Federal monitors will watch voters, but who’s watching the watchers?
The Justice Department’s massive election monitoring plan meets Democratic poll watchers in a high-stakes game of vigilance.
The story
Democrats and watchdog groups are training tens of thousands of poll watchers amid concerns about potential interference, while the Justice Department plans its largest-ever election monitoring effort.
Source: fortune.com
Our reading
The Justice Department’s plan to send 1,000 monitors to polling places sounds like a logistical nightmare, but it’s also a bizarrely specific way to ensure that no one accidentally breaks a rule they didn’t know existed. The idea is to watch, not to act, but the mere presence of federal agents in a place where they’re not usually seen could be enough to make voters feel like they’re in a movie where the ending is still being written.
Meanwhile, the volunteers trained by Democratic groups are being told to report anything that seems concerning, which is a lot of responsibility for people who might not have a clear idea of what ‘concerning’ actually means. It’s like telling a group of people to be on the lookout for ghosts—there’s no real way to know what they’re looking for, but they’ll be watching anyway.
The whole thing feels like a high-stakes game of tag, with the rules constantly being rewritten. And the only thing that’s certain is that someone, somewhere, will be watching.
