After the U.S. Justice Department announced Monday that it planned monitor voting law compliance in 64 jurisdictions across 24 states Tuesday, some pushed back.
Why?
In Missouri, Republican Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, who won reelection in 2020, said that “we stood up to the Department of Justice informing them that the DOJ is NOT authorized to be on site during tomorrow’s election.”
He said that the presence of the DOJ would be “disruptive” and take local election officials’ attention away from the needs of state voters.
A letter from election officials in Florida said that DOJ officials would not be allowed inside polling places since state law does not permit them in. It said that the presence of federal officials would be “counterproductive and could potentially undermine confidence in the election.”
In the wake of the 2020 presidential election, former Republican President Donald Trump and some Republicans have questioned election results.
However, there has been no evidence of election fraud.
This year, there have been reports of armed people showing up at polls in Arizona. On Tuesday a man was arrested for bringing a knife to a Milwaukee poling place, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
According to the Justice Department, “since passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Civil Rights Division has regularly monitored elections in the field in jurisdictions around the country to protect the rights of voters.”
