The Department of Justice intends to send an unprecedented number of election monitors to ensure free and fair voting during the midterm elections in November.
| PULSE POINTS |
❓ WHAT HAPPENED: The Department of Justice has announced plans to deploy 1,000 election monitors during the midterm elections in November. 📺 DETAIL: Assistant Attorney General for the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Civil Rights Division, Harmeet Dhillon, has clarified that the monitors will be present to ensure the midterm elections are free and fair. The plan will include a record number of election monitors. The monitors will observe but will not intervene unless their support is required for an investigation. The monitors will function under the same authority as other election observers permitted by state law. “We just did it in the primary. We will do it to the tune of approximately 1,000 election monitors in the November election. This is something that DOJ does,” said Dhillon in an interview on Monday. “We respect state law… We reach out to the states. If their perimeter is 150 yards, we respect that,” the Assistant Attorney General added. Dhillon emphasized the negative impact of reports of non-citizen voting on the democratic process: “[N]oncitizen voting depresses citizens from turning out to vote because they believe there’s a lack of integrity in the process.” 🎯 IMPACT: The deployment underscores the importance of election integrity to the Trump administration. Recent polling suggests that the midterms are practically neck-and-neck. As such, much of the public is likely to welcome additional oversight against cheating. The record number of monitors is likely to be taken as a source of reassurance for voters concerned about election integrity. However, it is likely that those who regard the administration’s push for election integrity as undesirable, such as Democrat activists and officials, will treat the large number of monitors with hostility. The DOJ’s plans represent a potential solution to the well-documented problem of non-citizens voting in U.S. elections. While the presence of election monitors does not resolve the issue of non-citizens voting, which the Trump administration want to tackle through voter ID, the presence of the monitors may boost public confidence that the democratic process is free and fair, encouraging higher turnout. |
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