Federal officials and Democratic organizations are preparing to deploy teams across California in the coming days as a deepening partisan dispute over election security brings heightened scrutiny to the state’s voting process.
The Department of Justice plans to send roughly 1,000 election monitors nationwide, including to California, for what a spokesperson described as the “routine election monitoring the department has done for decades.” Their deployment comes as political parties and outside groups assemble large volunteer operations to observe polling places.
“We will have around 1,000 monitors in counties throughout the United States, but we will not share the full list until Election Day,” the DOJ spokesperson said. “Every monitor will merely observe and report any potential violations of federal law to the Department, which will be reviewed after Election Day.”
A wide range of watchdog organizations and political volunteers are also preparing to place poll watchers at voting sites, creating what could be an unprecedented level of oversight during the midterm elections.
The Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee are among the groups training poll monitors, according to the Associated Press.
Jane Kleeb, the DNC’s vice chair, told the outlet that the committee has recruited former intelligence officials to track online misinformation tied to the election.
“We’ve never done this before,” Kleeb said.
But, she added, “we’ve never had to deal with the president of the United States saying that he may seize ballots, put ICE agents outside polling locations and other kinds of very clear direct threats to the voting process.”
The California Democratic Party’s Voter Protection Team is recruiting poll watchers and volunteer attorneys for the Nov. 3 election, according to its website. State Democratic parties have about 10,000 volunteers prepared to monitor polling places and report potentially concerning actions by federal agents, the AP reported.
The Republican National Committee, meanwhile, said it plans to place “election integrity deputy state directors” in 22 states, including Arizona, Michigan, Georgia and North Carolina.
The RNC has hired 22,000 poll workers and is recruiting additional poll watchers in competitive districts, said Ally Triolo, the committee’s election integrity communications director.
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Common Cause, a Washington, D.C.-based democracy advocacy group, is also among the nonprofit organizations planning to send volunteers to polling sites, including locations in California.
“At voting locations across the state, our volunteers will check for language and disability access, assist any voters who are encountering problems, and monitor to help ensure that voter harassment and disenfranchisement do not occur,” Common Cause said in a post promoting its California volunteer effort.
Suzanne Almeida, the group’s vice president of states, told the Associated Press that Common Cause has about 16,000 additional volunteers available to monitor voting precincts. A larger coalition involving 300 other organizations has trained tens of thousands more, she said.
Democratic-aligned nonprofits Indivisible and MoveOn are mobilizing their networks for the midterm elections, the AP reported. Smaller operations are also preparing for Election Day, including roughly 100 volunteers organized by Senate Democrats and hundreds more from the Democratic-allied group Save America, which is training clergy members, veterans, teachers and others.
The potentially unprecedented monitoring effort comes as California and federal officials face off in court over allegations of voter fraud.
The Justice Department sued California this month, seeking to block 20,000 ballots that it claims were sent to noncitizens ahead of the midterm elections.
Federal agents have also arrested and charged California residents accused of illegally registering to vote or casting unlawful ballots. More than two dozen people arrested in a statewide operation last week have been charged.
California officials, including Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Attorney General Rob Bonta, have forcefully rejected claims of widespread voter fraud. Bonta has described instances of noncitizen voting as “one-offs” that do not indicate a systemic problem.
During a rare Sunday hearing, a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals appeared skeptical of the DOJ’s request to set aside thousands of California ballots.
The court indicated it will issue a decision quickly.
