Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon announced Tuesday that the Department of Justice will deploy election monitors to 15 jurisdictions across Arizona, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Virginia ahead of the upcoming primaries.
The monitors are tasked with ensuring compliance with federal voting laws, preventing fraud, protecting eligible voters’ rights, and documenting any irregularities in areas long plagued by election integrity concerns.
Dhillon stated in a video posted to X:
In 2026, in this upcoming primary season, the United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, as it has done for decades, is this year sending election monitors into 15 different jurisdictions in six states. And those states are Arizona, Michigan, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Virginia.
And we’re sending the monitors into cities and counties where there may have been some problems in the recent elections. And so this is something that DOJ does routinely.
So, for example, in 2022, in the primary season, there were nine jurisdictions in which the prior administration sent election monitors during the primaries. In 2024, similarly, there were, in that election, 27 different jurisdictions monitored by the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division.
So this year, we’re kind of in the middle of that with our 15. And what we hope to do here is increase voter confidence, make sure there are no language barriers or barriers to voting for Americans with disabilities, or, you know, sort of failure to make sure that the polling places are open correctly for the amount of time necessary, and that everyone has appropriate access to vote who should be allowed to vote.
So this is an important goal that increases voter confidence.
Exercise of our oversight duty and our enforcement duty to enforce the Help America Vote Act, the National Voter Registration Act, the Voting Rights Act, a very important statute, and other civil rights statutes like the Civil Rights Act of 1960.
So I’m proud to be helping organize this effort and send those monitors to help increase all citizens’ confidence in the outcome of our elections.
Hellbound and Down 