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A series of developments regarding the U.S. Department of Justice's plans to deploy large numbers of poll monitors across multiple elections, reflecting ongoing scrutiny of electoral processes under the current administration.
Wyoming Attorney General Keith Kautz is investigating how two U.S. Department of Justice officials monitored poll workers and observed voters in the state's most populous county during the Aug. 18 primary, a spokesperson for Republican Gov. Mark Gordon said Friday.
The Justice Department aims to deploy roughly 1,000 election monitors at polling places for November's midterm elections, a target that voting rights experts and former department officials said the agency is unlikely to reach. Harmeet Dhillon, who heads the department's civil rights division, said the deployment would be "probably going to be a historic number for a Republican administration." The department said separately: "We hope to have the largest monitoring effort in the department's history."
The U.S. Department of Justice plans to send about 1,000 poll monitors to elections this fall, including primary contests in Florida and Wyoming on Tuesday. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon, who leads the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, said the projected number would probably be historic for a Republican administration.