A vote here sign is displayed. Photo: Emilee Calametti / The Center Square
(The Center Square) — Federal agents will be monitoring polling places in Florida and Wyoming as voters in both states head to the polls on Tuesday.
The U.S. Department of Justice announced it would send four Civil Rights Division attorneys to Miami-Dade County polling locations in Florida to monitor election activities. The department also said it sent two attorneys to Laramie County, Wyo., to monitor activities.
Both counties hold large urban centers in each state. The Justice Department has sent more than 75 election monitors across five states and 200 polling locations during the primary season.
“Election monitoring is an ongoing priority for this office,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “Nondiscriminatory monitoring ensures all elections remain free, fair, and accessible to all.”
The department announced in July that it would target certain states in which to send election monitors. Arizona, Minnesota, Michigan, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Virginia topped the list for states the department planned to focus on monitoring.
The Justice Department previously sent monitors to polling locations in Florida and Wyoming during the 2022 elections.
Dhillon said the efforts are part of the Justice Department’s work to bring transparency and public confidence to American elections.
Officials in Minnesota decried the federal government’s efforts to deploy agents for poll watching last week. Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon deployed state-backed observers to monitor federal agents’ activity at various polling locations.
“They have in other states, to my knowledge, behaved themselves. We don’t have any reason to believe they’ll depart from that record this primary cycle, but we want eyes on the observers, and that’s what we’re aiming to do,” Simon said.
Public officials in Florida and Wyoming have remained largely silent about the DOJ’s efforts to send election monitors ahead of polls closing in the state’s primaries. Polls in both Florida and Wyoming are open until 7 p.m. local time.
