Feds Sending Monitors To PA On Election Day: Details Here

PENNSYLVANIA — The U.S. Department of Justice has notified state officials that it intends to send federal election monitors to observe polling places in four Pennsylvania counties on Election Day.

The counties are Allegheny, Philadelphia, Lehigh and Luzerne. The monitors will be justice department lawyers and trained legal staff.

While federal monitoring of polling places is not unusual, Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for the justice department's Civil Rights Division, said the department will have more than 1,000 election monitors out nationwide on Nov. 3.

That's the largest monitoring effort in the department's history and about 10 times the number of monitors the department deployed for the primary.

According to the justice department website, the monitors are used to help assess compliance with the federal voting rights laws around the country, including the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Help America Vote Act.

It's unclear precisely how many monitors will be sent to the four Pennsylvania counties, but Dhillon said they will not be interfering with voting in any way.

"They're not going to be running the election," she said during a recent Real News Network appearance.

"They're going to be observing, making notes, making sure that language accessibility is there, making sure that disability accessibility is there, that nothing funky is happening and people are able to vote."

In a statement, the Pennsylvania Department of State has said it expects everyone working in, voting in and observing polling places to follow all applicable state and federal laws.

The department noted that federal monitors are not legally entitled to any greater access to polling places than members of the general public.