California officials on Monday announced that they would deploy their own observers to watch over federal election monitors the Trump administration is sending to the state for next week’s election.
“They’re not going to be allowed to interfere in ways that the law prohibits,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said during a virtual news conference. “We cannot be naive. The Republican Party asked for the U.S. DOJ to come in.”
Bonta’s comments come after Attorney General Pam Bondi announced Friday that the Department of Justice would monitor polling places during next week’s off-year elections in California and New Jersey to uphold “the highest standards of election integrity.”
California voters are casting their ballots on the state’s highly anticipated Proposition 50, the initiative to approve new congressional districts that would net Democrats an estimated five more seats. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries told NOTUS last week that Democrats are using Prop 50 as a blueprint for redistricting across the country.
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Gov. Gavin Newsom called Trump’s deployment of monitors an act of voter intimidation and suppression.
“This is a bridge too far,” Newsom, a likely presidential candidate in 2028, said on Friday.
Bonta agreed, alleging that the federal government monitoring state elections would be evidence of Trump’s intentions to challenge future elections.
“He is laying the groundwork. He is socializing an idea that is very dangerous,” Bonta said, noting that Trump still claims to have won the 2020 presidential election. “All indications, all arrows show that this is a tee up for something more dangerous in the 2026 midterms — and maybe beyond.”
Across the country, New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin called the move “highly inappropriate” and said the DOJ “has not even attempted to identify a legitimate basis for its actions.”
New Jersey’s upcoming governor’s race is drawing record-level funding as Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill faces former Republican assembly member Jack Ciattarelli.
The head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, Harmeet Dhillon, is reported to have asked the White House to deploy the monitors. Dhillon took to X on Friday to mock Newsom’s claims of voter suppression.
“Lol calm down bro,” she posted. “The @TheJusticeDept under Democrat administrations has sent in federal election observers for decades, and not once did we hear that this was voter intimidation from states such as California.”
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