Justice Department Deploys 1,000 Election Monitors to California Amid 9th Circuit Rulings
The DOJ sent a large team of election monitors to several California jurisdictions on Election Day after the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals issued conflicting orders on the administration's attempt to threaten election workers over contested ballots.
The Justice Department dispatched about 1,000 election monitors to Los Angeles, San Diego, Sacramento and Alameda County on Tuesday morning, describing the effort as the largest in its history under the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The move came after the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a series of rulings that allowed the Trump administration to threaten California election workers with criminal charges, despite earlier Supreme Court decisions striking down demands to segregate contested ballots.
A department spokesperson said the monitors would be present at polling locations but would not disclose specific precinct details. The remaining monitors were instructed to wear business-casual attire, avoid insignia, firearms, or any arrest authority.
Critics characterized the deployment as intimidation. "They’re not doing this to make sure that there are free and fair elections," said Eric J. Segall, a law professor at Georgia State University. California Attorney General Rob Bonta responded on social media, promising state observers would oversee the federal monitors to protect the integrity of the election.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass called the action "an attempt to intimidate voters into staying home" and warned that the DOJ was preparing to challenge the results if they were unfavorable.
The 9th Circuit’s decisions shifted multiple times on the same day. An initial 2-1 ruling cleared the administration to pursue its ballot-segregation demands, but a later en banc panel reversed that order, only for an 11-judge panel to reinstate the original stay shortly before polls opened. The split reflected a 6-5 division, with five Trump appointees in the majority.
Judge Mary Helen Murguia, writing in dissent, said the district court had correctly sought to stop intimidation of election workers. Judge Eric D. Miller, a Trump appointee, argued that courts generally lack authority to block the DOJ from expressing its views on criminal statutes. Biden appointee Judge Roopali Desai warned that the rapid succession of orders created chaos and risked disenfranchisement.
Earlier, the DOJ had issued grand-jury subpoenas to Los Angeles election workers for data related to contested ballots, prompting lawsuits from unions and voting-rights groups alleging a coordinated campaign to intimidate officials. U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson recently barred the DOJ from threatening criminal liability against election workers, stating the actions could interfere with election administration and disenfranchise lawful voters.
The Supreme Court later issued an unsigned decision favoring California, briefly halting further DOJ efforts to block the contested ballots, but the 9th Circuit’s late-day rulings reignited uncertainty just hours before polls opened in the state’s most populous regions.