California deploys state election observers to offset federal presence

California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced Tuesday that his office will send state election observers to polling places. He stated this move responds to fears that federal monitors from the Justice Department could intimidate voters.

The state is repeating a strategy it used in the last two elections. During those cycles, California dispatched its own observers to work alongside federal staff. Bonta said the department is following that same playbook again.

The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has placed 1,000 monitors across the country. The agency describes the effort as a way to ensure election integrity and protect voting rights. The plan has been public for months. Monitors are drawn from the DOJ, U.S. Attorney’s Offices, and the Office of Personnel Management.

The department confirmed on Tuesday that this is the largest monitoring operation in its history. For the first time, monitors are deployed to all 50 states. A list released by the DOJ shows California monitors are assigned to Los Angeles, Alameda, Sacramento, and San Diego counties.

Critics, including Bonta, argued that the large federal presence might discourage some people from voting. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon leads the Civil Rights Division. He told Bloomberg in August that monitors would observe practices and investigate fraud after the fact. He said they would not intervene directly while people are voting.

The DOJ added on Tuesday that monitors will also ensure polling places are accessible to voters with disabilities. Dhillon stated that federal monitors respect state laws. Many states require monitors to stay behind designated boundaries outside polling places. Dhillon said, “We respect state law. We reach out to the states. If their perimeter is 150 yards, we respect that.”

The department sent more than 80 monitors to seven states for primary elections earlier this year. Those locations included Minnesota, Michigan, Florida, Wyoming, South Carolina, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. The nationwide deployment proceeded without major incident Tuesday afternoon. No public reports of confrontations involving federal monitors emerged. This announcement followed the Supreme Court’s rejection on Monday of a Trump administration effort to segregate ballots cast by 20,000 voters the DOJ believes are noncitizens.