Follow-Up: States Prepare for Surge of DOJ Election Watchers as NAACP Sues to Bar Prosecutors as Monitors

According to Reuters on October 21, with the November 3 midterm elections approaching, state election officials across the United States are preparing for a large-scale arrival of U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) election monitors. In Maine, home to a race that could decide control of the Senate, the secretary of state has told local election supervisors to contact the state if federal monitors request permission to observe. GSM reported on October 6 that the Justice Department plans to deploy more than 1,000 monitors on Election Day, the largest such operation in the department's history.

The DOJ election monitoring program dates back decades. It has traditionally been run by the Civil Rights Division, which sent civil attorneys and professional staff to document potential civil rights violations, such as polling places lacking Spanish-language ballots or accessible facilities, coordinating with state and local officials and giving advance public notice of monitor locations. After the current administration reshaped the Civil Rights Division, the program's focus shifted toward election fraud and voting by noncitizens; during this year's primaries, the department already dispatched monitors to more than a dozen states.

A central point of dispute is the department's plan to deploy criminal prosecutors and federal law enforcement personnel as monitors, breaking with the historical practice of relying on civil lawyers and support staff out of concern that prosecutors at the polls could make voters apprehensive. Stacey Young, a former DOJ lawyer who previously served as an election monitor and now runs the advocacy group Justice Connection, told Reuters: "There's never been a time when DOJ's presence would have been viewed as this much of a threat."

On October 16, the NAACP and the Advancement Project sued in federal court in Washington, D.C., seeking to block the Justice Department from deploying federal prosecutors and other federal law enforcement as election monitors, and asking for a complete list of the jurisdictions targeted for monitoring. "There is no federal statute that gives Defendants the authority to turn polling places into interrogation rooms," the complaint said. Carmen Daugherty of the Advancement Project said the Voting Rights Act exists to protect voters from exactly this kind of intimidation. The NAACP also pointed to monitors deployed during the primaries in Arizona and Minnesota, who included federal prosecutors, an FBI agent and a newly hired DOJ lawyer previously convicted of election crimes; Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon described the monitors' behavior as "aggressive" and "irregular."

A senior DOJ official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said voters were unlikely to notice a difference between prosecutors and other DOJ staff. "Monitors will not identify themselves as prosecutors," spokesperson Pels said in a statement, arguing that the NAACP lawsuit is based on "unwarranted fear and baseless speculation." The department has said the program's mission is to protect ballot security, transparency and compliance with federal election laws. The November 3 election will decide control of Congress, with Democrats widely expected to gain the House and possibly the Senate.

Related: DOJ plans more than 1,000 election monitors for November vote, largest in its history

Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)

Photo: 提前投票站外景（资料图，Maryland，2018年）。Edward Kimmel 摄，CC BY-SA 2.0 授权，经 Wikimedia Commons 发布／Early voting location exterior (file photo, Maryland, 2018). Photo: Edward Kimmel, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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