Overview
- The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has deployed staff to observe polling places and election offices after Republican parties in California and New Jersey requested federal monitoring to ensure transparency and compliance with federal law.
- Monitors are slated for Passaic County, New Jersey, and five California counties with large Latino populations: Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, Fresno, and Kern.
- California Attorney General Rob Bonta says the state will post its own observers to “monitor the monitors,” and New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin calls the federal presence highly inappropriate and plans state observers to guard against intimidation.
- ICE says it does not plan enforcement actions targeting polling locations, though it warned that a dangerous criminal near a polling place could be arrested, a caveat that has heightened fears in immigrant communities.
- Early turnout data show Latino participation roughly in line with past elections, with some voters reporting the enforcement climate as a motivator to vote, and California’s universal vote‑by‑mail option remains a widely cited safeguard for those wary of in‑person voting.