Justice Department Plans About 1,000 Election Monitors Nationwide: Minnesota Prepares State Employees to Shadow Federal Attorneys
The Justice Department plans to send about 1,000 election monitors to all 50 states for the Nov. 3 election, roughly three times the last midterm and the department's largest-ever observation effort. Minnesota has a concrete state-level response: according to Reuters on Oct. 21, when Justice Department personnel came to Minnesota this summer to observe the state's primary, the state dispatched about 40 state employees, working in pairs, to follow the federal attorneys throughout their time in two counties. Democratic Secretary of State Steve Simon said he expects to coordinate again with the state attorney general's office and send out tracking staff for the Nov. 3 election.
The Trump administration has intervened aggressively in election oversight and demanded voter registration data from states, arguing stricter measures are needed to ensure public confidence in voting; critics, including Democratic and some Republican election officials, call it federal overreach. California has launched a similar counter-program, with Attorney General Rob Bonta saying, 'They are the source of the interference.' The Justice Department says its monitors focus only on civil rights compliance, as in past elections.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: Wikimedia Commons 授权图（明尼苏达州议会大厦；作者 McGhiever，CC BY-SA 4.0）
- 2026-10-06DOJ Plans Record 1,000+ Election Monitors for November Midterms
- 2026-10-21Follow-Up: States Prepare for Surge of DOJ Election Watchers as NAACP Sues to Bar Prosecutors as Monitors
- 2026-10-21Justice Department Plans About 1,000 Election Monitors Nationwide: Minnesota Prepares State Employees to Shadow Federal AttorneysThis story
- 2026-10-21Justice Department Begins Notifying Counties It Wants to Monitor on Election Day, Colorado Counties on the List
- 2026-10-22Justice Department to Send Federal Election Monitors to Utah
- 2026-10-22Follow-Up: Justice Department to Send Election Monitors to Polling Places in Seven Michigan Cities, Including Detroit
- 2026-10-27Follow-Up: South Dakota Secretary of State's Office Reports on October 27 That the Justice Department Will Send Federal Election Monitors to Minnehaha County for the November 3 Election
- 2026-10-29Follow-Up: DOJ Filing Says FBI and ICE Personnel Will Not Serve as Midterm Poll Monitors; Monitors Unarmed and Observe Only
