The Justice Department plans to send about 1,000 election monitors to all 50 states on Election Day, Nov. 3. That is more than double the 388 people the department sent to polling places in the 2022 midterms, a department official confirmed to PBS News 1. Reuters describes it as the largest such effort in the department's history 2.
Monitors will include Justice Department lawyers. They will not go to early voting sites, a senior department official told reporters 1. The department plans to focus on high-population areas and on places with past problems with language or disability access. It also named competitive races as possible "hot spots for potential voter intimidation" 1.
Prosecutors as monitors
Stacey Young, a former Justice Department lawyer who now runs the legal network Justice Connection, said the department has dropped a long-held rule against letting prosecutors serve as monitors. She said prosecutors "can be viewed as a more intimidating presence" 1.
The senior official confirmed prosecutors will take part. The official said they would not personally prosecute any violation they see 1. A department spokesperson told Reuters that "Monitors will not identify themselves as prosecutors" 2. The NAACP, a civil rights group, has sued to bar prosecutors from serving as monitors 2.
What state officials say
Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat, said her office got a letter Wednesday naming Adams County, northeast of Denver, as a monitoring site. She accused the department of being hostile to free and fair elections 1. She said she sees no reasonable basis for the monitors 1.
lay the groundwork for MAGA and Trump to reject the results if they don't go their way
Not every skeptic is a Democrat. Kansas Republican Secretary of State Scott Schwab said he heard from the department in recent days. Asked about the increase, he dismissed it as nothing and questioned whether it is the best use of resources 1.
Some states are preparing responses. Minnesota sent about 40 state employees, in pairs, to follow Justice Department lawyers in two counties during the August primary. Nevada will train local police to remove monitors who break rules, and Maine has told local officials to contact the state if monitors ask to observe 2.
What monitors can and cannot do
Monitors may observe voting and speak with voters after they leave. They cannot investigate on the spot or stop anyone from voting 2. The senior official said monitors are there to "observe and report." Any enforcement would come after the election 1.
David Becker, a former Justice Department voting lawyer, called the scale "not normal," but said he is "not particularly concerned." He noted that monitors must follow local and state laws on entering polling places 1.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, said the opposite. "They are the source of interference," he said of the federal government 2.
Why it matters
President Donald Trump continues to falsely claim the 2020 election was rigged. His administration has repeated unfounded claims about noncitizen voting, which PBS notes is vanishingly rare 1. That backdrop is why the size of this deployment, and the use of prosecutors, is drawing scrutiny.
The department has not said how many monitors will go to each county. Voters who see something troubling can write down what happened and tell a local official, a voting rights group or their member of Congress, Young said 1.
The Record
- The Justice Department under President Joe Biden sent 388 people to monitor polling places in the midterms 1.
- Colorado's secretary of state received a Justice Department letter naming Adams County as a monitoring site 1.
- The Justice Department plans to deploy about 1,000 monitors in all 50 states on Election Day 1.
Sources
- PBS NewsHour, “DOJ has monitored elections for decades. Here's why some state officials are concerned this year” (2026-10-23). pbs.org/newshour/politics/doj-has-monitored-elections-for-de
- Reuters (via Devdiscourse), “Monitoring the monitors: US states prepare for surge of Justice Dept election watchers” (2026-10-21). devdiscourse.com/article/international/3995667-monitoring-th
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