MARYLAND (WBFF) — Heading into the November election, the Department of Justice (DOJ) recently sent letters to election officials across the country threatening criminal charges if election laws are violated.
The DOJ, which says they are focused on ensuring “free, fair, and transparent elections,” sent letters to election officials in all 50 states and Washington D.C., warning they could face charges.
“Federal law mandates that state and local election officials properly maintain election records and undertake certain actions to ensure that only eligible U.S. citizens cast votes in elections for federal office,” the letter said.
“Any election officer, including the chief election officer of the state, who knowingly retains noncitizens on the state’s SVRL or facilitates noncitizens in receiving and casting ballots could be subject to criminal liability. An intentional act that is aimed at diluting the votes of citizens could also constitute a violation of 18 U.S.C. 241, which makes it unlawful for two or more persons to conspire to injure any person in the exercise of that person’s constitutional rights,” the letter added.
Harmeet Dhillon, the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, for the Department of Justice signed the letter. She has previously said they have found that voter rolls across the country have not been kept updated, meaning they have found duplicate or ineligible voters, a problem she said they have found in both blue and red states.
However, in Maryland Elections Administrator Jared DeMarinis has repeatedly said the state’s elections are safe, secure, and follow all proper procedures and protocols. However, FOX 45 has not yet received a response from the Maryland State Board of Elections about the letter as of Thursday afternoon.
“This is really an attempt by the Trump Administration to place federal control over state elections,” said political expert John Dedie.
“I’ve actually talked with Jared DeMarinis about this, and they do have people that literally check the obituaries every day, and you can, yes, you can always miss a person here and there. There’s always a lot of people that will throw the accusations around, but in the end, they often find out, well, there’s a legitimate reason why this stuff happens, and I think that what they’re trying to do is spook a lot of people into saying, “Oh my God, there’s some sort of election corruption,” Dedie added.
During the Primary election, there was a major mail-in ballot printing error, which forced state officials to resend about half a million mail-in ballots. However, there is no indication that there have been any incidents of fraud in Maryland’s election.
This also comes as a federal judge tossed out a Justice Department lawsuit seeking the state’s unredacted voter rolls.
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