Civil rights lawyers have hauled President Donald Trump's Justice Department into federal court over its plan to deploy what the agency has billed as "a historic number" of election-monitoring initiatives for the November 3 election.

The NAACP has filed suit against Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general who heads the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, seeking information about the department's plans to send more than 1,000 election monitors to polling places.

The lawsuit, brought in federal court in Washington, asks a judge to compel the department to respond to a Freedom of Information Act request submitted on September 1. The statute gives the public a right of access to federal agency records and generally requires agencies to respond within 20 business days — and once that window lapses, requesters may go to court to enforce it. According to the NAACP, the Justice Department missed the statutory deadline to act on that request, and the group is seeking emergency intervention before Election Day.

The complaint argues that the planned deployment "stands to jeopardize the election" and could interfere with voters' ability to cast ballots "free from intimidation."

The records request seeks details on the legal basis for the operation, the locations where monitors will be deployed, how they will be selected and trained, whether state officials consented to their presence, and whether personnel from federal law enforcement agencies could take part — particulars that would clarify how extensive the federal presence at polling places will be on Election Day.

The scale of the operation has drawn attention since Dhillon said the department aims to send roughly 1,000 monitors to polling stations. Attorney General Todd Blanche said on Sunday that monitors would be dispatched to all 50 states, describing the effort as consistent with the Justice Department's long-standing role in elections.

The department has for years sent federal officials to oversee compliance with voting-rights laws — a practice that dates back to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which established the modern framework for federal election oversight. The NAACP contends, however, that this year's initiative has departed from that traditional function and is instead focused on examining allegations related to ballot security.

In a statement to The Guardian, the Justice Department said its observers "comply with all legal and ethical requirements" and would not intervene in the voting process.

Concerns about how the monitors would operate intensified after an incident during Wyoming's primary. Republican Governor Mark Gordon said two federal monitors arrived at a polling place unannounced and attempted to inspect voting machines, calling their actions "aggressive, unexpected, and disruptive." The department rejected that characterization, stating that the monitors had done nothing improper.

Kristen Clarke, the NAACP's general counsel, who previously led the Civil Rights Division under President Joe Biden, said the organization wants the government to disclose the authority it considers the basis for the operation and the way in which it plans to carry it out.

With Election Day now less than a month away, the dispute is set to place part of Trump's election operation before a federal judge — and could force the Justice Department to make public the details of what the NAACP describes as the largest election-monitoring operation in the history of the United States.