DOJ Set for 'Historic' Deployment of Poll Watchers for Midterms
The midterm elections will be conducted under the intense scrutiny of the Justice Department, according to Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon.
In a new interview, she said the Justice Department will have about 1,000 monitors stationed across the country to ensure the election is conducted properly, according to Bloomberg.
Dhillon, who oversees the DOJ’s civil rights division, said the scale is new but the concept is not without precedent.
“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,” she said.
However, she noted, the scale of the monitoring is “probably going to be a historic number for a Republican administration.”
The department recently sent monitors to primaries in Michigan and Arizona.
The primaries in Minnesota earlier this month also saw federal monitors dispatched to that state, the DOJ noted.
“The DOJ is committed to nondiscriminatory monitoring throughout the primary and general election seasons,” Dhillon said.
Dhillon told Bloomberg that the federal monitors will not supersede state and local officials, but will observe what takes place at the polling places where they are assigned and support any investigations.
The Justice Department plans to send 1,000 monitors to watch voting during the midterm elections in November, a historic figure for a Republican administration, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said https://t.co/0EVcmYCrDL
— Alicia A. Caldwell (@aacaldwellLA) August 17, 2026
“We respect state law,” Dhillon said. “We reach out to the states. If their perimeter is 150 yards, we respect that.”
Dhillon said not all states want or welcome federal monitors, but said it was important for forging a partnership so voters know all levels of government are protecting elections.
Dhillon noted that monitors will look at polling places with an eye to more than election fraud — ensuring, for example, that there are no barriers to people with disabilities.
“The Civil Rights Division’s Voting Section enforces various federal statutes that protect the right to vote, including the Voting Rights Act, National Voter Registration Act, Help America Vote Act, Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Civil Rights Acts,” the DOJ said in a news release.
Dhillon told Bloomberg that she will continue the department’s battle to examine state voting rolls to determine how many non-citizens they contain.
The “perception of non-citizen voting depresses citizens from turning out to vote because they believe there’s a lack of integrity in the process.”
The issue of non-citizens voting is smaller “numerically from what we’re finding, but it’s not trivial,” she said.
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