Two federal election monitors arrived in Johnson County on Tuesday, Nov. 3, part of a nationwide deployment the U.S. Department of Justice called its largest ever.

The DOJ sent approximately 1,000 monitors and observers to all 50 states for the first time in the agency's history. In Kansas, 13 monitors were dispatched to three counties: eight to Wyandotte County, three to Sedgwick County and two to Johnson County, according to the Kansas secretary of state's office, as KCUR reported.

The Johnson County Election Office said the DOJ observers were following the same rules as all poll watchers and observers in Kansas, according to KCTV5. The office said monitors had election observer badges, authorization forms and instructions to check in at each polling location and sign the poll agent log.

The DOJ did not disclose which specific polling locations within Johnson County would be monitored, according to the Kansas secretary of state's office.

The effort was coordinated by the DOJ's Civil Rights Division. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon said in a statement that the department was "pursuing transparency for elections in an assertive and nondiscriminatory manner."

By comparison, 289 monitors were deployed for the 2022 midterms and 714 for the 2024 presidential election, according to Newsweek. The DOJ monitored 86 jurisdictions across 27 states in 2024.

Kansas officials said they had prepared for the monitors. Whitney Tempel, a spokeswoman for Secretary of State Scott Schwab, said in a statement that monitors would be clearly marked and allowed only to observe, the Kansas Reflector reported.

Gov. Laura Kelly said Oct. 29 that her office had been coordinating with the secretary of state's office. "We would be naive to not be prepared," Kelly said. "The secretary of state's office has already worked with them to put some boundaries and say, 'You can go here, but you can't go there.'"

The deployment drew concern from some Kansas lawmakers. State Rep. Melissa Oropeza of Kansas City, Kansas, said in a statement that sending more than half of Kansas' federal election observers to Wyandotte County "raises legitimate concerns about disparate treatment and the message being sent to our community," according to KCUR. Oropeza said on Nov. 3 that poll watchers reported no interference from DOJ monitors.

Voting-rights groups including the NAACP and Advancement Project filed a lawsuit to block the administration from sending FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to polling places. In an Oct. 28 court filing, the DOJ said FBI and ICE personnel would not serve as monitors. Instead, monitors would include employees from the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the Drug Enforcement Administration and Customs and Border Protection, according to Newsweek.

The DOJ said monitors would not carry firearms or exercise law enforcement authority while serving, according to court filings cited by Newsweek.

The ACLU of Kansas said it planned to deploy about 250 trained volunteer poll observers across the state on Election Day. Voters with concerns can call the nonpartisan Election Protection Hotline at 866-OUR-VOTE or the DOJ's election issues hotline at 1-800-253-3931.