BS BULLETIN
- The Justice Department plans to deploy roughly 1,000 election monitors nationwide for November’s midterms, a level Harmeet Dhillon says would be historic for a Republican administration.
- DOJ monitors are already working the 2026 primaries, including elections in Florida, Wyoming and Minnesota.
- The deployment comes amid renewed scrutiny of election safeguards after New Jersey disclosed that a software error mistakenly registered roughly 6,600 noncitizens, fewer than 400 of whom cast ballots.
The Justice Department is preparing to send a lot more eyes to America’s polling places this November.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who heads DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, says the department expects to deploy roughly 1,000 election monitors across the country for the 2026 midterms — an expansion she described as potentially historic for a Republican administration.
“Election monitoring is an ongoing priority for this office,” Dhillon said as DOJ announced monitors for Tuesday’s Florida and Wyoming primaries. “Nondiscriminatory monitoring ensures all elections remain free, fair, and accessible to all.”
Despite the political fireworks already surrounding the announcement, federal election monitoring isn’t something invented by Donald Trump. The Justice Department has conducted election monitoring under presidents of both parties for decades. The Biden DOJ sent personnel to 64 jurisdictions in 24 states for the 2022 midterms and 86 jurisdictions in 27 states for the 2024 presidential election.
What stands out this time is the scale. Dhillon says the department expects around 1,000 monitors in November and that they will receive training drawing on material used by previous administrations. She characterized the planned deployment as likely a “historic number for a Republican administration.” DOJ has already been giving the operation a test drive. The department says it monitored polling places in two Minnesota counties during last week’s primary, citing “transparency, ballot security, and compliance with federal law” as its objectives. Federal personnel were also assigned to monitor voting in Miami-Dade County, Florida, and Laramie County, Wyoming.
The Civil Rights Division’s responsibilities extend well beyond looking for somebody stuffing a ballot box. DOJ monitors observe compliance with federal laws including the Voting Rights Act, Americans with Disabilities Act, Help America Vote Act, National Voter Registration Act and protections for military and overseas voters. In other words, election monitoring can cut in both directions: ensuring eligible voters aren’t unlawfully denied access while also checking whether election officials are complying with federal requirements.
That hasn’t stopped Democrats and voting-rights organizations from viewing the Trump administration’s expanded election activity with suspicion.
Democratic lawmakers have raised concerns that federal law-enforcement activity around polling places could intimidate voters, particularly in immigrant communities. Sen. Jacky Rosen of Nevada argued last month that there was “absolutely no need for federal troops to be stationed outside of polls” and accused Trump of attempting “to intimidate eligible voters.”
But one distinction is particularly important amid the rhetoric surrounding the issue. DOJ election monitors are not ICE agents. Earlier this year, state election officials were told that Immigration and Customs Enforcement would not be deployed to polling locations for the 2026 midterms. Whatever one thinks about DOJ’s monitoring plans, those are two very different things.
Meanwhile, another development has poured gasoline onto the broader debate about election safeguards. New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill disclosed that approximately 6,600 noncitizens were mistakenly registered to vote because of a software problem involving the state’s Motor Vehicle Commission. The mistake occurred even though the applicants had indicated they were not U.S. citizens. And this wasn’t merely a theoretical registration problem.
The people reportedly identified themselves as noncitizens — and the system registered them anyway. New Jersey began removing the roughly 6,600 registrations after discovering the error, while the state launched an investigation into what happened.
Republicans have seized on the episode while pressing Congress to enact stricter proof-of-citizenship requirements through the SAVE America Act.
Democrats and voting-rights groups counter that noncitizen voting remains exceedingly rare nationally and argue that additional documentary requirements could prevent eligible citizens — particularly those without ready access to birth certificates, passports or other documents — from registering. The only glaring problem with that argument is that every American citizen has access to these documents. But why let facts get in the way?
DBS WIRE SOURCES:
- The Hill — DOJ deploying 1,000 poll monitors for midterms, official says
- Washington Examiner — DOJ plans to send 1,000 poll monitors to watch midterm elections
- Department of Justice — Justice Department to conduct election monitoring in Florida and Wyoming primary elections
- Department of Justice — Justice Department to conduct election monitoring in Minnesota primary election
- New York Post — More than 6,000 noncitizens registered to vote in New Jersey by software error
- Associated Press — 6,600 noncitizens registered to vote after error in New Jersey motor vehicle system
