The U.S. Department of Justice is sending election monitors to polling places in Marion and Lake County on election day, according to a press release from the Marion County Clerk's office.
The clerk's office was notified Wednesday that monitors would be sent to two counties in Indiana, but were not provided details as to why Marion County was chosen as one of the jurisdictions.
“We were not told what criteria was used to make this determination, and we do not know why the Department of Justice chose these two specific counties in this election cycle in this particular state,” Marion County Clerk Kate Sweeney Bell said.
An unnamed DOJ spokesperson told WFYI in an emailed statement that their department will be in all 50 states this election, “doing the routine election monitoring the department has done for decades.”
The statement said that observers must meet the legal and ethical requirements that all DOJ monitors must adhere too, “including that they not interfere with the voting process.”
“Every monitor has the same role: observe for potential violations of federal law and report concerns to the Department, which the Department will review after Election Day and act where appropriate,” the statement said.
Various counties in states like Colorado, Florida, Minnesota, Texas and Washington have also received notifications that monitors will be coming to specific counties, according to NPR.
Harmeet Dhillon, the head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, said last month that the department planned to send out 1,000 monitors nationwide in what she said was the “largest monitoring effort” in DOJ history.
The Justice Department has regularly used monitors to observe elections across the country. During the Biden administration, the department monitored 64 jurisdictions in 24 states on Election Day during the 2022 midterm elections.
Indiana U.S. House Rep. André Carson, D-Indianapolis, said in a statement that it was "no coincidence" that the DOJ chose the state's two counties with some of the largest populations of Democratic and minority voters.
"It’s also no coincidence that it comes just weeks before an election, when Trump has record low poll numbers," Carson said. "It follows multiple, illegal attempts to change election procedures for his benefit, from a president who still maintains the 2020 election was stolen."
The move comes as the Marion County Election Board recently approved protocol for how poll workers should react if federal law enforcement show up on Election Day.
Federal law prohibits armed federal officers from entering vote centers, or federal employees from interfering with elections. These actions could include directing poll workers to change procedures, interviewing voters or examining equipment, according to the Marion County poll worker policy.
Marion County Election Board staff said they feel confident about election day because they have been planning and training with poll workers to handle this scenario.
“Election integrity is paramount, and it means ensuring every legally registered voter who would like to cast a ballot is able to. It also means using every legal tool at our disposal to ensure no voter is intimidated or disrupted in the voting process - by anybody – as protected by state and federal law,” Clerk Sweeney Bell said.
Contact Government Reporter Caroline Beck at cbeck@wfyi.org
