Bonta bashes Trump administration plan to send election monitors to California

California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Monday denounced plans by the Justice Department to send election monitors to California, where voting is underway in the closely watched contest over Proposition 50.

The Trump administration announced Friday that it would send monitors to five counties, including Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, Kern and Fresno for the Nov. 4 special election. The Justice Department said in a news release that it would send monitors to polling places and to offices of registrars of voters “to ensure transparency, ballot security, and compliance with federal law.”

The move comes in response to a request for monitors by the California Republican Party, which claimed voting irregularities in past elections including that voters received incorrect ballots.

It's not uncommon for the federal government to monitor elections, but Bonta questioned the motives behind the decision.

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“These are not normal times so it is with a great deal of concern that I see these so-called election monitors coming to California,” he said. “We have to look at the broader context here.”

President Donald Trump has claimed there’s widespread voter fraud in California, where 81% of ballots are mailed in. He reiterated his position as recently as Sunday on his Truth Social account.

“No mail-in or “Early” Voting, Yes to Voter ID! Watch how totally dishonest the California Prop Vote is! Millions of Ballots being “shipped.” GET SMART REPUBLICANS, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!!!”

Bonta said Monday that voter fraud is extremely rare in California, and Secretary of State Shirley Weber says on her website that mail-in ballots provide more election security, not less.

Bonta said the election monitors are designed to bolster the president’s claim of election fraud and to sow fear among citizen immigrant voters.

“This is a president who is trying to end vote-by-mail,” he said at the news conference.

Voters statewide are casting ballots on Proposition 50, which would temporarily redraw Congressional district lines in California so that more Democrats are elected to Congress. It comes in response to Texas, which redrew its lines to elect more Republicans to Congress.

It's all part of a battle for control of the House of Representatives after the midterm elections.

The attorney general promised to monitor the monitors.

“Of course there will be observers of the election monitors — so-called election monitors — that the DOJ is sending. They will not be allowed to do things that they are not allowed to do,” he said. “They can watch and observe like everybody else.”

Bonta said federal election monitors will observe another clean election in California.

“They will see what we have all seen for years and for decades here in California, that California’s elections are safe, that they are secure, that they are accurate, that there is election integrity of the highest order in our election,” he said. "Conspiracy theories are just that — conspiracy theories.”

The special election is scheduled for Nov. 4, but mail in voting and in-person voting at vote centers is already under way.

Find your nearest vote center here.