The 1,000 federal election monitors set to deploy across the country for Election Day may look like a big number of people, but top election officials in states holding closely watched races on Nov. 3 told MS NOW that it is a show orchestrated to please an audience of one — President Donald Trump.

And, they added, for all the bluster coming out of the administration about monitors, the officials are more worried about Trump using a last-minute X factor to disrupt people’s ability to vote before or on Nov. 3. Election monitors are not at the top of their list of nightmare scenarios.

The Department of Justice has yet to announce where the 1,000 monitors will be sent, but it claims it is the “largest monitoring effort in Department history.” It’s not: The DOJ previously deployed more than 1,400 federal poll watchers in 2004.

In interviews with MS NOW, senior election officials in states across the country and former DOJ officials said the thousand set to be dispatched would be too few in number to have a detrimental effect. Instead, they said, it is an attempt by DOJ political appointees to make Trump happy, and the greater risk is that it will dissuade people from showing up to vote, rather than blocking or disrupting their vote on Election Day.

All of the chief election officials who spoke to MS NOW said the Justice Department’s election monitor program under the Civil Rights Division was being distorted by the Trump administration — used in ways it was never intended, all to feed the conspiracy of widespread fraud and a rigged voting system.

Officials in more than half a dozen states with key midterm races told MS NOW they had not heard from the Justice Department about where election monitors would be dispatched, but a former DOJ official said that was not necessarily abnormal.

In past elections, DOJ has released the list of jurisdictions where it would deploy election monitors in the final week, often days before Election Day, said Justin Levitt, a former Justice Department attorney who helped oversee the election monitor program during the Obama administration.

“I completely understand why people are freaked out,” Levitt said. “But this program isn’t designed for disruption.”

Levitt, who served as deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said a total of 1,000 monitors was not enough to have a widespread impact, noting for perspective that Wayne County, Michigan, has some 500 polling locations alone.

Levitt said every scenario to disrupt the election “runs into a giant screaming pragmatic, logistical or legal problem at some point along the way.” He added, “While there are lots of ways to disrupt the messaging and the communication, actually disrupting the elections doesn’t work.” He said most state election officials had likely run through those same scenarios.

Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar said the federal election monitors were not at the top of his list of concerns related to possible efforts by the Trump administration to interfere in the November elections. The expected deployment is an attempt to spread disinformation around noncitizens that could “dissuade somebody from voting,” he said in an interview.

“That’s the most dangerous thing, is somebody choosing not to vote because of the false narrative the administration has created around elections,” Aguilar said.

“We’re ready for them,” he said of the monitors. “And they’re welcome as long as they follow the rules and understand that this is not an attempt to create chaos or to cause a scene, and they should be reminded that in Nevada it’s a felony to intimidate a voter, but it’s also a felony to harass a poll worker and an election worker.”

Aguilar’s sentiment was echoed by election officials in Arizona, Wisconsin and Maine, who stressed that the laws in their states are clear. They all ranked election monitors low on their assessment of threats from the federal government.

“Under Maine law, no one, including federal officials, can intimidate or interfere with a voter in the polling place,” Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows said. “We intend to enforce those laws strictly.” Bellows said local clerks had been told to escalate any incidents immediately to her office.

The information space is what Levitt said Harmeet Dhillon, head of the department’s Civil Rights Division, is trying to control.

Throughout the past two months, Dhillon has spoken to multiple right-wing media outlets about her plan to send 1,000 federal election monitors to select polling sites across the country for the midterm elections. While the Justice Department claims that it is “pretty close” to that figure, Dhillon said she wished that she “could deliver 2,000 monitors.” She also elaborated on the role of these election monitors, saying that they would be operating similarly to previous election observers and were “not going to be interfering in any way.”

The election monitors will be DOJ attorneys and criminal prosecutors, the Justice Department told MS NOW. Dispatching prosecutors is not normal, Levitt said; typically only civil attorneys would serve as observers.

Although Dhillon, a conservative culture warrior tapped for the job by Trump, boasts on a near-weekly basis about the number of election monitors, the program itself has largely shrunk since a 2013 Supreme Court decision weakened a pillar of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Prior to the ruling, election monitors and observers would fan out across the country in large numbers, but the ruling eliminated a key authority for some of the federal poll watchers.

“All monitors must meet the same legal and ethical requirements, including that they not interfere with the voting process,” said Kiersten Pels, a Justice Department spokesperson. “Department personnel are trained on and comply with every federal law governing conduct at polling places.”

Monitors would not identify themselves as prosecutors, the DOJ spokesperson told MS NOW, adding that every monitor had the same role: to observe for potential violations of federal law and report concerns to the department to be reviewed after Election Day. The department would take action where it determined it was appropriate. The DOJ told MS NOW that no other federal officials or federal law enforcement agents would accompany the DOJ monitors in their deployment.

In reality, election monitors are limited in the spaces they can access at polling sites, and sometimes are not allowed inside voting locations at all:

• In Minnesota, local officials have the authority to deny monitors entry to polling locations, as they did during the August primary, requiring them to stand 100 feet outside.
• In Nevada and Maine, monitors have to remain in designated areas, behind a “guardrail,” and may not approach people while they’re voting.
• In other states, like Oklahoma, monitors are not allowed to enter polling sites while voting is ongoing.
• In Ohio, monitors are only allowed into an election center where ballots are tabulated if specifically allowed by state officials.
• DOJ monitors are required to follow rules dictated by each state and can be removed by poll officials if they are found to be disruptive.

Some of the state election officials who spoke to MS NOW speculated that the monitors might try to gather information for an investigation post-election. State officials are bracing for possible Trump administration legal challenges based on allegations of fraud or noncitizens voting — the latter of which is not widespread but has become a rallying cry for Trump as he falsely says U.S. elections are rigged.

In fact, many officials noted that they were gearing up not for monitors but potential last-minute chaos injected by viral disinformation about federal agents at polls that could scare away voters; a greater presence of immigration officers in neighborhoods but not at polling sites; or what could happen in the days after.

A senior election official in Arizona, who requested anonymity in order to speak candidly, told MS NOW they were prepared for every scenario the Trump administration might throw their way should the elections in their state be contested.

“We’re coordinating as closely as we can with local and state law enforcement, with prosecutors, and getting the courts ready so that they can see and hear our pleadings as quickly as possible,” the official said.

“We don’t have any misgivings about bearing down the full weight of the actual rule of law in post-election proceedings.”

And, the person added, the attempts to sow doubt in the midterm elections just may backfire on the administration, pointing to early turnout numbers.

“This election interference has really fired up a base of voters who may not have typically voted in midterms,” said the senior election official in Arizona.

The post ‘We’re ready for them’: Election chiefs say DOJ poll monitors are a play to please Trump appeared first on MS NOW.

From MS Now.