DOJ to deploy about 1,000 election monitors for midterms

The Justice Department plans to deploy roughly 1,000 election monitors nationwide for the upcoming midterms, according to Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon. The monitors would observe polling places to ensure compliance with federal voting laws, with focus on language access and disability accommodations, while not running elections. Dhillon noted the department could take its efforts to the Supreme Court to obtain unredacted statewide voter-roll data, following repeated court losses on its attempts to compel such disclosures. She alleged that two-thirds of states aren’t cooperating and that cooperators have identified hundreds of thousands of dead people and tens of thousands of noncitizens on voter rolls, though she did not provide evidence. The monitoring program is part of an ongoing DOJ election-security effort, and the department expects to draw personnel from across the agency to fill the roughly 1,000 roles.