Federal election monitors are headed to Oregon, and Salem-area voters should know: any observer who shows up at Marion County Elections on Nov. 3 faces strict rules.
The U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division notified Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read's office on Thursday, Oct. 22, that federal monitors would observe ballot processing in Multnomah County on Election Day, KGW reported.
No source in available reporting indicates Marion County has received a similar notification. But Marion County Clerk Bill Burgess's observer guidelines for the Nov. 3 election already bar observers from interacting with staff, handling ballots, using cell phones or recording devices.
Observers must sign in, wear a name badge, stay in assigned locations and keep six feet from election workers. Some processes may only be viewed via closed-circuit camera.
Oregon is one of at least 10 states to receive DOJ monitoring notices, according to the Oregon Capital Chronicle. The others include Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Texas, Utah and Washington.
Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general leading the Civil Rights Division, announced plans to send 1,000 monitors nationwide. The Statesman Journal reported the figure is roughly triple the number deployed in the 2022 midterms. OPB reported that the DOJ told Bloomberg it would deploy "up to 1,000" monitors.
Read said DOJ monitors will have no special authority in Oregon. They cannot enter restricted election facilities, inspect voting equipment, handle ballots or demand access to election records, according to The Oregonian.
"The fact that people are coming from the USDOJ, that's fine. They have the same access that anyone else does, but they don't have more, and we expect them to follow the rules," Read said, according to KGW.
Multnomah County Elections Director Tim Scott told KGW the DOJ emailed him days before the announcement.
He said the agency outlined what monitors would and would not do, and that it aligned with the county's own observer agreement. Scott called the federal presence a new development.
"I can't actually remember them ever coming here so I guess it is not typical," Scott told KGW.
The deployment follows a Wyoming incident that raised alarms. During that state's August primary, Republican Gov. Mark Gordon said DOJ monitors acted aggressively, including requesting to examine voting machines, according to the Oregon Capital Chronicle. Gordon asked Wyoming's attorney general to investigate. The DOJ has denied the monitors acted improperly, OPB reported.
A DOJ spokesperson told KGW that monitors in Portland would "merely observe and report any potential violations of federal law," with reviews happening after Election Day. The monitors will dress in business casual with no DOJ-identifying pins, OPB reported.
The monitoring comes amid broader friction between the Trump administration and Oregon over elections.
Oregon successfully fought federal demands for voter data, prevailing in court, and joined lawsuits challenging an executive order targeting mail-in voting, according to OPB.
Attorney General Dan Rayfield filed a multistate brief urging a federal court to reject the DOJ's attempt to stop California officials from counting ballots, according to a press release from Rayfield's office.
A Secretary of State spokesperson told the Statesman Journal the office is "looking at all of our options" but could not say whether Oregon would assign state staff to accompany DOJ observers.
Minnesota used that approach during its August primary, and California has set up a similar program for the general election, the Statesman Journal reported.
Oregon ballots have been mailed and must be returned by 8 p.m. on Nov. 3 or postmarked by Election Day. Read has advised voters to use drop boxes instead of mailing ballots, according to the Statesman Journal.
