San Diego County Registrar Shawn Brom said his office is expecting at least eight teams of federal election monitors to show up at local polling places on Election Day.
Nationally, there’s been an unprecedented surge in federal monitors this year, according to PBS News. In response, the Associated Press reports the Democratic Party and voting rights organizations have been mobilizing masses of their own poll watchers.
Brom said there are contingencies in place if any kind of observer tries to overstep their bounds.
“We just want to make sure that regardless of the number of election observers that are at any specific location, that they're not interfering with the voters' right to cast a ballot free from any intimidation or harassment,” he said.
Observers — federal or private — are not allowed to talk to voters or otherwise interfere in the process, according to state code.
The Trump administration in recent weeks has challenged California elections officials over alleged noncitizen voting. Judges have rejected their lawsuits.
Brom said San Diego County has received federal subpoenas and complied with the law as needed.
“So simply put there, I'm focused on the administration of the election and not focusing currently on anything else that might be happening outside of that,” he said.
Carl Luna, a political scientist at Mesa College, said the Justice Department usually deploys monitors to make sure people aren’t being denied the right to vote. He says there isn’t much modern precedent for using them to look for fraud.
Luna said the Trump administration’s pressure on local and state officials is also unusual.
“What you have seen is something of a flood the zone sort of strategy where the Department of Justice is throwing everything it can at the courts to try to get warrants, try to intimidate poll workers, threatening to arrest them,” he said.
Luna said the Trump administration could be setting the stage to challenge results after Election Day.
He said dozens of studies, including by Republican attorneys general, have failed to show the existence of widespread voter fraud.
