OMM Newsroom
The US Department of Justice will monitor voting in all 50 states for the first time during the midterm elections, the department announced Tuesday, according to Anadolu Agency.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Civil Rights Division said election integrity was among the administration’s top priorities. She said the department was deploying its “largest” operation to pursue transparency “in an assertive and nondiscriminatory manner.”
About 1,000 monitors and observers will be active on election day to check compliance with federal voting rights laws. Personnel will come from the Civil Rights Division, US attorneys’ offices and federal observers from the Office of Personnel Management.
The monitors will stay in regular contact with state and local election officials. Their work will cover enforcement of the Voting Rights Act, disability-access protections under the Americans with Disabilities Act, and criminal laws prohibiting voter intimidation or suppression based on race, color, national origin or religion.
The department has deployed election monitors under the Voting Rights Act since 1965.
Voters will decide all 435 seats in the US House of Representatives, 35 Senate seats and 36 governorships. Republicans currently control both chambers of Congress, while Democrats are seeking majorities to curb US President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda.
