People walk past a polling station at the Denver Central Library on June 30, 2026.
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Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images
The Justice Department this week began notifying counties it wants to monitor on Election Day, NPR has learned.
Counties in Colorado, Florida, Minnesota, Texas and Washington have received notifications from the Justice Department so far, but the list appears to be growing in real time.
The department has long deployed observers to ensure compliance with election laws, but unprecedented steps taken by the Trump administration to try to combat local and state government oversight of elections have raised new concerns about DOJ oversight this year. And already this week, at least one county official is wondering why his locality is on the DOJ list.
Last month, Harmeet Dhillon, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said the department planned to send 1,000 monitors across the country, in what she called “the largest surveillance effort” in Justice Department history.
And even if counties are notified, it’s unclear which jurisdictions or how much the department plans to monitor in November. A DOJ spokesperson, Kiersten Pels, told NPR that those details would be shared “as the election approaches.”
The Ministry of Justice regularly observes elections. The department led by President Biden monitored 64 jurisdictions in 24 states on Election Day during the last midterm year, 2022.
But for many local officials and experts, this year is different.
President Trump continues to falsely claim that he won the 2020 election and that voter fraud is more widespread than has ever been proven. Experts worry that federal law enforcement could use these false claims — or others generated this year — as a pretext to try to seize ballots during the counting period, or otherwise interfere in the process.
Most states reported no incidents with Justice Department observers during primary elections earlier this year, but in Wyoming, the state’s Republican governor expressed concerns about observers’ “aggressive” and “irregular” behavior during the state’s August primary. And Laramie County’s Republican clerk told NBC News that the observers’ conduct “demonstrated a complete disregard for the laws of our state and the administration of our elections.”
The Department of Justice disputes this characterization.
“We disagree with the public view that the two observers we sent were ‘aggressive’ or did anything inappropriate,” Pels said, adding that Dhillon had a meeting with Wyoming officials after the fact.
In previous election cycles, officials in states where observers were assigned were notified at the same time as counties. This year, that didn’t initially happen, according to officials in three states who spoke anonymously to NPR because they were not authorized to speak to the press. So states have been scrambling since notifications started going out Tuesday to figure out where the DOJ plans to be.
After NPR asked the DOJ why states weren’t notified, several state officials told NPR they later received notification from the department.
One of the counties that received a notification is Adams County, Colorado.
The clerk there, Democrat Josh Zygielbaum, told NPR that he wasn’t shocked that the DOJ chose his county to observe, because Adams County includes part of the state’s 8th Congressional District, a random district that could determine the party’s control of the House of Representatives next year.
Zygielbaum was surprised, however, that the DOJ only contacted him, and not the Republican clerk of neighboring Weld County, which is also home to a significant portion of that same congressional district.
“My first thought is that this is politically motivated and potentially an intimidation technique,” Zygielbaum said. “As much as I like to assume the best in people, the administration has truly shown its disdain for elections, especially in states and counties where mail-in voting exists.”
The DOJ’s Pels said the department prioritizes locations where competitive elections are being held and would monitor Adams County because it is covered by Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires voters to have access to election materials in the language they speak. Weld County is not covered by this provision.
This explanation did not entirely comfort Zygielbaum.
“The fact that we are covered by Section 203 means that we have a greater proportion of Spanish-speaking voters who are eligible to vote,” Zygielbaum said. “It still doesn’t reassure me that this wasn’t a targeted visit.”
NPR reported in September that Trump administration officials assigned to non-citizen voting issues circulated a list of counties covered by Section 203 last year, as well as a DOJ criminal checklist outlining requirements for pursuing voter-related charges.
Colorado state officials say they are considering how to respond to the DOJ’s request, given that Colorado election rules say observers must have permission from the secretary of state’s office unless a court orders them to observe.
“We are reviewing these requests in conjunction with the attorney general’s office,” said Jack Todd, a spokesman for the Colorado secretary of state’s office.
Zygielbaum says his election process won’t change one way or another. He has, however, already requested that a state staffer come to Adams County on Election Day, just to monitor federal observers if they come.
“I have a lot of questions about why they are there and what their ultimate intention is,” he said.
NPR confirmed that the DOJ also sent surveillance notices to seven counties in Texas, King County, Washington, Miami-Dade County, Florida, and Hennepin and Ramsey counties in Minnesota.
The DOJ requested to send observers to the same Minnesota counties during the state’s August primary, but the observers were denied close access to polling locations. A spokesperson for the Minnesota Secretary of State’s office said it was too early to know whether a different decision would be made for this fall’s general election.
In 2024, Texas also blocked the Biden-era DOJ from monitoring the election. Ken Paxton, the state’s attorney general and current Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, then went to court to prevent observers from entering voting and counting stations.
“The DOJ knows it has no authority to monitor Texas elections and backed down when Texas stood up for the rule of law,” Paxton said in a November 5, 2024 statement.
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