Right-wing websites and conservative media personalities are fearmongering about routine election monitoring by the Department of Justice, which has deployed lawyers to selected voting sites around the country to ensure compliance with federal voting laws. Some conservatives are likening these DOJ Civil Rights Division lawyers to “goons” and Nazi Gestapo, while others are inventing fantasies that the election monitors are there to steal various races on behalf of Democrats.

On November 7, the Justice Department released a list of 64 jurisdictions in 24 states where it “plans to monitor compliance with federal voting rights laws,” which it has done “since the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.” According to The Washington Post, the DOJ sent election monitors to 44 jurisdictions during the 2020 elections under former President Donald Trump, and the expansion this year to 20 additional jurisdictions “provides a window into where federal law enforcement officials suspect there could be disputes or tensions around the voting process.” The Post provided an extensive list of reasons for election monitors to visit some of these jurisdictions, highlighting instances of right-wing voter intimidation and other concerns that could interfere with the voting process:

Despite the routine nature of the DOJ’s official election monitors being dispatched to dozens of jurisdictions, and the demonstrated need for impartial observers in areas that have experienced problems with voting access and voter intimidation, at least two GOP-controlled states have demanded that the DOJ lawyers stay out of voting sites. 

Some right-wing media figures and outlets complained that the move was unnecessary or suggested that it was a nefarious plot by the Biden administration:

• Antisemitic Gab founder Andrew Torba posted on his social media site: “DOJ will be ‘monitoring’ polls in 24 states tomorrow. Nothing to see here. Move along.” 
• Newsmax’s Benny Johnson wrote on Twitter: “Joe Biden tried to send federal Gestapo agents to Florida to ‘monitor’ our elections. No reason given. Just federal agents in polling places. Totally normal!” 
• Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton posted on Twitter: “You can be sure the Left partisans running DOJ selected targets of their election ‘monitoring’ for political reasons.” 
• A post on PJ Media claimed “it does not appear there is any rhyme or reason for the [jurisdiction] selections,” adding that the DOJ “appears to be weaponized against Republicans and conservatives,” and said the election monitoring “seem unnecessarily incendiary in the absence of proper justification.”

Other conservatives went further in denying reality and falsely claimed the DOJ monitors are being dispatched to help steal the election:

• The Federalist claimed that the election monitors are the Biden administration’s “latest election-rigging scheme,” writing that “partisan activists in the DOJ are taking matters into their own hands to meddle for Democrats in key midterm contests.”
• An article at Big League Politics described the Civil Rights Department lawyers as “Biden’s DOJ goons”' and claimed, “The feds are conducting these operations to harass poll challengers and potentially accuse them of civil rights violations for pointing out improprieties and failures in the ballot-tabulating process.” This fantasy about “the tyranny of the Biden administration” concluded: “This sort of meddling from the DOJ is unacceptable and may be the pretense to set up another election steal.”
• Fox News host Mark Levin tweeted that the election monitors are “going to be interfering in this election” and claimed that “this was Biden’s plan from day one.”
• The conservative websites Townhall and The Right Scoop pushed Republican claims that DOJ election monitors will be intimidating voters, citing the Missouri secretary of state who denied the Civil Rights Division attorneys access to polling places.
• White nationalist troll and failed GOP congressional candidate Laura Loomer said on an Infowars broadcast: “This is a clear-cut example of government overreach and DOJ election intimidation. We know that the Democrats can't win elections unless they steal, unless they cheat. And that is exactly what they're on the move to do all across the country today.”