On June 18, the Justice Department announced that it will be monitoring elections in Galveston, Texas on June 19.

One wonders why it is necessary to wait until the last second to announce such an undertaking.  According to the June 18 press release, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is doing the coverage.  This means that the observers got to Galveston most likely on June 17.  Captains and co-captains got to Galveston on either June 17 or June 16. Plus, everyone involved knew they would be there days ago.  They didn’t just make plane reservations today.  Yet the Department waited until the day before the election to announce a large federal presence will be monitoring a state election.

The same thing happened in May.  One day notice.

The same thing happened in April.

The same thing happened in March.

In fact, this will be the fourth time the Voting Section has been monitoring Galveston elections in the last four months.

The Department should provide earlier public notice about the decision to monitor elections.  It would be in keeping with a more transparent operation.