The Justice Department begins telling counties it will monitor their polling places, in what it calls the largest election monitoring effort in its history

The letters have started arriving. The Department of Justice this week began notifying the counties it wants to monitor on Election Day, NPR has learned. Counties in Colorado, Florida, Minnesota, Texas and Washington have received notifications so far, and the list appears to be growing in real time. A department spokesperson, Kiersten Pels, told NPR the details of which jurisdictions and how many will be shared closer to the election.

Federal election monitoring is not new. The department has long deployed monitors to make sure polling places comply with federal voting laws, and under President Biden it monitored 64 jurisdictions in 24 states on Election Day in the last midterm year, 2022. The scale planned this year is new. Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general who heads the Civil Rights Division, said last month that the department plans to send 1,000 observers nationwide, in what she called the largest monitoring effort in the department's history.

The reception on the ground is split along the lines the election itself is splitting. To the administration, observers are a guarantee that the law is followed in the places where complaints concentrate. To many local officials and election experts, this year is different: they point to the president's continuing claim that the 2020 election was stolen and to his administration's steps to pull election administration toward Washington, and they worry federal law enforcement could use fraud claims as a pretext to interfere in counting. At least one county official notified this week is already raising questions about why his locality is on the list.

Both sides are describing the same observers. What they disagree about is what the observers are for. The answer will be tested on November 3, in the counties that have now been told to expect company, as of October 22.