The department has long deployed election monitors, but the Trump administration's unprecedented steps to try to wrestle control over elections have led to new concerns about DOJ monitoring this year.
The expanded monitor program has led several states to issue new guidelines to local election officials and poll workers about the limited authority DOJ observers will have on Election Day.
With the midterm elections less than two weeks away, a new legal battle is raising questions about the federal government's role in policing who is eligible to vote. A federal judge in California has blocked a Department of Homeland Security effort to identify noncitizens on voter rolls.
by Rich Mitchell at CDN - The Justice Department has told election officials in Colorado, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Florida, Texas and Washington that federal monitors will observe voting on Nov. 3.
The agency regularly monitors polling places. But this year's effort on Nov. 3 will more than double the number of federal monitors deployed during the 2022 midterms.
The Justice Department aims to send poll monitors to all 50 states in the 2026 midterms, marking an ambitious expansion of a longstanding federal initiative aimed at ensuring election integrity. Details about the effort, announced in August, have been fairly sparse.
by Rich Mitchell at CDN - Bibb, Chatham, Cobb, DeKalb, Fulton and Gwinnett counties have been told federal monitors will observe voting Nov. 3 as part of what the Justice Department calls its largest monitoring effort ever.
An unspecified number of election monitors from the U.S. Department of Justice will be sent to Louisiana for the Nov. 3 election, but an agency spokesman said the deployment is nothing out of the ordinary.
