NAACP files lawsuit after head of DoJ’s civil rights division says she hopes to send election monitors to polls

The Trump administration has been sued over its plans to deploy “a historic number” of election monitors to polling stations during next month’s midterm elections.

The bid “stands to jeopardize” the elections and could “interfere with the right of voters to participate in the election free from intimidation”, according to the NAACP, which filed a lawsuit against Harmeet Dhillon, head of the justice department’s civil rights division, who has said she hopes to send 1,000 monitors to midterm polling sites in November.

“To be clear, there is no federal statute that gives the US Department of Justice [DoJ] the right to send their so-called ‘election monitors’ to polling sites across the country, and this administration has made clear its intent to disrupt and interfere with the way elections are run in our country,” said Kristen Clarke, the NAACP’s general counsel, who served in Dhillon’s role under Joe Biden.

The NAACP lawsuit seeks to force the Trump administration to release records regarding the deployment of the monitors. The NAACP said it requested such records under the Freedom of Information Act on 1 September, but said the Department of Justice had failed to comply.

“The timely release of these documents is critical to protecting voter rights and ensuring election integrity,” the NAACP said in a statement.

On Sunday Todd Blanche, the attorney general, confirmed that election monitors will be sent to all 50 states. Speaking to Fox News, however, he downplayed the role of the monitors.

“Since the 60s, the Department of Justice has monitored elections. Every single election’s been monitored,” Blanche said. “This administration, President Trump, is doing the same thing that every single administration has done in our generation, multiple generations.”

In a statement a justice department spokesperson said: “Department election monitors comply with all legal and ethical requirements, including the requirement that they not interfere with the voting process, and their work is consistent with longstanding department practice of monitoring elections for compliance with federal law.”

The monitors have raised concerns, however, from within the Republican party. In August Mark Gordon, the Republican governor of Wyoming, criticized the behavior of two election monitors who he said arrived at a polling station during the state’s primaries earlier this year without notice, and attempted to examine voting machines.

“It was aggressive, unexpected, disruptive – certainly didn’t seem to show respect for the state,” Gordon told the New York Times. “We’re going to get to the bottom of it as best we can.”

The justice department spokesperson said: “AAG Dhillon had a cordial meeting with Gov Gordon, the Wyoming Attorney General, and the county clerk for Laramie County. We disagree with the public framing that the two monitors we sent were ‘aggressive’ or did anything improper. The discussion with the Governor and his team was helpful and we look forward to having a presence in Wyoming in the general election.”

“During the primary season, we saw monitors deployed with no notice to the public or jurisdiction, and no clear evidence that they were there for a legitimate civil rights purpose,” Clarke said.

“Americans deserve to know whether the justice department is abusing its law enforcement powers to the detriment of voters and the election officials tasked with running our elections. Americans deserve transparency on the justice department’s increasingly evolving and unwieldy plans. With election day just weeks away, the NAACP is seeking judicial intervention to ensure transparency and to safeguard the fundamental right to vote.”