OAN Staff Abril Elfi
4:10 PM – Monday, November 4, 2024
Missouri’s secretary of state and attorney general have filed a lawsuit to ban the Department of Justice (DOJ) from interfering at polling sites on Election Day.
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On Monday, Republican Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft spoke during a press release regarding the suit.
“No one is above the law,” Ashcroft said. “The law clearly and specifically limits who may be in polling places and this action by the DOJ is not allowed. Once again the federal government is attempting to illegally interfere in Missouri’s elections.”
Last week, the DOJ announced that it would deploy election monitors to 86 voting jurisdictions across 27 states, including both Republican-led states such as Florida and Democrat-led states such as California.
According to the Washington Post, the DOJ has deployed election monitors to polling stations nationwide since the 1965 Voting Rights Act in an effort to better ensure fair ballot access and prevent partisan influence.
The number of jurisdictions to be monitored this year is a 49% increase over the 2020 election. It also roughly corresponds to the number of jurisdictions monitored by the DOJ during the 2004 election.
Ashcroft stated that in 2022, Missouri officials banned the DOJ from entering and monitoring polling places. He also said that the state has been identified as leading “the nation regarding election integrity as it pertains to accessible, secure voting with timely, credible results,” according to organizations such as the conservative Heritage Foundation.
“This is a repeat performance,” Ashcroft continued. “Two years ago, we met with the DOJ. We showed them the law and explained that they have no jurisdiction to interfere in Missouri elections. Now they are doing the same thing; trying to go through the back door by contacting local election officials and making false jurisdictional claims for access rather than contacting my office directly. The DOJ just doesn’t seem to get it – we don’t need them here; we don’t want them here. This time we are taking it a step further and filing a lawsuit against the DOJ to get them to stop the continued harassment.”
Attorney General Andrew Bailey (R-Mo.) posted to X that he filed the suit against the DOJ “for sending unauthorized poll monitors to Missouri polling locations.”
“The law is clear that @KamalaHarris can’t just send unvetted individuals into our polling places. It’s illegal and undermines trust in our elections,” he wrote.
In 2022, Florida also banned federal monitors from polling stations.
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