US Department of Justice sends election monitors to urban and rural Alaska

The U.S. Department of Justice said federal election monitors will be deployed to Anchorage and the Dillingham and Kusilvak census areas on Election Day, according to an agency announcement on Tuesday morning.

The DOJ monitoring initiative, announced last week, is larger this year than previous years, with approximately 1,000 monitors posted across all 50 states. 

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon with the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice, said that election integrity is among the Trump administration’s top priorities. 

“I am very proud we are deploying the largest monitoring effort in DOJ history, and pursuing transparency for elections in an assertive and nondiscriminatory manner,” Dhillon said in a statement.

The Department provided no details about specific precincts in the three regions where federal monitoring would take place.

DOJ election monitors were deployed to the Dillingham and Kusilvak census areas in the 2024, 2023 and 2022 elections, as well as other regions.  

The effort is coordinated by the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, officials said. Officials said the election monitors will include personnel from multiple DOJ divisions, the  U.S. Attorney’s Offices and federal observers from the Office of Personnel Management.

The agency said DOJ monitors will be observing polling places for compliance with federal voting laws, including the Voting Rights Act, National Voter Registration Act, Help America Vote Act, Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act and Civil Rights Acts. Monitors will also watch to ensure people with disabilities have access to vote under the Americans with Disabilities Act. 

“The Division’s Criminal Section enforces federal criminal statutes that prohibit voter intimidation and voter suppression based on race, color, national origin, or religion,” the announcement said.

Federal elections monitoring has taken place for decades, but there is heightened scrutiny and concern around election interference this midterm election as President Donald Trump has pressured election officials and said without evidence that Democrats will try to manipulate the results. The Trump administration’s DOJ has also focused on noncitizen voting, including demanding states’ voter lists, a slew of lawsuits and attempts to suspend ballot counting in California and Washington. A federal judge threw out the California case, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal on Monday. A federal judge in Alaska rejected another case filed by the DOJ on Sunday that was intended to pause the U.S. Senate election result if Republican incumbent Dan. S. Sullivan lost by a narrow margin. 

In Alaska, the DOJ announced plans to deploy federal monitors in the 2024 election, including for compliance with federal law on language assistance, the Bethel, Dillingham, Kusilvak, and Nome census areas and the North Slope and Northwest Arctic boroughs. 

In 2023, federal monitoring of local elections took place in the North Slope Borough, and the Dillingham and Kusilvak census areas. In the 2022 midterm election, federal monitors also deployed to Dillingham, Kusilvak and Bethel census areas as well as Sitka. 

The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division has an online form for voters to report complaints of federal law violations. 

The Alaska Division of Elections has a voter complaint form for violations of the Help America Vote Act on its website, and a complaint hotline at 1-888-465-5857. It also has resources for accessibility assistance, including language assistance, on its website or by phone at (907) 465-4611.

The ACLU of Alaska, a civil rights non-profit, is part of a nationwide coalition running the nonpartisan Election Protection Hotline at 866-OUR-VOTE. Voters can call for information about voting rights, legal assistance or to report voter intimidation.