Election 2016

The DOJ is Deploying Hundreds of Election Monitors

Written by SK Ashby

The Department of Justice announced this morning that the agency's Civil Rights Division will deploy hundreds of election monitors to 28 states to keep an eye on things.

From the DOJ press release:

“The bedrock of our democracy is the right to vote, and the Department of Justice works tirelessly to uphold that right not only on Election Day, but every day,” said Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch. “We enforce federal statutes related to voting through a range of activities – including filing our own litigation when the facts warrant, submitting statements of interest in private lawsuits to help explain our understanding of these laws, and providing guidance to election officials and the general public about what these laws mean and what they require. On Election Day itself, lawyers in the Civil Rights Division’s Voting Section will staff a hotline starting in the early hours of the morning, and just as we have sent election monitors in prior elections, we will continue to have a robust election monitors program in place on election day."

In total, the department is deploying over 500 monitors across 67 jurisdictions in states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Florida, and Nevada among others.

You can read the full list of county and state jurisdictions at the department website.