All over the world, vulnerable populations have cheered the news that U.S. and United Nations elections monitors would be on hand to safeguard their voting processes. Here in the United States, the Department of Justice’s election monitors have for decades observed elections and polling conditions across the country — particularly when official conduct has led to requests for outside observation.

Ahead of the 2024 General Election, the DOJ announced it would be deploying election monitors in 86 jurisdictions across 27 states. It is indicative of how warped some officials’ understanding of our political process has become that those in Florida, Texas and Missouri tried to block federal officials from observing what was happening inside their polling places.

Officials in these states must have understood such a move would lead elections officials to wonder what they were trying to hide.

Monday, filed court papers showed the DOJ said it has authority to conduct monitoring in St. Louis under a settlement agreement with that city’s board of elections aimed at ensuring people with mobility and vision impairments can access polling places. The settlement was reached in 2021 under President Donald Trump’s Justice Department after federal officials found problems, such as ramps that were too steep and inaccessible parking, according to the court papers. The settlement, which expires next year, says the board must “cooperate fully” with Justice Department’s efforts to monitor compliance, “including but not limited to providing the United States with timely access to polling places (including on Election Day).”

Why didn’t St. Louis elections officials want to cooperate?

In Florida and Texas officials pretended they were worried the federal observers would “interfere” with their elections processes. In Florida, despite protesting that merely observing equates to interfering, the secretary of state wanted to send in the state’s own observers and then have federal officials take their word for it that all was well.

“The Department of Justice has a nearly 60-year history of addressing Election Day issues to safeguard the voting rights of black citizens and other communities of color,” said Edward Casper, acting co-chief counsel at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “While some recent efforts to interfere in this process may appear more bark than bite, they still pose a real threat to civil rights enforcement.”

When one group’s civil rights are threatened, we all are threatened.

Now that the election has passed, surely citizens of the states where officials wanted to stay in the dark will demand to know what they were trying to keep out of the light.