Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft brought a lawsuit Monday against the Department of Justice, alleging it overstepped its authority by arranging for federal officials to monitor polls in St. Louis on Election Day.
Missouri attorneys wrote in a complaint on behalf of Ashcroft, a Republican, that state law “strictly limits” who is authorized to be present to observe activity at polling locations.
“Poll monitors employed by DOJ are not on that list,” the attorneys wrote.
The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, headed by longtime civil rights advocate Kristen Clarke, announced Friday that it plans to monitor polls in 87 jurisdictions across more than two dozen states on Election Day. The monitoring will involve deploying staff to those locations and staying in touch with local officials to watch for any violations of federal election laws, the DOJ said.
Poll watching in most states, including Missouri, is typically governed by state law and involves the state granting access to a set number of designated Republican and Democratic poll watchers to observe voters at polling places on Election Day and watch over the ballot counting process.
Ashcroft accused the DOJ of attempting to interfere with Missouri’s election process by sending the department’s own deputies to monitor polls without his authorization. He said the department had no specific explanation for choosing St. Louis and the decision was “arbitrary and capricious” and amounted to “harassment.”
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“The DOJ just doesn’t seem to get it — we don’t need them here; we don’t want them here,” Ashcroft said in a statement. “This time, we are taking it a step further and filing a lawsuit against the DOJ to get them to stop the continued harassment.”
The DOJ has shown an interest in St. Louis’s election process since at least 2019, when it accused the city Board of Election Commissioners of violating the Americans with Disabilities Act during that year’s elections.
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The DOJ leveled dozens of allegations of violations, such as sloped entrances to polling places or missing signage, that it said St. Louis must address to be in compliance with federal law regarding disabled people. The department reached a settlement agreement with the board over the matter in 2021, which expired this year.
A DOJ spokeswoman declined to comment on the lawsuit.