WASHINGTON — The Justice Department plans to send 1,000 monitors to watch voting during the midterm elections in November, a historic figure for a Republican administration, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said.

Dhillon, who oversees DOJ’s civil rights division, said the monitors’ job will be to observe whether elections are being conducted fairly. The announcement comes as President Donald Trump — facing sagging poll numbers — repeatedly warns that Democrats will “cheat” in order to retake control of Congress.

Dhillon described her plans as consistent with DOJ policy in previous elections, saying in an interview Monday at Bloomberg’s Washington office that “we just did it in the primary. We will do it to the tune of approximately 1,000 election monitors in the November election. This is something that DOJ does.”

She said this year’s deployment is “probably going to be a historic number for a Republican administration.”

The planned deployment comes amid growing apprehension across the country about federal interference at the polls. Critics fear the administration might send armed agents to locations near polling sites.

Dhillon, 57, said the role of the monitors is to observe and follow up with any investigations, not to intervene. She said that they have the same status as any other election monitor under state law, adding that they will help instill confidence in the election process.

“We respect state law,” Dhillon said. “We reach out to the states. If their perimeter is 150 yards, we respect that.”

Dhillon conceded that not all states have welcomed the federal outreach, but she said it was important to have a cooperative relationship with state and local elections officials.

The monitors are being trained on the same material used by previous administrations, Dhillon said. They would be looking for things like barriers to voting for people with disabilities, in addition to cases of election fraud, she added.

The department recently sent monitors to watch the polls in four Democratic-leaning cities in Michigan that are home to the state’s largest Black, Arab-American and college-student populations. The agency also sent election monitors to Arizona during that state’s primary in July.

Separately, Dhillon has waged an aggressive and controversial battle to obtain voting records from states, including nonpublic information such as partial Social Security numbers and other data in an effort she said is focused on ensuring that people are properly registered to vote. So far, the department has lost nearly two dozen lawsuits out of more than 30 it’s filed to obtain the data.

In her interview, Dhillon didn’t rule out going to the Supreme Court before the election with regard to accessing state voting rolls. She said that the “perception of noncitizen voting depresses citizens from turning out to vote because they believe there’s a lack of integrity in the process.”

The issue of non-citizens voting is smaller “numerically from what we’re finding, but it’s not trivial,” she added.

New Jersey Democratic Governor Mikie Sherill recently said about 6,600 noncitizens were inadvertently registered to vote due to a software error in the state’s motor vehicle system between June 2023 and June 2024, and about 400 of those people voted in elections.

In another controversial move, Dhillon sent letters to state election officials threatening them with the possibility of criminal prosecution if they knowingly allow noncitizens to register and vote in their elections.

The department’s actions come as Trump has continued his unfounded allegations that the 2020 election was stolen. In July, Trump devoted a prime-time address to reviving unsubstantiated claims and raising doubts about the security of the upcoming midterms. He also refused to rule out declaring a national emergency ahead of the election.

Dhillon said she had not been asked to weigh in on any potential plans to declare a national emergency, saying such discussions would be above her pay grade.

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(With assistance from Zoe Tillman and Myles Miller.)

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