JEFFERSON CITY — Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft is supporting a local election official’s decision to block the U.S. Department of Justice from monitoring Tuesday’s election in Cole County.
As part of its duties to enforce federal voting rights laws, the Justice Department it would be in the field in 64 jurisdictions spread across 24 states for the midterm election.
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The lone site in Missouri is Cole County, home to Jefferson City and the state Capitol.
But Cole County Clerk Steve Korsmeyer has said no to the on-site visits to polling places. Ashcroft, a Republican who plans to run for governor in 2024, is backing him up, accusing the federal government of trying to “bully” local election workers.
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“While the U.S. DOJ could clearly learn a lot from Missouri about non-partisanship and how to administer accessible, secure and credible elections, it would be highly inappropriate for federal agents to violate the law by intimidating Missouri voters at the polls on Election Day,” Ashcroft said in a tweet Monday.
Korsmeyer told The Associated Press, “The DOJ won’t be allowed into our polling locations,” citing a state statute that gives him power in deciding who, other than election workers, is allowed to enter polling places. He said federal agents he spoke with were “very respectful and said they wouldn’t enter our polling locations on Election Day.”
A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office confirmed the statement.
“We will have monitors outside the polling locations in Cole County to monitor compliance with federal civil rights laws. But the monitors won’t go inside the buildings,” the DOJ spokesman said.
Ashcroft spokesman JoDonn Chaney said DOJ officials met with Secretary of State attorneys Monday. But he said Justice Department officials didn’t tell Ashcroft why they want to visit the polling places.
“They are telling us we’ve got complaints about you, but they aren’t telling us what they are,” Chaney said. “Whatever the issue is, tell us what it is. But they aren’t doing that. How can we fix it if we don’t know what the problem is?”
Korsmeyer received a letter from the department in October saying it had received complaints alleging that the clerk’s office “failed to provide an accessible voting machine at each polling place during past elections.”
The letter said the Justice Department is opening an investigation into the allegations.
It is not the first time the Justice Department has assigned monitors during an election. In 2001, for example, Ashcroft’s father, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, also a Republican, oversaw a voting integrity initiative in the wake of the disputed 2000 presidential election.
Along with the Oct. 27 letter, Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles M. Thomas asked for a meeting with Korsmeyer on Thursday to outline a plan for attorneys working with the Justice Department’s disability rights section to visit and observe polling places in and around Jefferson City on Tuesday.
“Rest assured that we understand that you will be administering the election and we will try to minimize the time we spend at each site,” Thomas wrote in an email.
The nationwide monitoring plan is not a surprise. Two weeks ago, U.S. attorneys throughout the nation outlined their goals to keep the 2022 general election from being marred by the same false claims of voter fraud that roiled the 2020 election and have been repeatedly pushed by former President Donald Trump and other Republicans in the run-up to this year’s contests.
Teresa Moore, the U.S. attorney for Missouri’s western district, issued a statement in October that said voting is the cornerstone of American democracy.
“We all must ensure that those who are entitled to the franchise can exercise it if they choose and that those who seek to corrupt it are brought to justice,” Moore said.
Federal law protects against such crimes as threatening violence against election officials or staff, intimidating or bribing voters, buying and selling votes, impersonating voters, altering vote tallies, stuffing ballot boxes and marking ballots for voters against their wishes or without their input.
Federal law also contains protections for the rights of voters and provides that they can vote free from interference, including intimidation, and other acts designed to prevent or discourage people from voting or voting for the candidate of their choice.
But Ashcroft said under Missouri law, the local election authority is empowered to decide who, other than voters and poll workers, may be at polling locations.
At the same time, the U.S. Attorney’s Office is authorized under federal law to determine if a clerk is complying with the American with Disabilities Act and can determine whether it can be fixed voluntarily or if legal action must be taken.
Updated at 6:40 p.m.