{"id":17950,"date":"2026-10-22T15:17:58","date_gmt":"2026-10-22T07:17:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=17950"},"modified":"2026-10-22T15:18:03","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T07:18:03","slug":"monitoring-the-monitors-us-states-prepare-for-surge-of-justice-dept-election-watchers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=17950","title":{"rendered":"Monitoring the monitors: US states prepare for surge of Justice Dept election watchers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When Justice Department staffers arrived in Minnesota this summer to monitor the state’s primary election, they found themselves under scrutiny as well. Minnesota officials deployed about 40 state employees, working in pairs, to track the DOJ lawyers as they traveled through two counties during the August vote.
The monitoring effort reflected mounting tensions between Minnesota and the \u200bTrump administration over elections and immigration. Democratic Secretary of State Steve Simon said his office is likely to continue coordinating with the state attorney general’s office to shadow federal monitors during the November 3 midterms, when control of Congress \u200cis at stake. California has launched a similar program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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While Simon acknowledged the DOJ monitors were not disruptive, the moves by Minnesota and California nevertheless underscore the unease in Democratic-led and some Republican-led states about the DOJ\u2019s plans to deploy about 1,000 monitors in all 50 states on Election Day, roughly triple the number in the last midterm election. The deployment would be the largest observation effort in the department\u2019s history.
The Trump administration has taken an increasingly aggressive approach to election oversight, pressing states for voter-registration data and arguing that stricter measures are needed to ensure public confidence in the vote. Critics, including both Democratic and some Republican election officials, \u200bview the moves as federal overreach.

\u201cThey are the source of interference,\u201d California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, said in an interview, referring to the federal government. \u201cThey are the ones that are intimidating and creating the suppression.\u201d
Justice Department officials accuse \u200bcritics of fear-mongering about the monitor program, saying it will focus on compliance with civil rights laws as in prior elections.
DOJ spokesperson Kiersten Pels said the monitors will be trained not to interfere with \u2060election processes and will focus on countering voter intimidation and protecting access.
The DOJ has not yet revealed where monitors will be deployed, but department officials said priorities include areas with a history of voter access issues and places with competitive races that could be targets of \u200bvoter intimidation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Wall Street stocks finished higher Wednesday with the Dow advancing about seven-tenths of one percent,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.
Some state and local laws allow election officials to prevent DOJ monitors from being present inside polling \u200blocations. DOJ staff can observe voting, speak to voters after they leave polling places and report immediate concerns to local law enforcement or election officials. But they cannot conduct investigations on the spot or otherwise stop anyone from voting.
In Nevada, the chief election official, Democrat Cisco Aguilar, said local law enforcement will be trained to remove any DOJ monitor breaking rules or refusing to leave a polling place if asked. In Maine, where a key race could help decide control of the Senate, the secretary of state has told local election
The Justice Department for decades has dispatched election monitors to document potential civil rights violations, such as polling locations that lack Spanish-language ballots or are inaccessible to people with disabilities.
The Trump administration has reshaped the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, which runs the monitoring program, prompting an exodus \u200bof career staff and a new focus on election fraud and voting by non-US citizens.
The new emphasis has led some state officials, rights groups and former DOJ lawyers to fear the expanded program could be used as a tool to sow doubt about the security of the election, in which Democrats are \u200cwidely expected to \u2060gain control of the House of Representatives and possibly the Senate.
\u201cThere\u2019s never been a time when DOJ\u2019s presence would have been viewed as this much of a threat,\u201d said Stacey Young, a former DOJ lawyer who previously worked as an election monitor and now runs Justice Connection, an advocacy group that has opposed the Trump administration.
A particular concern among voter rights groups is the department’s plan to deploy criminal prosecutors as monitors, in a break with historical practice. The department has relied on civil lawyers and support staff in the past out of concern that the presence of criminal prosecutors at the polls could make voters apprehensive.
A major civil rights group, the NAACP, has sued to bar prosecutors and other law enforcement personnel from serving as monitors, arguing the Trump administration’s plans amount to voter intimidation.
A senior DOJ \u200bofficial, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational details, said \u200bvoters were unlikely to notice a difference between prosecutors \u2060and other DOJ staff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Justice Department staffers arrived in Minnesota this summer to monitor the state’s primary election, they found themselves under scrutiny as well. Minnesota officials deployed about 40 state employees, working in pairs, to track the DOJ lawyers as they traveled through two counties during the August vote.The monitoring effort reflected mounting tensions between Minnesota and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":17952,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[3534,839,4444],"class_list":["post-17950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-doj","tag-election","tag-monitors"],"yoast_head":"\nMonitoring the monitors: US states prepare for surge of Justice Dept election watchers - LISTEN WORLD<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=17950\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Monitoring the monitors: US states prepare for surge of Justice Dept election watchers - LISTEN WORLD\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When Justice Department staffers arrived in Minnesota this summer to monitor the state’s primary election, they found themselves under scrutiny as well. 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