Republican governor asks his AG to look into ‘aggressive’ behavior by Trump admin’s election monitors
By Kaanita Iyer, CNN
(CNN) — Wyoming’s Republican Gov. Mark Gordon voiced concerns about the Justice Department election monitors who observed the primary election in his state last week, saying he’s asked his attorney general to look into their “aggressive” behavior.
The Justice Department sent two Civil Rights Division attorneys to Laramie County, Wyoming, which includes the state capital of Cheyenne. But some officials, including the state attorney general, weren’t made aware of the move in advance, Gordon said at a state canvassing board meeting Wednesday.
“It sounded like the behavior of the observers was a bit aggressive,” Gordon said, adding, “It just was irregular and, and I have asked the attorney general to start looking into … the nature of the visits and all that sort of stuff.”
The DOJ, when reached for comment, pointed CNN to an August 18 statement from Wyoming US Attorney Darin Smith: “Voters deserve absolute confidence that their ballots are secure and their voices are heard without interference…. We are working alongside local officials to ensure every lawful vote is protected.”
CNN has reached out to the governor’s office for comment.
The DOJ said it has sent more than 80 monitors to seven states so far this year for primary elections, as of Tuesday. The department has said it would send about 1,000 monitors to polling sites in November.
Gordon’s criticism comes as President Donald Trump continues to sow doubt about elections. Earlier this year, he baselessly alleged there was cheating in the Los Angeles mayoral primary election before the DOJ sent a prosecutor to observe ballot processing. The president also still claims, without evidence, that the 2020 election he lost to former President Joe Biden was rigged.
Democrats and voting rights activists raised concerns last year, ahead of the off-year elections, that the monitors could be used to undermine the voting process or as a precursor to sow doubts about the election. But the Trump administration had insisted monitors are being sent out in line with decadeslong federal monitoring practices.
Gordon said he isn’t against the idea of election monitors, but raised concerns that the “behavior” of the ones deployed to Wyoming “seemed to exceed what the authority that Congress had given them was.”
“I’m not saying anything went wrong or anything else, and I certainly think that the conduct of this election was phenomenal,” Gordon said. But, he added, “I don’t like the federal government coming in and taking our votes.”
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CNN’s Hannah Rabinowitz and Fredreka Schouten contributed to this report.
