DOJ to Station Election Day Monitors in Six Georgia Counties, Including Fulton
The Justice Department has told six Georgia counties, including Fulton, that federal monitors will watch voting there on Election Day, Nov. 3.
Bibb, Chatham, Cobb, DeKalb, Fulton and Gwinnett counties received the notices, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. Each has delivered solid wins for Democrats in recent elections.
The Georgia letters are part of a nationwide rollout that began this week, NPR reported. The department has not said whether other Georgia counties will get monitors or how it chose these six.
Chatham officials got their notice by email Tuesday. It told Board of Elections Chairman Tom Mahoney and Elections Supervisor Billy Wooten that monitors would “only observe” and not interfere, the Atlanta Focal reported.
Wooten said some staffers initially feared armed federal officers would be stationed at polling places. He told them the monitors would be similar to the political-party observers already present during elections.
“Our people have to understand that their No. 1 priority is the voters, and voting never stops,” Wooten said.
A similar Civil Rights Division notice sent Oct. 21 to Utah’s lieutenant governor, published by Politico, lays out the ground rules: “Our monitors only observe and take notes. They do not intrude or interfere in any way in the voting process.”
That letter says monitors dress business casual with “no uniforms or pins identifying as DOJ,” do not talk to voters inside polling places and “are forbidden from carrying firearms, even if your state is open carry.”
They check compliance with federal laws including the Voting Rights Act, the National Voter Registration Act, the Help America Vote Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Harmeet Dhillon, who leads the Civil Rights Division, has said the department will send about 1,000 monitors nationwide, more than double the 388 deployed in the 2022 midterms. She has called it the department’s largest such effort, PBS reported.
Department spokesperson Kiersten Pels has said monitors must follow legal and ethical requirements and that routine monitoring will take place in all 50 states, as it has for decades.
Federal monitors went to Cobb, Fulton and Gwinnett in 2022 and to Bibb, Cobb, DeKalb, Fulton and Gwinnett in 2024. Chatham, home to Savannah, was on neither list.
Fulton has drawn particular federal scrutiny. In January, the FBI seized hundreds of boxes of ballots and other records from a south Fulton elections warehouse as part of an investigation into the 2020 election.
Separately, U.S. Attorney Margaret “Meg” Heap of the Southern District of Georgia announced an election plan as early voting began.
“We will enforce federal voting rights laws impartially, ensuring every eligible citizen can cast their ballot securely and without fear of intimidation,” she said.
Monitors have drawn complaints elsewhere this year. During Wyoming’s primaries, local officials said two federal monitors tried to interview voters and examine voting machines, and Republican Gov. Mark Gordon called their conduct “very odd.”
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