The Justice Department’s expanded effort to send monitors to polling places is landing in Democratic-leaning areas, with a focus on counties with higher immigrant populations and minority voters.
An analysis from The Washington Sun found the county deployments in about 125 jurisdictions in all 50 states look more partisan than the prior two elections. In 2022, when monitors were sent to 24 states, their typical destination county supported Harris by 9 percentage points. In 2024, when monitors were sent to 27 states, their typical destination supported Harris by 12 percentage points. In 2026, that figure would be 16 percentage points.
The federal government waited until Election Day to announce the jurisdictions where it is sending monitors. Although the Justice Department has for decades sent attorneys to ensure compliance with voting rights laws, the effort this year includes approximately 1,000 volunteer monitors, hundreds more than have been previously deployed.
Harris won almost 3 in 4 counties to which monitors were sent. And the remaining 1 in 4, which President Donald Trump won, are usually bluer than their surroundings. In 46 of 49 states for which The Sun has data, the monitors were sent to counties in which Harris performed better than she did in the rest of that state.
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This year, monitors’ focus appears to be on cities such as Seattle and Boston, as well as on majority-Black counties such as those containing Montgomery, Alabama, and Memphis, Tennessee — two cities hit by Republican-favored redistricting. The monitored counties are much less white than the rest of the country (45% compared to 64%, respectively) and have substantially higher Black, Hispanic and immigrant populations.
The inclusion of all 50 states inevitably targets many historic Republican strongholds. The DOJ will monitor three counties in Kansas and two in Iowa, both states with surprisingly tight Senate races this election year.
Another factor also explains DOJ’s monitoring selections. Eric Neff, the acting chief of the Voting Section within the department’s Civil Rights Division, stated in a court declaration that it had picked the places based on historical practices and, crucially, the locations of U.S. attorneys offices. About three quarters of the counties where monitors were sent in 2026 seem to be home to such an office, a massive increase from the two prior elections.
But even then, the story may not be as simple as it sounds. Regional legal offices tend to be in the sort of urban, educated and diverse cities that typically form Democrats’ base of support.
The expanded program has raised concerns about voter intimidation because of the inclusion of employees from federal law enforcement agencies as well as Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon’s previous comments that monitors will be tasked with looking for cases of alleged fraud in addition to watching for adherence to voting rights laws.
Election officials in several cities and counties have denied the Justice Department’s request for access to the polls, citing state laws imposing limits on how close feds can get to polling places’ entrances.
Mary Corcoran, the co-founder and executive director of The Save America Movement, said the organization is running a program called Vote Safe that has sent its own poll monitors to Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio and Michigan.
“The Justice Department says it’s watching elections in all 50 states, the largest effort in its history. This isn’t new, but the DOJ’s list is targeted: again and again, Black and Brown communities get extra federal scrutiny,” Corcoran said in a statement. “Those are the same voters Vote Safe was built to stand with, and we’ll be beside them, watching and reporting these poll monitors until the last ballot is cast.”
Another aspect of the Justice Department’s monitoring effort this year is the inclusion of employees from federal law enforcement agencies, such as the Bureau of Prisons. The Justice Department took steps to ensure the monitors aren’t sworn law enforcement officers and instructed monitors not to carry out arrests or bring their guns or insignia, according to filings it submitted to federal court Monday and Tuesday.
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