The Trump administration has been sued over its plan to deploy a large number of election monitors at polling stations across the US during next month’s midterm elections, with the NAACP alleging that the move could intimidate voters and interfere with the electoral process.The Guardian reported that the NAACP has filed a lawsuit against Harmeet Dhillon, head of the justice department’s civil rights division, over the planned deployment. Dhillon has said she hopes to send around 1,000 monitors to polling sites during the November midterm elections.The lawsuit seeks to force the Trump administration to release records related to the planned deployment. The NAACP said it had requested the documents under the Freedom of Information Act on September 1, but the Justice Department had not complied with the request.The civil rights organisation said the release of the records was necessary to protect voting rights and ensure transparency ahead of the elections.“There is no federal statute that gives the US Department of Justice the right to send their so-called ‘election monitors’ to polling sites across the country,” said Kristen Clarke, the NAACP’s general counsel and a former head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division under President Joe Biden.Clarke accused the Trump administration of seeking to disrupt how elections are conducted and said the deployment could interfere with voters’ ability to participate without intimidation.Attorney General Todd Blanche said Sunday that election monitors would be deployed in all 50 states. Speaking to Fox News, he defended the programme, saying the Justice Department had monitored elections for decades.“Since the 60s, the Department of Justice has monitored elections,” Blanche said, adding that the Trump administration was following the practice of previous administrations.The Justice Department said its election monitors would comply with all legal and ethical requirements and would not interfere with the voting process. It said the programme was consistent with its longstanding practice of monitoring elections for compliance with federal law.The deployment has also drawn criticism from within the Republican Party. Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon objected in August to the conduct of two federal election monitors who arrived at a polling station during the state’s primary elections without prior notice and attempted to examine voting machines.The Justice Department rejected Gordon’s characterization of the monitors’ conduct as aggressive or improper, saying its officials had held a cordial meeting with the governor and other state officials.The NAACP, however, said monitors deployed during the primary season had arrived without public or jurisdictional notice and without clear evidence that they were present for a legitimate civil rights purpose.With the midterm elections only weeks away, the organisation is seeking judicial intervention to obtain records on the Justice Department’s plans and determine whether its election-monitoring efforts could undermine voters and local election officials.