DOJ to Monitor Polls in NC
The Department of Justice is sending election monitors to polls in four North Carolina counties on election day. DOJ monitors at the polls are not unusual, but local election officials have been given no indication of why these counties were chosen or what the monitors will be looking for:
The U.S. Justice Department will monitor voting in Forsyth, Wake, Cumberland and Robeson counties next week.
The Fayetteville Observer reported that the state election chief said the department has not said why monitors are planned for the two counties.
State Board of Elections’ executive director Kim Strach notified the four counties Wednesday. There is no word on which precincts will be monitored. . . . Cumberland County elections director Terri Robertson said she didn’t know why federal observers will be in the area.
We hope that the DOJ monitors will be looking only for violations of the law and are not being deployed into the battleground state of North Carolina for political purposes or to try and trap local officials. The lack of communication with local election officials, who should be the DOJ monitors’ allies, is disturbing.