Bexar County is one of seven Texas counties where the Trump Justice Department plans to monitor or observe voting Tuesday as part of what top officials called the largest election monitoring operation in the department’s history.
DOJ officials said Tuesday that the department had dispatched approximately 1,000 election monitors and observers across all 50 states. The Civil Rights Division is overseeing the effort, which will include personnel from several DOJ divisions, U.S. attorneys’ offices and the Office of Personnel Management.
In addition to Bexar County, Justice Department officials identified Dallas, Harris, Waller, Blanco, Bowie and Nueces counties as locations where the department would monitor voting.
During a Tuesday press conference, Bexar County Elections Administrator Michele Carew told the Express-News the federal monitors are “no different than the poll watchers that have been assigned by our candidates and parties.” She noted one exception: DOJ officials must stay at least 100 feet from polling locations.
Carew also said that when she asked the election monitors why they were directed to Bexar County, they primarily pointed to a backlog of 45,000 voter registration applications the county was forced to quickly process due to a Texas Department of Public Safety error, according to the Express-News.
Federal officials also said they’re ensuring bilingual workers are staffing polling stations, Carew said, adding that the monitors should be wearing name tags to identify themselves.
Despite those assurances, the sweeping action comes as President Donald Trump’s Republican Party faces the likely loss of the U.S. House and the possible loss of the U.S. Senate this election cycle. The president has also made repeated false claims about the integrity of U.S. elections, including that his 2020 defeat by Joe Biden was rigged.
Voting rights groups have repeatedly said they’re prepared for challenges Trump may mount against the election results and are ready to push back on attempts by the administration to weaponize law enforcement.
“We know that President Trump and his administration are terrified of losing the upcoming election,” Michael Sozan, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, told the Current during a recent press call. “They and bad actors are actively attempting to sow confusion, fear and doubt about the election system. They appear to be continuing to manufacture lies about the integrity of the elections to enable them ultimately to dispute the valid election results later.”
Even so, Sozan and others said they’re prepared to fight and win in the courts should the president and his allies attempt to meddle in the outcome of the election. They urged citizens to turn out to vote and not be intimidated.
“There are huge preparations by pro-democracy forces and allies across the country at the national level, in states and localities, people who are preparing for a lot of these scenarios who have war-gamed this,” Sozan said. “So, as challenging as I think the next few weeks or couple of months might be, most of us are expecting that this election will be free and fair, and that the people’s will [will] be expressed and exercised.”
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