The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Nov. 3 urged voters to report any instances of criminal activity or violations of civil rights at polling locations during the midterm elections.
Millions of Americans are due to head to the polls across every state to cast ballots on Tuesday, which will determine whether Democrats or Republicans control the House of Representatives, Senate, or both. Dozens of governor’s races are also up for grabs.
In a post on Tuesday morning, the DOJ wrote that people encountering “violence, threats, or intimidation at a polling place” are advised to immediately call 911.
“If you know of suspected threats or acts of violence against election workers or voters, or if you think you have been a victim of or have information about other criminal activity or foreign malign influence activity, please contact the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI,” it said.
Those who suspect that they “or someone else has experienced a civil rights violation” should contact or call the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division at 800-253-3931 or 202-307-2767.
The DOJ said in a news release, issued on Tuesday, that it will be monitoring elections in every state by sending out some 1,000 election observers and monitors.
“Election integrity has been one of the top priorities for this Administration and this Division,” U.S. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon said in a statement from the department’s Civil Rights Division.
“I am very proud we are deploying the largest monitoring effort in DOJ history, and pursuing transparency for elections in an assertive and nondiscriminatory manner,” she said.
Monitors will be checking sites for compliance with federal voting rights laws under the Civil Rights Division’s jurisdiction, including provisions under the Voting Rights Act, Help America Vote Act, the National Voter Registration Act, and others, it said.
When reached for comment last month, a DOJ spokesperson did not specify where those 1,000 monitors and observers will be going.
“Every monitor will merely observe and report any potential violations of federal law to the Department, which will be reviewed after Election Day,” the spokesperson told The Epoch Times on Oct. 28.
In an interview with CBS News last month, Dhillon was asked whether the Trump administration would send federal immigration agents to polling locations.
“There is no plan to do that,” she said, responding to a question from CBS’s “60 Minutes” journalist Lesley Stahl.
Later, Stahl asked her about whether she would “consider a noncitizen voting an irregularity that would lead to a challenge of the vote?”
“I think that would lead to the person’s vote being challenged, but not the entire election,” Dhillon said, adding, “I can tell you that absent some shocking contingency that is unexpected, there should be no interruption in the usual course of counting and certifying the results in the states.”
The DOJ filed a lawsuit in California in recent days to set aside 20,000 voters who may be noncitizens. The Supreme Court on Nov. 2 declined an emergency petition submitted by the department.
U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer, writing on behalf of the Trump administration, wrote in an emergency filing earlier Monday that the justices urgently needed to act on the suspect ballots.
“Once California commingles the challenged ballots with lawful ones, there is no way to get the challenged ballots back,” he wrote in the petition.
Meanwhile, a federal judge on Sunday ruled against a DOJ petition that asked to block certification of Alaska’s Senate race if a third-party candidate with the same name as incumbent Sen. Dan S. Sullivan, who is up for reelection, causes voter confusion that leads to a Democratic candidate winning the seat.
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