Justice Department to Send Federal Election Monitors to Kentucky's Jefferson and Fayette Counties

The U.S. Justice Department will station federal election monitors in Kentucky’s two most populous counties on Election Day, according to a notice the department sent to state election officials this week.

The department’s Civil Rights Division informed Secretary of State Michael Adams and Karen Sellers, executive director of the State Board of Elections, in an Oct. 21 notice that monitors would be present in Jefferson and Fayette counties on Nov. 3, WHAS11 reported Friday. Jefferson County includes Louisville, and Fayette County includes Lexington. The two counties have more registered Democrats than any of Kentucky’s other 118 counties.

Indiana Counties Also Notified

Election officials in neighboring Indiana received similar word. The Justice Department told the Marion County Election Board, which runs elections in Indianapolis, that it plans to send monitors there, and Lake County in northwest Indiana will also receive them. Both are Democratic strongholds in a state where Republicans hold most offices.

A Justice Department email to the Marion County board, released by the Indiana Capital Chronicle, said the division would monitor compliance with federal laws including the Voting Rights Act, the National Voter Registration Act, the Help America Vote Act, the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act. The email asked the board to schedule a 30-minute meeting with department staff before Oct. 29.

“As the Civil Rights Division has done in the past, our monitors only observe. They do not intrude or interfere in any way in the voting process,” the email stated.

Marion County Clerk Kate Sweeney Bell said her office was given no explanation for the selection. “We were not told what criteria was used to make this determination, and we do not know why the Department of Justice chose these two specific counties in this election cycle in this particular state,” she said.

U.S. Rep. André Carson, a Democrat who represents most of Indianapolis, criticized the choice in a news release. “Out of 92 counties in Indiana, Trump’s DOJ has chosen two counties with the largest populations of Democratic voters and Black and Hispanic voters to subject to ‘election monitoring.’ It’s no coincidence,” Carson said.

What the Department Says

A Justice Department spokesperson said monitors will be sent to all 50 states for what the department called routine election monitoring.

“All monitors must meet the same legal and ethical requirements, including that they not interfere with the voting process. Every monitor has the same role: observe for potential violations of federal law and report concerns to the Department, which the Department will review after Election Day and act where appropriate,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

In its notice to Kentucky, the department said the monitors “only observe and take notes” and would alert a team lead for the jurisdiction if they saw an election problem. Under the department’s rules, monitors may not interfere with voting, may not speak with voters inside polling places, must follow state and local rules, and may not carry firearms.

A Larger Federal Presence

Sending federal monitors to polling places is not new. In 2024, the Biden administration sent monitors to 86 jurisdictions in 27 states, including Jefferson and Kenton counties in Kentucky.

This year’s effort is expected to be considerably larger. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who leads the Civil Rights Division, said last month that the department would send 1,000 monitors nationwide in what she called “the largest monitoring effort” in the department’s history.

Kentucky voters will choose a replacement for retiring Sen. Mitch McConnell on Nov. 3, with Republican Rep. Andy Barr facing Democrat Charles Booker.