GOP Governor Flags 'Aggressive' DOJ Monitors

Wyoming's Republican governor asked his AG to probe Trump administration election monitors'.

Wyoming's Republican Gov. Mark Gordon raised concerns at a state canvassing board meeting on Wednesday, August 26, about what he described as "aggressive" and "irregular" conduct by federal Department of Justice election observers during the state's primary election the prior week. Gordon said he has asked the state attorney general to look into the nature of the monitors' visits. Two DOJ Civil Rights Division attorneys had been dispatched to Laramie County, which includes the state capital of Cheyenne, as part of a monitoring initiative announced on primary day.

The pushback is notable because Gordon is a Republican governor criticizing election monitoring deployed by a Republican administration. President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that the 2020 election was rigged and has baselessly alleged cheating in the Los Angeles mayoral primary, prompting DOJ involvement. That a GOP governor — not a Democrat or voting rights group — is now questioning federal monitors' behavior underscores the unusual political dynamic of a Republican official flagging potential overreach by his own party's Justice Department.

According to CNN, the DOJ said it has sent more than 80 monitors to seven states so far this year for primary elections and plans to send about 1,000 monitors to polling sites in November. WyoFile reports that Gordon said state officials — including the Wyoming Office of Homeland Security, the attorney general, and the Laramie County Clerk's Office — were not made aware of the federal observers in advance. Gordon said he was not objecting to observers themselves but that their behavior "seemed to exceed what the authority that Congress had given them was."

WyoFile reports that Laramie County Clerk Debra Lee released a statement Wednesday evening detailing her concerns. According to WyoFile, Lee said the two individuals identifying themselves as DOJ monitors did not offer credentials until requested and that a DOJ official in Washington told her the deployment was decided on short notice, with an email possibly sent to the wrong address. Lee said the monitors asked questions about poll worker training, election equipment acquisition, and tabulators that appeared outside the scope of federal voting rights laws, and she denied a request to interview voters inside polling places.

The dispute takes on added significance with the November general election approaching, when voters will decide control of Congress. According to CNN, the DOJ plans to deploy approximately 1,000 monitors to polling sites nationwide. Democrats and voting rights activists raised concerns last year that monitors could be used to undermine the voting process, while the Trump administration has insisted the deployments follow decadeslong federal monitoring practices. Separately, PBS reports that Trump praised a recent Supreme Court emergency ruling allowing his administration to proceed with an executive order directing the USPS to determine which voters receive mail-in ballots, calling it "a great ruling for the Republican Party."

Gordon has asked the Wyoming attorney general to examine the nature of the monitors' visits and whether their conduct exceeded congressional authority. According to WyoFile, Secretary of State Chuck Gray disputed Gordon's assertions, pointing to news reports featuring a statement from U.S. Attorney for Wyoming Darin Smith, who said officials are "working alongside local officials to ensure every lawful vote is protected." Gray also argued that state law provides for observation of the election process. The DOJ did not respond to WyoFile's request for comment by publishing time.