The U.S. Department of Justice plans to send federal election observers to Adams County on Election Day for what it’s calling routine monitoring.
But notification about the visit to voting centers quickly sparked concerns from Colorado election officials amid broader attempts this year by the Trump administration to interfere with mail voting, so far unsuccessfully.
“I think there’s a heightened scrutiny on it because of this administration’s hostile approach to both truth and election administration generally,” said Matt Crane, the executive director of the Colorado County Clerks Association.
The Douglas County clerk’s office had also received a letter from the DOJ notifying it of a plan to send election observers there, too, as this story originally reported. But in response to a request for more information from the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office, a DOJ official told the state in an email about 3:40 p.m. that the notification to Douglas County was a mistake and only Adams was planned for monitoring.
Adams County’s letter from the DOJ was first reported by 9News on Wednesday night. The secretary of state said Thursday that it also received a DOJ notification about Adams County.
Part of Adams County is in the hotly contested 8th Congressional District, where Republican U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans is trying to fend off a challenge from Democrat Manny Rutinel. The race could be pivotal for determining control of Congress.
The vast majority of Coloradans’ ballots are cast by mail or by depositing them into drop boxes, but every county also offers in-person voting options.
In a Wednesday email to Secretary of State Jena Griswold, Jake T. Bachand, a regional coordinator for the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, said the monitoring in Adams County was a routine measure to ensure compliance with federal election laws — such as language assistance.
“The monitoring by the Civil Rights Division is done in the same way as in the past,” Bachand wrote. “Our monitors only observe and take notes. They do not intrude or interfere in any way in the voting process.”
The letter goes on to say that federal officials will introduce themselves to the polling site manager, present government IDs and dress in business-casual clothing.
Justice Department spokesperson Kiersten Pels said in an email that Adams County was chosen because it is covered under Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act for language assistance — specifically Spanish — to ensure those who need help receive it. The county is home to a large Latino population.
Adams County Clerk Josh Zygielbaum, a Democrat, said that raises questions for him about whether the county’s selection is politically motivated. He said past monitoring has usually been in response to a specific reason, such as when the county was designated for language assistance under the Voting Rights Act, as opposed to the federal government being there proactively.
“It almost validates my concern about what their intent is to come here: to intimidate that voting population,” he said of Latino voters.
Crane, a Republican who previously served as Arapahoe County clerk, also questioned the DOJ’s reasoning, saying there are plenty of other Colorado counties with Spanish-speaking voters that are not at the center of a battleground congressional race.
“They may think everybody else is stupid, but we see through,” Crane said.
Pels did not answer a question about whether any other Colorado counties would have Justice Department observers on Election Day. Pels said the department’s voting rights section is notifying local jurisdictions and state election officials this week about its monitoring plans.
National Public Radio reported Wednesday that the DOJ had sent similar notifications to counties in Florida, Minnesota, Texas and Washington state this week, as the department made plans to deploy 1,000 observers nationally for the election, its largest-ever monitoring effort.
And federal monitoring has already caused concern this year.
Wyoming’s attorney general in August launched an investigation into how two Justice Department observers monitored poll workers and voters during this year’s primary elections, after the state’s Republican governor, Mark Gordon, called their behavior “a bit aggressive” and “irregular.”
The Colorado Secretary of State’s Office earlier this month changed a rule for election observers that had exempted poll watchers representing the Justice Department from needing approval from the office before they arrived to monitor.
Under the new rule, which went into effect on Oct. 9, all federal observers must receive permission from the state.
While monitoring by federal officials is routine, the secretary of state’s office couldn’t say whether DOJ officials, specifically, have been deployed to Colorado counties to observe past elections. Crane said he believes they have.
Secretary of state spokesperson Jack Todd said in an email Thursday that the office was considering the Justice Department’s request in collaboration with the Colorado Attorney General’s Office but had not yet granted it. The office sent a letter to DOJ officials requesting more information, including specific locations where they would like the monitors to observe and areas they would like to access.
The Justice Department under presidents from both administrations has long deployed election monitors to ensure compliance with federal laws.
But election officials have raised concerns about federal involvement under President Donald Trump, who continues to spread baseless claims about mail-voting fraud and who tried to overturn his own defeat in the 2020 presidential election.
“President Trump sending his DOJ monitors to Adams County — home to more than 200,000 Latino residents — is nothing more than a transparent attempt to undermine confidence in our election and intimidate voters,” said Amanda Gonzalez, Jefferson County’s clerk and the Democratic nominee for secretary of state, in a statement.
Gonzalez, too, highlighted that part of Adams County is in the battleground 8th District.
Rutinel, the district’s Democratic candidate, in a statement Thursday, said every eligible voter “deserves to cast a ballot freely, safely and without intimidation.”
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