Gov Healey suspicious of what federal election monitors are really looking for

BOSTON — With Election Season fast approaching, access to the polls is another battleground political issue.

Last week, the Department of Justice announced it is sending federal election monitors to six states, including Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

The monitors will observe voters in Boston and New Bedford in Massachusetts, and in New Hampshire: Manchester and Nashua.

The DOJ insists it is watching communities in both Republican and Democrat run states where there have been election day issues in the recent past, in an effort to increase voter confidence.

“It’s also important to make sure that our voting is accurate so that every citizen who votes has their vote counted equally without having their vote cancelled out by someone who shouldn’t be voting,” said Harmeet Dhillon, Assistant US Attorney General for Civil Rights in a recent post on X.

Federal election monitors have previously been sent to Massachusetts polling places, but Massachusetts Democrats say this is different.

They say the DOJ recently sent out letters warning state officials across the country that they could be criminally prosecuted if the department finds non-citizens are on the voting rolls.

At the State House, Governor Maura Healey is highly skeptical about what the feds will be doing when the election monitors arrive in Massachusetts.

“The tactics of sending DOJ monitors, we know what this is about. It’s about intimidation. It’s just an effort to try to scare voters, to scare people away from the polls, and that’s what this is about,” Governor Healey said at the State House Wednesday.

Governor Healey added that no matter what the federal election monitors do, she said she’ll work to make sure everyone gets the chance to vote.

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