SEATTLE. The U.S. Department of Justice has informed King County Elections Director Julie Wise that it is sending election monitors to the county for the Nov. 3 midterms, the Washington State Standard reported. It remains unclear what role the federal monitors will play or how many there will be on Election Day.
Anelise Powers of the Justice Department wrote in an email to Wise this week that, as the Civil Rights Division has done in the past, the monitors only observe and do not intrude or interfere in any way in the voting process. The department described its plans in Washington's most populous county and elsewhere as routine election monitoring it has done for decades.
Unlike states with polling places, Washington has long voted by mail, a system that has faced allegations and legal threats from President Donald Trump. Voting commenced last week ahead of the Nov. 3 election, and almost all ballots are returned via drop box or mail, though voters can vote in person at their county election center.
The monitors will look for compliance with federal voting rights and disability access laws. The Trump administration has also used voting laws, including the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act, as legal backing in its push for the state's sensitive voter data. A judge tossed the Justice Department's lawsuit seeking that data. Trump has repeatedly espoused claims of rampant fraud, and critics fear the monitors could use those false allegations to interfere in elections, which are run by states.
Halei Watkins, a spokesperson for King County Elections, said that in her seven-plus years there, the county has never been sent a monitor from the Department of Justice. Secretary of State Steve Hobbs's office said the department has sent election observers to Washington in the past, and spokesperson Stefanie Randolph said they are unaware of any issues stemming from their presence. Randolph added that all observers, whether private citizens or those affiliated with political parties and government agencies, must abide by state law: they may not touch ballots, voting equipment or tabulation machines, or interfere with voting, and county auditors have the authority to remove anyone who does not follow the rules.
Washington is one of at least 10 states where a county reportedly received a similar notification, with Oregon's Multnomah County another, and Justice Department spokesperson Kiersten Pels said the department will have monitors in every state. Pels said every monitor has the same role: observe for potential violations of federal law and report concerns to the department, which will review them after Election Day and act where appropriate.
Monitors were also deployed during this year's primary elections with few reported issues, though in Wyoming, Republican Gov. Mark Gordon raised concerns that the monitors were aggressive and irregular, a characterization Justice Department officials contested. Harmeet Dhillon, head of the department's Civil Rights Division, said last month that the Justice Department planned to send 1,000 monitors nationwide, which she called the largest monitoring effort ever. In 2022, under then-President Joe Biden, the department sent monitors to 64 locales in 24 states for the midterms, but none to Washington.