California Attorney General Rob Bonta said Tuesday that the state will send its own observers to polling places, citing concerns that federal monitors could make voters feel intimidated.
Bonta said California is repeating the approach it took in the last two elections, deploying state observers alongside federal monitors.
The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has assigned 1,000 monitors nationwide to oversee election procedures and safeguard voting rights. The department said the effort is routine, but this year’s deployment is the largest it has conducted, with monitors operating in all 50 states for the first time. They include staff from the Justice Department, U.S. attorney’s offices and the Office of Personnel Management.
Federal monitors are being sent to four California cities: Los Angeles, Alameda, Sacramento and San Diego. Bonta and other critics have said the scale of the operation could unsettle voters or discourage them from voting.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who heads the Civil Rights Division, said in an interview with Bloomberg in August that monitors would observe election procedures and investigate potential fraud afterward. They would not step in while voters were casting ballots. The department also said Tuesday that monitors will check whether polling places are accessible to people with disabilities.
Dhillon said the monitors would follow the laws of the states where they are assigned. Some states limit how close observers can get to polling places or require them to stay behind a set boundary. She said the department contacts state officials and respects those restrictions.
The Justice Department also sent more than 80 monitors to primary elections in seven states this year: Minnesota, Michigan, Florida, Wyoming, South Carolina, Massachusetts and New Hampshire.
As of Tuesday afternoon, there had been no public reports of major confrontations involving federal monitors.
The deployment comes a day after the Supreme Court rejected the Trump administration’s attempt to require California officials to separate ballots cast by 20,000 voters whom the Justice Department believes are noncitizens.
