Chapter 1
Federal agencies have two roles at the 3 November election: watching…
Federal agencies have two roles at the 3 November election: watching how votes are cast, and protecting the offices that run the vote. Federal law forbids “troops or armed men” at an election, and the argument so far is over how close federal officers and the Justice Department’s monitors will come to the places where votes are cast and counted. Before the vote it is a matter of plans, lawsuits and released records. No court has ruled on any of it.
Chapter 2
The Justice Department’s plan is the most concrete
The Justice Department’s plan is the most concrete. Harmeet Dhillon, who heads its Civil Rights Division, has set it at 1,000 monitors and on 14 October called it “the biggest DOJ election observer effort in history”, saying they would observe and not interfere. The superlative is doubtful: MS NOW reports the department sent more than 1,400 observers in 2004. A department spokesperson has said the monitors will be lawyers and prosecutors, with no federal law enforcement, and will report concerns after election day. The department has not published where its monitors will go, though from 20 October it began sending letters telling counties to expect them; the NAACP sued on 2 October for the records behind it: the legal authority, where monitors will go, their training, and whether FBI or ICE personnel will serve. By mid-October officials in more than half a dozen states with close races said they had not been told where the monitors would go, and several states’ own rules keep them outside or in set areas. Wyoming is the precedent both sides cite. Its governor called two department monitors at the August primary “aggressive, unexpected, disruptive”; the department disputes that and says it expects to be present in Wyoming again in November.
Chapter 3
The sharper dispute is over armed officers
The sharper dispute is over armed officers. On 18 September the NAACP, other civil rights groups and unions sued the homeland security and justice departments and the FBI, alleging that the threatened use of federal agents at the polls violates the Voting Rights Act's ban on intimidating voters. On 23 September the Democratic Senate and House campaign committees, the Democratic Governors Association and the party’s two congressional leaders sued ICE, the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI, alleging the agencies claim authority to send armed officers to polling places and asking the court to bar them. Another suit, amended on 7 October by LULAC, Common Cause, UnidosUS, Denver and Hennepin County, Minnesota, alleges that both the homeland security and justice departments have policies allowing armed agents at polling places, and lists four incidents of agents at or beside voting sites since May, the latest beside a ballot drop-off site in Santa Maria, California, on 5 October. These are the plaintiffs’ allegations. The department told the Associated Press that ICE is not planning operations targeting polling locations, while leaving room for arrests if a public safety threat endangers one. ICE’s own records, released on 1 October, carry the same hedge: a letter to Colorado’s secretary of state says there is no reason to deploy its officers to polling places, internal talking points add “unless a threat arises”, and the answer to whether ICE will arrest people at polling places was withheld. Arlington County, Virginia, filed a fourth on 20 October in Alexandria, the first outside Washington. During early voting federal agents appeared at two Florida sites: Border Patrol vehicles stopped at one on 19 October, which by the FBI's account were reassigned agents trying to vote, and agents stopped a car at the entrance to another the next day, according to the two counties' election supervisors.
Chapter 4
The protective role arrived in mid-October
The protective role arrived in mid-October. The FBI and the Postal Inspection Service are investigating suspicious mailings, some containing an unknown substance, sent to secretaries of state and election offices across the country; offices in at least 13 states received or intercepted one. Arizona’s secretary of state’s office was evacuated on 15 October, and Wisconsin’s letter proved harmless. How many letters reached election offices has not been reported.
Chapter 5
What is unresolved is what federal personnel actually do on the day
What is unresolved is what federal personnel actually do on the day. Six federal statements are on the record as commitments about it: the homeland security department’s and its secretary’s on ICE, the White House border czar’s that there is no plan to sweep polling places, the FBI director’s on its field offices, the Justice Department’s on Wyoming, and Dhillon’s that the monitors will not interfere. The conduct of 3 November will test each.
And now
The Justice Department says its monitors will be in every state on 3 November. A spokesperson put the number at about 1,000 and said where they go will not be published until election day. On 28 October the department told a court in a sworn declaration that none will be FBI or ICE employees, and that none will carry firearms or do anything but observe and take notes.
States are drawing lines around them. North Carolina will let monitors inside only before voting starts and after polls close. Pennsylvania says they have no more access than the public, and Lehigh County will keep them outside. Kansas, Maine, Utah and Colorado set limits too.
In Florida, the Border Patrol vehicles seen at a Tallahassee early-voting site on 19 October belonged to reassigned agents who had stopped to try to vote, according to the FBI's account relayed by the county supervisor, who accepted it. A separate immigration stop near a Key Largo site is unexplained.
A judge in Washington has joined three suits over armed agents at the polls; none has been ruled on. Tests of the suspicious letters sent to election offices have found nothing hazardous so far.
Where it stands today →