Comment The Justice Department announced it will send workers to 64 jurisdictions in 24 states on Election Day to ensure compliance with federal election law, an increase from the 44 jurisdictions it sent observers to for the 2020 presidential election. The Justice Department noted in a statement that it has sent people from its Civil Rights Division and other units to monitor the voting process since the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965. But this year’s midterm elections come as Republicans have waged a sustained campaign against alleged voter fraud over the past two years, despite little evidence of fraud in the 2020 election, and as threats against politicians, their families and election workers have increase across the country. Election officials in battleground states expect delayed results and prolonged clashes once the polls close Tuesday night. The truth about voter fraud: It’s rare The list of jurisdictions where the Justice Department will send observers provides a window into where federal law enforcement officials suspect there could be disputes or tensions surrounding the voting process. Ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, most Americans say democracy is under threat. These are the efforts being made to preserve it. (Video: JM Rieger/The Washington Post) Among the places that will be monitored Tuesday but did not receive federal observers on Election Day 2020: Clark County, Nev., and Pinal County, Ariz. Clark County, where Las Vegas is located, was home to contentious election disputes after the 2020 election, and Pinal County ran into trouble during the August primary. Berks County, Pa., will also have federal observers on Tuesday and did not have them in 2020. Board of Elections members in Berks County adopted a new policy in September under which officials required sheriff’s deputies manning polls to ask voters about whether the ballot they are returning is theirs. Leigh Chapman, Pennsylvania’s deputy secretary of state, expressed concern in a letter to the county sheriff that some voters might be intimidated by such a meeting and asked that the new policy not be implemented. However, MPs were still placed in drop boxes and questioned voters, according to news reports. The county commissioner who introduced the policy declined to comment Monday. The Justice Department will also send monitors to Yavapai County, Ariz., where self-proclaimed militia groups have monitored drop boxes in the past. The attack on Nancy Pelosi came after years of demonizing the Republican Party In Wisconsin, the Justice Department plans to send observers to Milwaukee, the state’s largest city and the site of some of the highest-profile voting disputes that have long played out. They also plan to send observers to Racine, a city south of Milwaukee that recently changed its absentee counting procedures. And in North Carolina, federal officials say they will be watching five counties with large black populations: Alamance, Columbus, Harnett, Wayne and Mecklenburg counties. Racial strife has roiled two of those counties in recent months, according to local news reports. In Alamance County, a Superior Court judge in September rejected an effort by the North Carolina NAACP and other civil rights groups to remove a 30-foot monument to a Confederate soldier in front of the courthouse. In Columbus County, the sheriff resigned last month after he was recorded making racist comments about black employees. His name remains on Tuesday’s ballot. The North Carolina Board of Elections said Monday it is looking into 15 incidents in which voters or poll workers were intimidated or harassed. Those incidents occurred in 10 counties, including Harnett, Wayne, Mecklenburg and Columbus. Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the state Board of Elections, called the federal oversight “routine” Monday and said those counties had “issues of voter intimidation or interference.” But some Republican leaders quickly pushed back against the Justice Department for sending observers. Missouri Secretary of State John R. Ashcroft (R) told the Washington Post that a federal presence would “intimidate a local election authority” and could “intimidate and suppress voting.” Ashcroft, whose father, John Ashcroft, was the U.S. attorney general during the George W. Bush administration, and Cole County Clerk Steve Korsmeier (R) told federal officials they would not be allowed to monitor the election. places on Tuesday. In addition to dispatching Election Day observers, FBI special agents serving as election crime coordinators will be on duty at the bureau’s 56 offices to take complaints from the public about voting, according to the Justice Department. Lawyers in the agency’s National Security Division, which oversees cases related to foreign election interference and violent extremist threats against elections, will work with the FBI and U.S. attorneys’ offices to address any potential threats. Workers in the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division will also operate a hotline around the clock on Election Day, answering calls from people who identify potential violations of federal voting rights laws. Amy Gardner, Yvonne Wingett Sanchez, Jacob Bogage and Patrick Marley contributed to this report.
