Bonta says he’ll counter DOJ election monitors with observers of his own

California Attorney General Rob Bonta said Tuesday afternoon that his office will deploy election observers in response to concerns that Justice Department monitors could intimidate voters.

Bonta said California was taking the same approach it used during the previous two elections, when the state dispatched its own observers alongside federal monitors.

The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division has sent 1,000 monitors across the country to ensure election integrity and protect Americans’ right to vote, a plan that has been public knowledge for months. The monitors will be personnel from across the DOJ, U.S. Attorney’s Offices and employees from the Office of Personnel Management.

The department confirmed Tuesday that while federal election monitoring is routine, this year’s operation is the largest in its history, with monitors deployed to all 50 states for the first time.

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The DOJ also released a list of cities where monitors are being deployed. In California, they are being sent to Los Angeles, Alameda, Sacramento and San Diego.

Bonta and other critics have argued that the unusually large federal presence could spook voters or discourage some from casting ballots.

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who leads the Civil Rights Division, told Bloomberg in an August interview that the role of DOJ election monitors would be to observe election practices and pursue investigations into any possible instances of fraud after the fact — not to intervene directly while people are voting.

In Tuesday’s announcement, the DOJ added that monitors will also be responsible for ensuring that polling places are accessible for those with disabilities.

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In her Bloomberg interview, Dhillon said the election monitors would respect the laws of whichever states they end up in. Many states restrict monitors from entering polling places and require them to remain behind designated boundaries outside.

“We respect state law,” Dhillon told Bloomberg at the time. “We reach out to the states. If their perimeter is 150 yards, we respect that.”

Dhillon also pointed out that the DOJ sent more than 80 monitors to observe primary elections across seven states this year, including locations in Minnesota, Michigan, Florida, Wyoming, South Carolina, Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

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The nationwide deployment appeared to be proceeding without major incident Tuesday afternoon, with no significant confrontations involving federal monitors publicly reported.

This comes after the Supreme Court on Monday rejected the Trump administration’s effort to require California election officials to segregate ballots cast by 20,000 voters the DOJ believes are noncitizens.