Federal Poll Monitors Coming to Boston and Lowell. Galvin Says It's Routine, but the Administration Isn't

The U.S. Department of Justice will station election monitors in Boston and Lowell on Election Day, Nov. 3, Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin told WBUR.

Galvin, the state's chief election official, said the federal observers will check whether polling places provide required language services and are accessible to people with disabilities. "The federal observers will be there to verify these are in fact being made available to voters, that the polling locations are accessible, and if there's language issues, that there's services for them, whether it be a ballot printed in their language or translation services," he said.

Those are long-standing federal requirements. Under the Voting Rights Act's language-assistance provisions, certain jurisdictions with large populations of voters who speak a covered language must provide ballots and election materials in that language. Galvin said he has long worked with election monitors and that officials have visited Boston and Lowell in past elections.

What is different this year is the scale and the context. The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division said on social media that it planned to send 1,000 observers to polling places across the country. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon called it "the largest monitoring effort" in the department's history, WBUR reported.

"It's nothing new. It has happened under every administration," Galvin said of monitoring. But he said he understood why residents might be wary. "First of all, the statements that have been coming out of the Trump White House, but more importantly, the actions of the Justice Department that in many cases seem to be hostile to the rights of voters, and certainly to those of us in Massachusetts and other jurisdictions like us," he said. "I mean, that's not imaginary."

The department's recent actions elsewhere illustrate his point. On Wednesday, a federal judge in California denied the Justice Department's emergency request to make state officials set aside ballots tied to about 20,000 people the department called "likely" noncitizens, writing that "never before in American history has the federal government, on the eve of an election, sought to coerce a state and local government to abandon their own Constitutional elections procedures," NPR reported. The department said it would appeal. NPR also reported that federal prosecutors asked Washington state officials to review 400 registered voters and filed a suit in Alaska over certification of its Senate race.

Galvin said he is confident he can work with the department for a smooth day of voting in Boston and Lowell. He drew a clear line on what observers can do: anyone may observe precincts, but no one may interfere with voting.

Boston's early voting continues through Friday, with City Hall open until 8 p.m. Thursday, according to the city Election Department.

The Justice Department has not publicly listed which precincts in Boston and Lowell will have monitors or how many observers will be assigned to each city.