Trump Administration To Monitor Voting in California and New Jersey

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Friday that it will send election monitors to polling sites in California and New Jersey — a move that Democrats and democracy advocates warned may be a potential step toward the Trump administration seizing control of voting. 

The administration’s consistent use of DOJ to advance President Donald Trump’s political and personal interests, along with the locations chosen by DOJ, are raising serious concerns that the move aims to advance Trump’s bid to increase his power over elections. 

Already in recent months, voting rights advocates and leading Democrats have warned that the administration is laying the groundwork to deploy troops or law enforcement to the polls in key cities next year and in 2028. 

Friday’s announcement has intensified those fears.

California’s election, in which voters are being asked to approve a redistricting plan, is a state, not a federal, contest — further underscoring the threat presented by the administration’s move. Trump has condemned the redistricting plan, which, if approved by voters, could give Democrats five additional seats in Congress.

“The US DOJ has no business or basis to interfere with this election,” said California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) in a statement posted on social media. “This is solely about whether California amends our state constitution.”

“This administration has made no secret of its goal to undermine free and fair elections,” Newsom added. “Deploying these federal forces appears to be an intimidation tactic meant for one thing: suppress the vote.”

Patrick Eddington, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute, sounded a similar alarm. 

“I’m unaware of any fact-based reason why DOJ would dispatch election monitors to observe a state ballot question vote since it is not a federal election,” Eddington said in an email to Democracy Docket. “The action also appears to be selective, as the Commonwealth of Virginia is holding elections for governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general, along with the entire House of Delegates, yet the Trump Justice Department is — at least at the moment — not sending election monitors to Virginia.”

Trump has spoken before about putting law enforcement officers at the polls.

“We’re going to have sheriffs, and we’re going to have law enforcement, and we’re going to have, hopefully, U.S. attorneys, and we’re going to have everybody and attorney generals (sic),” he said before the 2020 election.

In the aftermath of that election, the Trump White House drafted, though never issued, an executive order directing the defense secretary to seize voting machines.

Along with seven California counties, DOJ said it also will send monitors to Passaic County, N.J., where Hispanics make up around 43% of the population. 

The decision comes on the heels of a request from the New Jersey Republican Party, who reportedly asked for monitors in Passaic to “oversee the receipt and processing of vote-by-mail ballots” and “take steps to monitor access to the Board of Elections around the clock.”.

In a statement to Democracy Docket, Ezra Rosenberg, ACLU-NJ’s Director of Appellate Advocacy, rejected any notion of potential voter fraud in Passaic County and questioned the necessity of federal election monitors.

“We have full confidence that state and county elections officials will administer free and fair elections across the state,” Rosenberg said. “Historically, the U.S. Department of Justice has played a role in protecting the rights of voters and ensuring that elections are administered fairly, and the DOJ’s role has historically been free of politicization.”

Michael Zhadanovsky, a spokesman for New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin, told the Associated Press that it “would be highly inappropriate for the federal government to interfere in this November’s state election” and emphasized that the Constitution “gives states, not the federal government, the primary responsibility for running elections.”

While it’s typical for DOJ to send election monitors to polling sites in the days before an election in order to prevent intimidation, it doesn’t usually send them during an off-year election when there are no candidates running for federal office. In the past 20 years, DOJ has only sent election monitors in off-year elections twice — in 2007 and 2013. 

And under Trump, DOJ has made clear that it intends to use its power not to protect voting access, but to promote baseless concerns about illegal voting.

In a statement, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said the effort is aimed at promoting transparency in the voting process and ensuring election security. 

“Transparency at the polls translates into faith in the electoral process, and this Department of Justice is committed to upholding the highest standards of election integrity,” Bondi said. “We will commit the resources necessary to ensure the American people get the fair, free, and transparent elections they deserve.”