The U.S. Department of Justice has notified local election officials that it will send federal monitors to three Ohio counties to observe next week’s election, according to a spokesperson for a group that represents local election officials.
The DOJ plans to send monitors to two Democratic strongholds – Cuyahoga and Franklin counties – as well as Republican-leaning Medina County in the suburban Cleveland area, Aaron Ockerman, executive director of the Ohio Association of Election Officials, said in an interview on Monday. The assignment comes as officials in President Donald Trump’s administration have described plans to send 1,000 election monitors – more than triple the number for the previous midterm – allocated across all 50 U.S. states.
The Campaign Legal Center, a liberal advocacy group, also has identified Warren County near Cincinnati as another recipient of a DOJ letter about federal monitors. But Ockerman told Signal Statewide that Warren County officials told him they did not receive any DOJ notification.
Ockerman said election officials in Cuyahoga, Franklin and Medina counties have told him that they will be getting federal election monitors. But he said he didn’t know any other details, including why those three counties were chosen, what federal officials have said they plan to focus on and whether their monitoring may extend to early voting.
“It’s permissible under federal statutes and we’ll be prepared for observers to be in Ohio,” Ockerman said. “I know that congressional committees also are planning to send observers to Ohio and it’s nothing new. We’ve had federal observers from the DOJ and congressional committees for many years.”
Nicole Mickley, director of the Medina County Board of Elections, forwarded a letter she received last week from the DOJ. It said monitors will check for compliance with federal law, citing several common election laws. Election officials will hear more about the specific focus in a follow-up virtual meeting, the letter said.
“As the Civil Rights division has done in the past, our monitors will only observe,” says the letter from James Catania, a lawyer with the DOJ’s civil rights department. “They do not intrude or interfere in any way with the voting process.”
(Scroll down to the bottom of this story to read the full email.)
Mickley declined to answer questions about the monitors, but said, “The Medina County Board of Elections is fully committed to administering a fair, accurate, and accessible election for all eligible voters, in accordance with state and federal law.”
Mike West, a spokesperson for the Cuyahoga County Elections Board, described the DOJ notices as routine.Â
“They emailed us a letter that says the DOJ will be around,” West said. “We have been getting these for at least a decade in even year elections.”
Ohio’s Nov. 3 election will decide races for governor, U.S. Senate, U.S. House and the state legislature, among various other offices. Early voting has been underway for nearly three weeks, and more than 1 million Ohioans have already voted.
Federal election monitors a common feature in Ohio
Federal election monitors have visited Ohio frequently during both Republican and Democratic administrations. This has happened during most presidential and midterm elections over the past decade, spanning Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden’s presidencies.
Typically, this involves monitoring election processes for irregularities. Ohio law and state election guidance limit third-party observers’ activities. Among other rules, they are prohibited from attempting to enforce perceived violations of law, from handling election materials, taking photographs inside polling places or otherwise violating the privacy of voters. They also aren’t allowed to wear uniforms or carry a gun, among other restrictions.
But this year’s assignment comes during a time of greater tension between Washington, D.C. and Democratic-controlled states, as well as some Republican-controlled ones when it comes to election matters.
Democrats have raised concerns that the Trump administration will use the powers of the federal government to engage in voter suppression. Trump frequently has sought to discredit elections that he and other Republicans have lost by alleging widespread voter fraud.
The DOJ also has filed lawsuits seeking to intervene in elections in two states. In one, the DOJ sued to preemptively block the certification of election results in Alaska – citing the presence of a challenger with the same name as incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan. It has also sued to prevent some mail ballots from being counted in California, saying the state failed to remove thousands of voters flagged as non-citizens. Officials in Wyoming complained in August when federal monitors sought to interview voters at polling places and inspect vote-tabulation equipment during the Republican-controlled state’s primary election. Federal officials disputed the complaints.
Steve David, state director of All Voting is Local Ohio, a left-leaning voting rights group, said he and his colleagues have been trying to figure out where the DOJ monitors are headed and what they’re going to do.
“This year we are concerned because of the way the federal government has positioned itself lately that they will try to use those folks to try to interfere with election operations or overstep the bounds that they previously have been operating within,” David said.
In other states, Democrats and voting-rights groups have geared up to train and mobilize thousands of monitors of their own to essentially monitor the monitors, NBC News reported. Republicans are mobilizing an election monitoring effort of their own as well.
Election boards have not released letters from Department of Justice
Signal Statewide has asked officials in Cuyahoga and Franklin counties for copies of any letters from DOJ informing them of their election monitoring plans. Ockerman said Monday that elections officials in those counties don’t plan to immediately comment. Signal Statewide also has sought a comment from Republican Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose.
A spokesperson for the Justice Department said in an email that the agency doesn’t plan to announce the locations of the monitors until Election Day.
“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 said. “All monitors must meet the same legal and ethical requirements, including that they not interfere with the voting process. Every monitor has the same role: observe for potential violations of federal law and report concerns to the Department, which the Department will review after Election Day and act where appropriate.”
But other states have released correspondence they’ve received from the DOJ about election monitoring. In an Oct. 21 letter to officials in Utah, a Justice Department lawyer wrote that monitors will “only observe and take notes.” The monitors will not wear uniforms and will be unarmed, and will be looking for signs of violations of a number of federal election laws, according to the letter, which was published by the Utah News Dispatch.
In past years, DOJ press releases have described the locations and focuses of election monitors.
In 2016, Justice Department staff were sent to 67 jurisdictions in 28 states, including Cuyahoga, Hamilton and Franklin counties in Ohio, to monitor compliance with federal election laws having to do with discrimination and voter access, according to a press release. Barack Obama was president at the time.
In 2020, during Trump’s first term in office, Justice Department staff were sent to Cuyahoga County. A Justice Department press release describes their focus as making sure voters were free of “discrimination, intimidation, and harassment.”
The DOJ monitors came to Ohio during both federal general elections held during Joe Biden’s term as president. In 2022, they were sent to Cuyahoga County, while in 2024 they were sent to Cuyahoga and Portage counties.
The 2024 press release identifying Portage County as a monitoring location was unusually specific, referencing concerns about voter intimidation and surveillance. Around the same time, Republican Portage County Sheriff Bruce Zuchowski generated complaints after he wrote a Facebook post encouraging his followers to write down the addresses of Kamala Harris supporters.
Here is the email the DOJ sent to Medina County election officials. We redacted exact contact information from the document.
