(NewsNation) — The Justice Department regularly deploys monitors in major elections, and this year is no different.
Monitors will fan out across two dozen states, keeping eyes out for potential civil rights violations, threats to election workers or voter intimidation.
Arizona counties are among those, and this year alone, there have been at least 140 violent threats made ahead of Election Day.
More than 1.4 million early votes have already been cast in state, some of them being counted in the Maricopa County election office. More than 38% of the early votes have come in from registered Democrats, 37% from Republicans and the rest from independents or third parties.
An issue as of late in Arizona is that Democrat Katie Hobbs is the current secretary of state, responsible for overseeing the elections in Arizona. She’s also on the ballot, running for governor.
She’s resisted calls to recuse from her duties, including from Republican Senate candidate Blake Masters.
“She should have recused herself over a year ago,” Masters told NewsNation. “I think it’s really messed up that Katie Hobbs is overseeing an election that she’s also running in.”
Republicans, particularly Hobbs’ opponent Kari Lake, have said they will accept the results of a “fair and honest” election, but haven’t given specifics on what that means.
“Elected secretaries of state in Arizona have overseen elections where they’re on the ballot since statehood,” Hobbs has said about the issue. “This has not been an issue until now and I’m not going to recuse myself of the job the voters elected me to do.”
The Maricopa County elections office confirmed to NewsNation that it received 140 threats of violence in July and August, at least one saying “you will all be executed” and another threatening to tie wire around workers’ limbs and drag them by a car. Meanwhile, a package full of white powder arrived Sunday at Lake’s election headquarters.