The Justice Department deployed about 1,000 election monitors and observers to all 50 states on Tuesday, the first time federal monitors have been sent to every state and what the department called its largest monitoring effort in history.
"Election integrity has been one of the top priorities for this Administration and this Division," Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who leads the Civil Rights Division, said in a statement, The Hill reported.
The jump is steep. The department sent 289 monitors for the 2022 midterms and 714 for the 2024 presidential election, according to Newsweek. In 2024, it covered 86 jurisdictions in 27 states, Axios reported. This year's effort spans 126 counties, with larger shares in Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Texas and New York, Colorado Politics reported.
Coverage within states remains targeted. In North Carolina, monitors were sent to Alamance, Mecklenburg and Wake counties. In Georgia, observers are watching polling sites in several counties, including Cobb, DeKalb, Fulton, Gwinnett, Chatham and Bibb. In South Carolina, Charleston County is the only jurisdiction with federal personnel on the ground, according to FOX Carolina.
Federal monitors check for compliance with federal voting rights laws, a role the department has played since the Voting Rights Act of 1965. They cannot run elections, issue directives or tell state and local officials to change procedures, and election managers can remove them for breaking polling site rules, FOX Carolina reported.
The rollout has drawn pushback. It follows repeated court rulings against the department's efforts to force states to restrict voting by alleged noncitizens, Axios reported, and some local election officials have warned that a wave of federal observers could intimidate voters. Election authorities in at least five states have restricted, challenged or prepared added oversight of the operation, according to Newsweek.
The department is also still pursuing legal efforts in several states to have ballots segregated or otherwise affect how they are counted, Axios reported.
Attorney General Todd Blanche defended the plan last month, saying the monitors were going to every state rather than targeting Republican or Democratic ones.