Even Republican Governors Are Concerned About Poll Monitors 

Earlier this month, the Justice Department announced it would be deploying thousands of election monitors to polling sites during the midterms. While it’s obvious that Democratic officials would be against the effort, Wyoming’s Republican governor has now spoken out against the plan. 

The New York Times reports that Gov. Mark Gordon said that last week, two election monitors appeared unannounced at a polling site in Cheyenne, Wyoming. They asked to interview voters and inspect the machines, but polling workers denied them. “It was aggressive, unexpected, disruptive — certainly didn’t seem to show respect for the state,” Gordon said in an interview on Thursday. “We’re going to get to the bottom of it as best we can.”

Laramie County Clerk Debra Lee said in a statement that the polling monitors arrived with no advance notice and their questions were “outside the scope of federal voting rights laws.”

“They included questions about the nature, length and timing of poll worker training,” Lee said. “Monitors requested training guides, asked how our new election equipment was acquired and wanted to examine our tabulators.” Lee concluded by saying their behavior demonstrated a “complete disregard for our state laws and administration of our elections.”

What makes the whole situation even sketchier is that the federal government can’t seem to get their story straight about whether advance notice was given. Gordon told Wyoming’s secretary of state, Chuck Gray, who called the 2020 election “illegitimate,” that he didn’t believe the Justice Department gave Wyoming’s U.S. attorney advance notice of their arrival. While Gray has argued notice was given, Lee said in her statement that a Justice Department official told her the decision to deploy monitors was made on short notice. 

Gordon met with state election officials on Wednesday to discuss the situation. Gordon said during the meeting that he’s asked state Attorney General Keith Kautz to investigate the situation. “I feel very strongly about the federal government coming in and taking our guns — I don’t like that,” Gordon said at the meeting. “And I don’t like the federal government coming in and taking our votes, either.”

Look, I’m not a conservative by virtue of the fact that I’m OK with paying taxes if those taxes go to improve the lives of my neighbors and those less fortunate. I do agree that the federal government should have little to no say in elections beyond what the Constitution allows. 

Despite having a lifetime of losing, Trump still doesn’t know how to take an L. Instead of accepting his loss in the 2020 election, Trump has continually perpetuated a myth that there is widespread voter fraud in U.S. elections without providing proof. He’s tried to force states to turn over their voter rolls, implemented an executive order intended to significantly limit mail-in voting, and is now having the Justice Department carry out his attacks on elections. 

If the Justice Department is moving recklessly in Republican states, one can only imagine what their approach is going to be when they pull up to Blue states.  

SEE ALSO:

DOJ To Send 1,000 Election Monitors To Midterm Polling Sites [Op-Ed]

North Carolina Tried To Make Black, Brown, And Low-Income Voters Invisible Before The Primary. Here’s How We Fought Back

Even Republican Governors Are Concerned About DOJ’s Poll Monitors  was originally published on newsone.com