Georgia election 2026: Officials react to return of DOJ observers to metro Atlanta county

The Trump administration calls it the largest deployment of Election Day poll watchers in the history of the Department of Justice, with state lawmakers and elections officials in Georgia are urging Democratic voters not to be concerned by their presence.

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Monitors will observe polls in six Georgia counties, all of them with Democratic majorities where Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won handily in the last two presidential elections.

“That is nothing unusual,” said Sandra William, president of the North Georgia Labor Council, during a news conference Wednesday near the State Capitol. “We don’t want to cause any fear for anyone. Please know that we want you to vote.”

The counties include Fulton, Cobb, DeKalb, Gwinnett, Bibb – home to Macon – and Chatham, which encompasses Savannah.

“And just because there are observers coming should not keep you from coming to the polls,” said state senator Nikki Merritt, D-Gwinnett, who serves as the chair of the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus. “All that rhetoric in D.C., they can say what they want, they can do what they want, you can bring your observers, but we here in the state of Georgia, we’re gonna show up to vote.”

Merritt and other Black lawmakers and community leaders said President Donald Trump’s false claims of winning the 2020 election, his possible efforts at retribution, and his assertion that election fraud is “rampant,” could make voters nervous about aggressive poll watchers.

“You shouldn’t allow fear or uncertainty or anxiety, or whatever it is you’re feeling, to keep you from the polls,” Merritt said.

In an email, a spokesperson for the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office said, “There is nothing unusual about the DOJ sending monitors this election.”

The office provided records showing the DOJ under President Joe Biden sent observers to the same counties in 2024. But this year, the DOJ is deploying 1,000 monitors to all 50 states. That’s compared to 388 monitors sent during the last midterms, under President Joe Biden, and just more than 700 in 2024.

Channel 2’s Bryan Mims called and sent an email to the DOJ seeking information about how the department selects counties to monitor, and why so many are being deployed this year, but did not hear back.

Kelvin Williams, the acting elections supervisor in Gwinnett County, said the monitors have observed the county’s polling places for all general elections since 2016. That’s when the county, which has the state’s most diverse demographics, was named by the Voting Rights Act as a Section 203 county, meaning it must provide ballots in more than just English.

“Voters will likely not notice these individuals at the polling locations,” he said. “They will be discreet.”

DOJ monitors, who will be in plain clothes and work only on Election Day, are strictly required to be neutral observers and not intervene in the voting process. Their job is to report any possible violations of federal elections law.

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“They will also be monitoring to ensure that we are complying with federal regulations of ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) and well as provisions of HAVA (Help America Vote Act) to include provisional ballots at the polling locations,” he said.

Williams said DOJ watchers are permitted to speak with voters if they suspect they may have been subjected to any voting rights violations.

“They are permitted to follow the voter outside of the polling location and inquire of the interaction,” he said.

Gwinnett County voters said they were unmoved by observers at polling places.

“I’m not intimidated by it, though it could be seen as intimidation factor,” said Janet Williams.

She said the deployment of so many DOJ monitors sends a message about the Trump administration. “I think it says that they’re concerned, they’re concerned about what the voters are gonna do. It shows that they’re concerned about people getting out to vote and may feel like they’re losing their grip.”

David Burke agreed.

“Trump started all this when he thought he won in 2020,” he said. “He doesn’t want the Democrats to win at all. He wants everybody to be Republicans.”

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