Federal election monitors are stationed in Franklin County on Tuesday, Nov. 3, as part of the largest poll-monitoring operation in U.S. Department of Justice history.
The DOJ said it deployed approximately 1,000 monitors and observers to all 50 states for the first time, according to a department announcement. In Ohio, monitors were assigned to Franklin, Cuyahoga and Medina counties.
Franklin County Board of Elections Director Antone White told WOSU that election monitoring is "not unusual," though it has been more than a decade since DOJ monitors last came to the county. White said he did not know why the DOJ chose Franklin County. He suggested it could be because it is the state's most populous county.
A senior DOJ official told PBS the agency planned to focus on "high population areas" and areas that have had problems with language and disability access, according to WOSU's reporting.
The monitors will not be inside polling places. White told the Columbus Dispatch that DOJ observers will be permitted to observe outside the 100-foot perimeter of polling location entrances.
"Voters should expect people to observe the elections. We're transparent. You're going to see political party observers. You're gonna see members of the media observing," White said on WOSU's All Sides program Oct. 29.
The monitors include personnel from the DOJ's Civil Rights Division, other department components, U.S. Attorney's Offices and federal observers from the Office of Personnel Management, the department said. They will check for compliance with federal voting rights statutes, including the Voting Rights Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Civil Rights Division said in a statement that the department was "pursuing transparency for elections in an assertive and nondiscriminatory manner."
The deployment drew mixed reactions. Some voting-rights groups, including the NAACP, said they believe the monitors could suppress turnout, particularly among minority voters, USA Today reported. Some local election officials expressed concern the monitors could intimidate voters.
Ohio State University professor Steven Huefner told NBC4 that the monitors would not be allowed to interact with voters. "They're just observing," Huefner said.
Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose said Oct. 27 that federal election observers are nothing new and have been deployed under both Republican and Democratic administrations, NBC4 reported. LaRose said he was confident any challenge to Ohio's election results would find nothing untoward.
Franklin County prepared for heavy turnout beyond the monitoring effort. More than 93,000 voters set early-voting records in the county, and 5,000 trained poll workers staffed nearly 300 polling locations, according to NBC4.
Voters with questions or complaints about federal voting rights can call the DOJ's election issues hotline at 1-800-253-3931 or email [email protected].
