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LOS ANGELES -- The Department of Justice is preparing to nonstop national predetermination observers to California and New Jersey adjacent month, targeting 2 Democratic states holding off-year elections pursuing requests from authorities Republican parties.
The DOJ announced Friday that it is readying to show polling sites successful Passaic County, New Jersey, and 5 counties successful confederate and cardinal California: Los Angeles, Orange, Kern, Riverside and Fresno. The goal, according to the DOJ, is "to guarantee transparency, ballot security, and compliance with national law."
"Transparency astatine the polls translates into religion successful the electoral process, and this Department of Justice is committed to upholding the highest standards of predetermination integrity," Attorney General Pamela Bondi said successful a connection to The Associated Press.
Election monitoring is simply a regular relation of the Justice Department, but the absorption connected California and New Jersey comes arsenic some states are acceptable to clasp closely-watched elections with nationalist consequences connected Nov. 4. New Jersey has an unfastened spot for politician that has attracted large spending by some parties and California is holding a peculiar predetermination aimed astatine redrawing the state's legislature representation to antagonistic Republican gerrymandering efforts elsewhere up of the 2026 midterms.
The DOJ's efforts are besides the latest salvo successful the GOP's preoccupation with predetermination integrity aft President Donald Trump spent years refusing to judge the results of the 2020 predetermination and falsely railing against mail-in voting arsenic rife with fraud. Democrats fearfulness the caller medication volition effort to summation an precocious manus successful adjacent year's midterms with likewise unfounded allegations of fraud.
The announcement comes days aft the Republican parties successful some states wrote letters to the DOJ requesting their assistance. Some starring Democrats successful the states blasted the decision.
New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin called the determination "highly inappropriate" and said the DOJ "has not adjacent attempted to place a morganatic ground for its actions."
Rusty Hicks, seat of the California Democratic Party, said successful a connection that "No magnitude of predetermination interference by the California Republican Party is going to soundlessness the voices of California voters."
California's House districts astatine stake
The missive from the California GOP, sent Monday and obtained by the AP, asked Harmeet Dhillon, who leads the DOJ's Civil Rights Division, to supply monitors to observe the predetermination successful the 5 counties.
"In caller elections, we person received reports of irregularities successful these counties that we fearfulness volition undermine either the willingness of voters to enactment successful the predetermination oregon their assurance successful the announced results of the election," wrote GOP Chairwoman Corrin Rankin.
The authorities is acceptable to ballot Nov. 4 connected a redistricting proposition that would dramatically redraw California's legislature lines to adhd arsenic galore arsenic 5 further Democratic seats to its U.S. House delegation.
Each of the counties named, they alleged, has experienced caller voting issues, specified arsenic sending incorrect oregon duplicate ballots to voters. They besides instrumentality contented with however Los Angeles and Orange counties support their elector rolls.
California is 1 of astatine slightest 8 states the Justice Department has sued arsenic portion of a wide-ranging petition for elaborate elector rotation accusation involving astatine slightest fractional the states. The section has not said wherefore it wants the data.
Orange County Registrar of Voters Bob Page said helium welcomes anyone who wants to ticker the county's predetermination operations and said it's communal to person local, state, national and adjacent planetary observers. He described Orange County's elections arsenic "accessible, accurate, fair, secure, and transparent."
Los Angeles County Clerk Dean Logan said predetermination observers are modular signifier crossed the state and that the county, with 5.8 cardinal registered voters, is continuously updating and verifying its elector records.
"Voters tin person assurance their ballot is handled securely and counted accurately," helium said.
Most Californians ballot utilizing message ballots returned done the postal service, driblet boxes oregon astatine section voting centers, which typically leaves polling places comparatively quiescent connected Election Day. But successful pursuit of accuracy and counting each vote, the nation's astir populous authorities has gained a estimation for tallies that tin resistance connected for weeks - and sometimes longer.
In 2024, it took until aboriginal December to state Democrat Adam Gray the victor successful his Central Valley district, the last legislature contention to beryllium decided successful the federation past year.
Election observers are thing new
Local predetermination offices and polling places astir the state already person observers from some governmental parties to guarantee rules are followed. The DOJ besides has a agelong past of sending observers to jurisdictions that person histories of voting rights violations to guarantee compliance with national civilian rights laws.
Last year, erstwhile the Biden medication was inactive successful power, immoderate Republican-led states said they would not let national monitors to entree voting locations connected Election Day.
Trump has for years railed against message voting arsenic portion of his repeated mendacious claims that erstwhile President Joe Biden's triumph successful 2020 was rigged. He alleges it is riddled with fraud, adjacent though galore studies person recovered nary grounds of wide fraud successful U.S. elections.
Earlier this year, Trump pledged to prohibition vote-by-mail crossed the country, thing helium has nary powerfulness to bash nether the U.S. Constitution.
The DOJ's effort volition beryllium overseen by Dhillon's Civil Rights Division, which volition deploy unit successful coordination with U.S. attorney's offices and enactment intimately with authorities and section officials, the section said
The section besides is soliciting further requests for monitoring successful different jurisdictions.
David Becker, a erstwhile DOJ lawyer who has served arsenic an predetermination show and trained them, said the enactment is typically done by section lawyers who are prohibited from interfering astatine polling places.
But Becker, present enforcement manager of the Center for Election Integrity & Research, said section jurisdictions usually hold to the monitors' presence.
If the medication tried to nonstop monitors without a wide ineligible rationale to a spot wherever section officials didn't privation them, "That could effect successful chaos," helium said.
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