the voting.”
Harmeet K. Dhillon, the assistant attorney general who leads the Civil Rights Division, told Bloomberg News that the deployment of about 1,000 poll monitors is “probably going to be a historic number for a Republican administration.” She did not say where they would go in an interview that was published Monday.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and it was not clear how this year’s plans differed from previous ones.
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In announcing the use of monitors for recent elections, the Justice Department has focused on the number of jurisdictions rather than the number of personnel. During Joe Biden’s presidency, the Justice Department sent monitors to 86 jurisdictions for the 2024 presidential election and 64 jurisdictions for the 2022 midterm elections. During Trump’s first term, the department sent monitors to 44 jurisdictions for the 2020 presidential election.
For Michigan’s primary this month, the Justice Department sent monitors to four Democratic-leaning cities — Detroit, Hamtramck, Lansing and East Lansing. Democrats openly worried that the monitors would interfere with the primary, but state officials said they behaved professionally and did not cause problems.
The Justice Department also sent monitors to Democratic areas for this summer’s primaries in Arizona and Minnesota.
Dhillon said the Justice Department is still figuring out where it will send monitors, but said they could include “the places where there may be language issues, the places where there may have been access of disability rights issues, places where there may be voter fraud issues.”
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