DOJ and California AG to have dueling poll monitors

WASHINGTON — On Friday, the Trump administration announced that the Justice Department would monitor polling sites in California and New Jersey ahead of the Nov. 4 election. On Monday, California Attorney General Rob Bonta said the state will deploy its election observers to counter any potential interference by the DOJ.

President Trump and his supporters have long argued that election fraud is rampant, despite evidence that it is rare and inconsequential.

"This administration has made no secret of its goal to undermine free and fair elections," said Brandon Richards, a spokesman for Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, in a statement. "Deploying these federal forces appears to be an intimidation tactic meant for one thing: suppress the vote."

The DOJ said its Civil Rights Division will monitor polling sites in five California counties ahead of the election: Kern, Riverside, Fresno, Orange, and Los Angeles, while also monitoring polling sites in Passaic County, N.J., where voters will elect a new governor. The DOJ said the move was in response to requests from Republican lawmakers in those states.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has stacked key federal positions related to election integrity with fanatics from the Stop the Steal movement, who falsely claimed Trump had won the 2020 presidential election, including members of the so-called Election Integrity Network. This far-right group spread misinformation in the run-up to January 6.

Trump appointed Heather Honey as the Department of Homeland Security's newly-created "deputy assistant secretary for election integrity." Honey was a leading proponent of the Big Lie and had advocated calling for a national emergency to gain control over state voting.

Attorney Kurt Olson, a Trump campaign attorney who also served as the architect of My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell's movement to overturn the 2020 election results, was recently appointed to investigate Trump's claim that the election was stolen.

Trump also installed Marci McCarthy, former Chair of the DeKalb County Republican Party, as Director of Public Affairs at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. McCarthy was a prolific purveyor of conspiracy theories about Georgia voting machines in 2020. 

In a Truth Social post on Thursday, Trump called for an end to vote-by-mail and early voting ahead of the 2026 midterms.