Attorney General Merrick Garland on Monday vowed that the US Justice Department “will not permit voters to be intimidated” during November’s midterm elections.

“The Justice Department has an obligation to guarantee a free and fair vote by everyone who’s qualified to vote and will not permit voters to be intimidated,” Garland said during a press briefing.

With just over two weeks left until the midterm elections, the threat of violence and voter intimidation in Arizona has ramped up significantly.

On Friday night, two armed and masked men wearing tactical gear surveilled a drop box outside the Maricopa County Juvenile Court building in Mesa. 

Maricopa County Election Department said that the police had been called, and that the armed individuals departed the scene. 

The Department of Justice is already investigating possible incidents of voter intimidation at drop boxes after voters reported that people monitoring voting locations harassed them and accused them of helping to steal the election.

The investigation was sparked by a report from an Arizona voter who felt they’d been intimidated while posting their ballot at a drop box in Maricopa County. They later flagged the incident to the Arizona secretary of state.

A federal lawsuit is accusing police in North Carolina of voter intimidation after they deployed pepper spray during a get-out-the vote rally and hauled several participants to jail in a chaotic display of pre-Election Day discord.

The complaint, filed late Monday against the police chief of Graham, a rural community west of Durham, and the Alamance County sheriff, says that protesters were not expecting conflict at Saturday's "I Am Change" march, but that the situation escalated "when deputies and officers planned and orchestrated the violent dispersal" of a peaceful crowd.

Officials have covered up a noose on display near polling booths in Missouri, after local Democrats argued it could intimidate black voters.

The incident is one of a number of controversial occurrences in the final days of the US election campaign.

Meanwhile a Democratic campaign bus in Texas was encircled by supporters of President Donald Trump, a Republican.

And a rally to promote voting in North Carolina ended with attendants getting pepper-sprayed and arrested.

In 1981, the Republican National Committee sent hundreds of armed, off-duty police officers to the polls in the state of New Jersey. Dressed in official-looking “National Ballot Security Task Force” armbands, they demanded voter registration cards from people waiting in line in heavily Black and Hispanic districts, turning some voters away and intimidating others into not voting at all.

In 1981, the Republican National Committee sent hundreds of armed, off-duty police officers to the polls in the state of New Jersey. Dressed in official-looking “National Ballot Security Task Force” armbands, they demanded voter registration cards from people waiting in line in heavily Black and Hispanic districts, turning some voters away and intimidating others into not voting at all.

Voting rights advocates and civic groups have rushed to the courthouse in a bid to block Republican Gov. Greg Abbott's Oct. 1 order allowing Texas counties no more than one drop-off location for voters casting absentee ballots, calling the directive an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote that will disproportionately impact voters of color in the state’s biggest cities.

The group of Trump campaign officials came carrying cellphone cameras and a determination to help the president’s re-election efforts in Philadelphia. But they were asked to leave the city’s newly opened satellite election offices on Tuesday after being told local election laws did not permit them to monitor voters coming to request and complete absentee ballots.

Georgia state Rep. Vernon Jones, a Democrat, accused his party of voter suppression in response to the condemnation he received for endorsing President Trump's reelection campaign.

Earlier this month, Jones, 59, cited the president's work on criminal justice reform and unemployment numbers for black people before the economic downturn that resulted from the coronavirus shutdown as reasons why he supported the president.