U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., wrote a letter to Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen Friday expressing concern over Van Hollen's plan to deploy assistant attorneys general and special agents to the polls Tuesday.
In the letter, Feingold asked Van Hollen to reconsider this plan.
The announcement and execution of your plans may have the effect of discouraging legitimate voters from attempting to case their votes,"" Feingold said in the letter.
If Van Hollen decides to continue with this action, Feingold requested in the letter that he provide information about where the Department of Justice employees will be sent out, how the locations were chosen and what the employees will be doing.
Feingold also requested Van Hollen not deploy law enforcement personnel to polling places, saying they would intimidate voters.
According to a statement from elections task force coordinators Kevin Potter and Roy Korte from the Wisconsin Department of Justice, Van Hollen and the DOJ have the authority to enforce Wisconsin's election laws.
The coordinators said these DOJ employees would assist local law enforcement agencies on issues they do not have expertise in.
""The fact is that district attorneys and local law enforcement agencies do not deal with election law issues on a daily basis and do not have the same level of expertise as they do in other matters,"" the statement reads.
Potter and Korte said law permits election observers, as long as they comply with rules established by the Government Accountability Board.
Alec Loftus, communications director for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, said he thinks Van Hollen is using his staff to carry out the bidding of the Republican Party.
According to Loftus, these employees at the polls would suppress voter turnout and disenfranchise voters in heavily Democratic areas.
