DOJ Deploys 1,000 Poll Monitors Nationwide, Its Biggest Watch Ever

The Justice Department dropped a big number on Election Day. According to the department, it dispatched roughly 1,000 federal election monitors to polling places around the country, calling it the largest monitoring effort in DOJ history. The monitors are watching for potential voting violations, and the DOJ says its sweep covers all states.

Civil Rights Division Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon took a victory lap on the announcement. According to Dhillon, she is 'very proud we are deploying the largest monitoring effort in DOJ history,' describing the push as transparency pursued 'in an assertive and nondiscriminatory manner.'

For scale, look back two years. During the 2022 midterms, the Biden administration sent fewer than 400 monitors, and they covered 24 states. Tuesday's deployment roughly doubles that headcount and stretches it nationwide.

The timing is anything but quiet. Americans are voting Tuesday, November 3, to fill the House of Representatives and decide 35 Senate seats and 36 governorships. The midterms are widely framed as a verdict on President Donald Trump nearly two years into his second term, with Republicans staring down the possibility of losing both chambers to Democrats — and polls suggesting trouble even in deep-red territory.

The legal backdrop is just as loud. On Monday, the DOJ asked the Supreme Court to take up its appeal over California's mail-in ballots, following an October 15 suit claiming more than 20,000 people likely in the country illegally were registered to vote. The Supreme Court then rejected the Trump administration's emergency request to separate up to 20,000 mail-in ballots in California, issuing a brief order without explanation just hours after it was filed, according to CNBC.

Reactions kept rolling in as polls opened. Former White House Communications Director and SkyBridge Capital founder Anthony Scaramucci told CNBC he expects Trump to get 'trounced,' arguing the president failed to deliver on affordability, ending 'forever wars' and transparency on the Epstein files — and that parts of MAGA are now breaking away.