WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Department of Justice plans to send a thousand election monitors to polling places across all 50 states.
We’re told the monitors are not to interfere in the process, but if they observe an issue, they’re supposed to report it. In the 2022 midterm, CBS News reports a little less than 300 people served as election monitors nationwide. In the 2024 general election, there were 714 election monitors.
In Pennsylvania, CBS News reports the monitors will be at polling locations in Philadelphia, Allegheny, Luzerne and Lehigh Counties. In Michigan, the office of the state’s Attorney General said cities like Detroit, East Lansing, Flint, Grand Rapids, Hamtramck, Lansing and Warren were notified by the DOJ that their monitors will be present at their polling locations.
The President has cast doubt on elections integrity, including in this upcoming election. It’s unclear why the number of monitors has increased. We asked David Becker, Executive Director and Founder of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, why he thinks there was an increase in election monitors:
“One possible explanation is that they’re trying to get voters concerned or scared that these monitors might be, might affect voting in some way,” said Becker. “What I can say definitively though is that these monitors will have zero effect on voting. I have been a DOJ monitor. I’ve been in hundreds, not thousands of precincts all over the country and DOJ monitors have a very clear legal mandate: they are there to observe, and they have to follow state law. Which means they cannot interfere, they cannot intimidate, they cannot get involved in the voting process and in many places unless they have expressed permission, they cannot go in the polling places at all.”
Democrats said the President’s remarks on election’s credibility and attempts to interfere is concerning. Senate Democrats announced recently they will be deploying trained staffers to serve as election observers. They will document voter interference efforts. It’s the first of its kind program for the Senate. The House has done a similar program in previous elections.
