DOJ warns of fake federal election monitors in South Florida

THE DAILY BS: HOW MUCH CAN YOU HANDLE?

SPARE ME THE BS (I’ve got things to do)

The Justice Department warned Florida election officials about reports of people falsely claiming to represent the agency at early voting locations.
Miami-Dade and Broward election officials told reporters they had received no reports of such impostors at their polling sites.
DOJ said it had not deployed monitors when the warning circulated and urged election officials to report anyone falsely claiming federal authority.

LAY IT ON ME (I’ve got time)

Just days before Americans head to the polls for the midterm elections, the Justice Department has a warning for South Florida:

Watch out for people pretending to be federal election monitors.

Yes, apparently impersonating Washington’s election watchdogs is now something election administrators have been told to prepare for.

The warning surfaced Friday, October 30, when local news outlets reported that a DOJ attorney had notified election officials about individuals allegedly visiting early voting locations and falsely claiming to represent the federal government.

There was one immediate problem with those supposed federal monitors. The Justice Department said it hadn’t deployed any.

DOJ spokesperson Kiersten Pels told CNN: “We don’t have any monitors in the field right now. We encourage anyone who encounters individuals falsely representing themselves as DOJ monitors to report such incidents.”

That’s a fairly straightforward instruction. If somebody shows up claiming to be a federal election monitor before the federal monitors have actually arrived, election officials have a reason to start asking questions.

But here’s where the story takes another turn. CBS Miami contacted election officials in Broward and Miami-Dade counties. Both said they had received no reports of anyone impersonating DOJ monitors at their local voting sites.

Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections Alina Garcia offered a similar assessment to WSVN 7News.

“Everything is running very smoothly in Miami-Dade County,” Garcia said.

She acknowledged the warning but explained that officials had not encountered the reported problem locally.

“We did receive a report that, in other places, people had been pretending to be DOJ and they would never do that,” Garcia told the station.

Welcome to election week, when even the people supposedly watching the people watching the election may need somebody to check their identification.

The DOJ also explained how legitimate federal monitoring would operate on Election Day. Authorized personnel would carry official identification and observe election procedures within the limits of applicable law.

Garcia explained that federal monitoring can involve checking compliance with voting-rights protections, including language-access requirements and discrimination safeguards.

“What they come to ensure is that we are using Spanish and English, because that’s part of federal law, and that there is no discrimination, that kind of thing, but they watch from afar,” she told WSVN.

The warnings arrive as South Florida election offices complete preparations for Tuesday. In Broward County, election workers have been distributing voting machines and equipment to hundreds of precincts.

Earlier in October, Miami-Dade police arrested a man accused of impersonating an ICE agent and confronting people voting in Brazil’s election at Miami-Dade College’s Kendall campus. That was a separate incident involving a different election, but it demonstrates why officials take impersonation complaints seriously.