California to Monitor Trump’s DOJ Poll Watchers Amid Concerns of Voter Intimidation, Election Interference

California is preparing to send its own state observers to watch over federal monitors from President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice. The move underscores a growing standoff between state election officials and a federal government many voting rights advocates say is weaponizing oversight to interfere in elections.

Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) said Monday that California will deploy state observers to polling locations in five counties — Los Angeles, Orange, Kern, Riverside and Fresno — the same places the DOJ said it would send federal “election monitors.”

“They’re not going to be allowed to interfere in ways that the law prohibits,” Bonta told reporters during a virtual news conference. “We cannot be naive. The Republican Party asked for the U.S. DOJ to come in.”

The federal monitors, sent by Attorney General Pam Bondi, are officially charged with ensuring “transparency, ballot security, and compliance with federal law.”

California GOP Chair Corrin Rankin, a former Trump campaign surrogate, asked fellow Californian and Civil Rights Division leader Harmeet Dhillon to send the monitors. The request came as Trump and his allies began pushing new baseless claims about voter fraud in California.

To California officials, the federal move looks less like safeguarding rights and more like interference. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), who championed the state’s redistricting ballot measure — Proposition 50 — called the DOJ deployment an act of voter intimidation.

“This is about voter intimidation. This is about voter suppression, period. Full stop,” Newsom said Friday. “This is a bridge too far.”

On Truth Social, Trump railed against the state’s elections, again repeating falsehoods about the 2020 election and warning that the upcoming California vote would be “totally dishonest.”

Bonta said those claims are part of a familiar and dangerous strategy.

“He is laying the groundwork. He is socializing an idea that is very dangerous,” he said. “All indications, all arrows show that this is a tee up for something more dangerous in the 2026 midterms — and maybe beyond.”

California officials argue that by sending monitors to a purely state election with no federal contests on the ballot, Trump’s DOJ is exploiting its authority to intimidate voters and using the veneer of federal oversight to cast doubt on state-run elections.

Historically, the Justice Department’s monitoring program was created to protect voters — especially voters of color — from discrimination and barriers at the polls. But voting rights advocates warn the current leadership may be weaponizing that legacy to justify scrutiny of Democratic-run elections.