The Justice Department intends to send roughly 1,000 election monitors to polling places across the country for the upcoming midterm elections, according to Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon.

In an appearance Monday on Bloomberg’s “Balance of Power,” Dhillon said the deployment would represent a significant expansion of the department’s election-monitoring efforts as the Trump administration prioritizes election integrity and voter confidence. The Civil Rights Division has dispatched personnel to election “hot spots” for decades to troubleshoot problems and bolster public trust in the process.

The DOJ routinely sends monitors under administrations of both parties to enforce federal voting laws and protect eligible voters. During the 2024 presidential election, the department deployed monitors to 86 jurisdictions, and to 64 jurisdictions during the 2022 midterms, according to The Washington Post.

Dhillon said the administration has not yet finalized where monitors will be stationed. Potential targets include jurisdictions with language-access or disability-access issues, as well as areas where officials suspect voter fraud. The DOJ has already deployed monitors during this year’s primaries, including in Detroit, Hamtramck, Lansing, and East Lansing, Michigan, to ensure “transparency, ballot security, and compliance with federal law,” and also monitored polling places in three Arizona counties in July.

Democrats have raised concerns about the expanded federal presence, with a group of Democratic senators recently urging the DOJ to ensure monitors remain nonpartisan and do not interfere with state and local election administration. Dhillon, however, emphasized that election monitoring is a longstanding DOJ responsibility rather than something unique to the Trump administration.

She also said the department is confronting disputes over voter rolls, alleging that some election officials have failed to remove ineligible registrations, including noncitizens. Dhillon noted that states cooperating with the DOJ have voter rolls containing hundreds of thousands of deceased people and tens of thousands of noncitizens, while stressing that officials must investigate further before accusing anyone of voting illegally. “The goal is not so much going after one voter here or there,” Dhillon said. “It is increasing all American citizens’ confidence in our elections”.