SAN JUAN COUNTY, Utah — For the second straight major election, the Justice Department will send staff to Utah to specifically monitor voting in San Juan County.
Department officials announced Friday that it will be monitoring compliance with federal voting rights laws in 27 states during Tuesday's election.
The federal agency also sent team members to San Juan County during the 2022 national elections.
While it's very common for the Justice Department to monitor locations across the country during elections, it has done so for over five decades, it is somewhat newsworthy that San Juan County in southeastern Utah was selected again.
In 2021, FOX 13 News political reporter Ben Winslow reported on how the county had reached a settlement with the U.S. government to provide voter assistance in Navajo through next week's election.
That agreement, reached between the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission, San Juan County and the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah, was an extension of an existing settlement reached over ballot access. The ACLU and Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission sued alleging that the county's switch to vote-by-mail blocked ballot access.
"The Justice Department enforces federal voting rights laws that protect the rights of all eligible citizens to access the ballot. The department regularly deploys its staff to monitor for compliance with federal civil rights laws in elections in communities all across the country," a release from the Justice Department said Friday.
The department staffs locations to quell any fears over potential voter intimidation at polling places and ballot boxes.
In 2022, the Associated Press wrote that the "monitors are lawyers who work for the U.S. government. They are not law enforcement officers or federal agents. They generally include lawyers from the Justice Department’s civil rights division and U.S. attorney’s offices across the nation."
