Election Day 2025 is just a week away, and plenty of voters, pundits, partisans and other observers are eagerly anticipating the results. But as it turns out, there’s another group of people who will be monitoring the process in an entirely different way. The Associated Press reported:
The Department of Justice is preparing to send federal election observers to California and New Jersey next month, targeting two Democratic states holding off-year elections following requests from state Republican parties. The DOJ announced Friday that it is planning to monitor polling sites in Passaic County, New Jersey, and five counties in southern and central California: Los Angeles, Orange, Kern, Riverside and Fresno.
The Justice Department approved the monitoring of polling sites, not in response to a specific problem or evidence of irregularities, but in response to requests from state Republican Party officials.
It’s important to emphasize that DOJ election monitoring is not altogether uncommon, but there is a broader context to consider. A spokesperson for California Gov. Gavin Newsom, for example, told The New York Times, “This administration has made no secret of its goal to undermine free and fair elections. Deploying these federal forces appears to be an intimidation tactic meant for one thing: suppress the vote.”
Those concerns were bolstered two days later, when Donald Trump, without a shred of evidence, claimed via his social media platform that balloting in California is “totally dishonest.”
And while such accusations are obviously ridiculous, consider the related data points from recent weeks:
In isolation, each of these stories matters, but taken together, we’re talking about what appears to be a multifaceted campaign against elections, launched by a president whose contempt for the democratic process is unsubtle.
With a year remaining before the 2026 midterm elections, there is every reason to believe this offensive will only get worse in the coming months.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
