GOP governor says he asked attorney general to look into ‘aggressive’ DOJ election observers

Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon (R) on Wednesday said election monitors deployed to the state by the Department of Justice (DOJ) were behaving in an “aggressive” and “irregular” manner during the primary election.

“It sounded like the behavior of the observers was a bit aggressive,” he said at a state canvassing board meeting Wednesday, according to NBC News .

He later added that their “behavior seemed to exceed what the authority that Congress had given them was.”

Last Tuesday, Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray earned the GOP party nomination for the House, while former state Sen. Lisa Kinney won the Democratic primary for the Cowboy State’s at-large seat in the lower chamber.

While voters cast their ballots, Debra Lee, a Laramie County clerk, said poll monitors began to ask questions about their tabulators and training guides for poll workers.

Lee told NBC News she refused to allow those deployed from the DOJ to interview voters and noted that some of their questions were “outside the scope of federal voting rights laws.”

“Shortly after learning of their presence, I spoke with a DOJ official in Washington who informed me that the decision to deploy monitors to Wyoming was made on short notice, and an email had been sent to me, but it may have gone to the wrong address,” Lee continued.

For years, the DOJ has deployed election monitors to states to observe voting across the country.

Last week, the DOJ said 1,000 poll monitors would be deployed during the midterms; dozens had already been deployed to observe primaries including the Tuesday runoff for the GOP Senate nomination in South Carolina.

“Voters deserve absolute confidence that their ballots are secure and their voices are heard without interference,” Darin Smith, the U.S. attorney for the District of Wyoming, said in a statement last week regarding poll monitors in the state.

“We are working alongside local officials to ensure every lawful vote is protected,” he added.

The minutes from Wednesday’s state canvassing meeting say Smith was informed of Gordon’s concerns regarding poll monitors’ behavior during voting.