Democrats thought they had a perfect scheme in place for a critical 2025 special election.
They were dead wrong.
And Gavin Newsom’s week just got even worse after Pam Bondi delivered one decision that put Democrats into panic mode.
DOJ deploys federal watchers to Democrat strongholds
Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the Justice Department will send federal election observers to California and New Jersey for their closely watched November 4 elections.¹
California faces a ballot measure that could redraw congressional maps to favor Democrats, while New Jersey has an open gubernatorial seat.
The deployments come after Republican parties in both states requested federal oversight, citing concerns about ballot handling and voter integrity.
Bondi didn’t mince words about why the Trump Administration is stepping in.
"Transparency at the polls translates into faith in the electoral process, and this Department of Justice is committed to upholding the highest standards of election integrity," Bondi said.¹
Federal observers will monitor Los Angeles, Orange, Kern, Riverside and Fresno counties in California, as well as Passaic County in New Jersey.
The goal is ensuring ballot security and compliance with federal law in counties where Republicans allege serious problems.
California Democrats panic over election integrity measures
California GOP Chairwoman Corrin Rankin warned the DOJ about troubling patterns in the targeted counties.
"In recent elections, we have received reports of irregularities in these counties that we fear will undermine either the willingness of voters to participate in the election or their confidence in the announced results of the election," Rankin wrote to Harmeet Dhillon, who leads the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division.²
The timing couldn’t be worse for Democrats.
California voters will decide on Proposition 50, the so-called "Election Rigging Response Act," which would allow the state to bypass its independent redistricting commission and adopt gerrymandered maps drawn by Democrats.³
The maps were designed to add as many as five additional Democrat seats to California’s House delegation through 2030.³
Governor Gavin Newsom pushed the proposition as retaliation for Republican redistricting efforts in Texas, but the move has drawn fierce criticism from both sides.
Newsom’s office immediately blasted the federal observers as an "intimidation tactic," claiming the DOJ has no authority to monitor a state constitutional amendment vote.⁴
"This is not a federal election," Newsom’s office wrote on X. "The US DOJ has no business or basis to interfere with this election."⁴
But Republicans aren’t buying that argument.
The counties selected have documented issues, including sending incorrect or duplicate ballots to voters and questionable voter roll maintenance practices.²
When California takes until early December to declare winners — like it did in the final 2024 congressional race — voters deserve assurance their ballots are being handled properly.⁵
Passaic County’s sordid history justifies federal scrutiny
New Jersey Republicans have even stronger grounds for requesting federal oversight.
Passaic County has what the New Jersey GOP calls a "long and sordid history" of vote-by-mail fraud.⁶
The county made national headlines in 2020 when a judge ordered a new election for a Paterson City Council seat after four individuals, including a sitting councilman and a councilman-elect, were charged with voter fraud.⁷
Hundreds of mail-in ballots were improperly bundled and submitted, some were found stuffed in mailboxes, and others never made it to voters.⁸
The U.S. Postal Service’s law enforcement arm discovered hundreds of ballots in a single Paterson mailbox, with more found in nearby Haledon.⁷
The Passaic County Board of Elections threw out 800 ballots from that race.⁷
But here’s the kicker — the county’s current election officials appear to have learned nothing from that scandal.
Instead of increasing transparency, Passaic County recently blocked security cameras from ballot storage locations and refuses to maintain logs of who accesses ballots.⁸
When you’ve got a history like that, blocking cameras isn’t protecting voter privacy — it’s protecting fraud.
The county became a Republican target after Trump carried it in 2024, the first time a Republican presidential nominee won there in over 30 years.⁷
Passaic County’s heavily Latino population, which once reliably voted Democrat, swung dramatically toward Trump.⁷
Now that shift could prove critical in the gubernatorial race between Republican Jack Ciattarelli and Democrat Mikie Sherrill.⁷
New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin called federal monitoring "highly inappropriate" despite his own county’s documented fraud history.⁹
Democrat hypocrisy on election observers exposed
The irony is rich.
Last year during Biden’s presidency, Republican-led states refused to allow federal election monitors into certain areas because they didn’t trust the Democrat administration.⁵
Now that Trump controls the DOJ, suddenly Democrats are screaming about federal overreach.
But federal election monitoring isn’t new or controversial — the DOJ has sent observers to jurisdictions with histories of voting rights violations for nearly 60 years.⁵
What’s changed is which party controls the Department.
California Democrats like party chair Rusty Hicks claim the monitoring amounts to "election interference," but Republican voters who’ve watched California drag out vote counts for weeks have legitimate concerns.¹⁰
Los Angeles County Clerk Dean Logan insists the county’s 5.8 million registered voters can trust the process.⁴
That might be more convincing if California hadn’t earned a reputation for tallies that drag on for weeks or even months.⁵
Bondi’s DOJ is putting Democrats on notice that election integrity matters regardless of which party benefits.
The Trump Administration learned from 2020 and 2024 that you can’t assume elections will be run fairly just because officials promise they will be.
Federal observers ensure transparency, which is exactly what worried Democrats are trying to avoid.
If California and New Jersey Democrats have nothing to hide, they should welcome the scrutiny.
The fact that they’re already crying "intimidation" before the observers even arrive tells you everything you need to know.
¹ Brie Stimson, "DOJ sends federal election watchers to California and New Jersey counties amid Republican requests," Fox News, October 24, 2025.
² AP, "DOJ prepares to send election monitors to California, New Jersey," CBS News, October 24, 2025.
³ "2025 California Proposition 50," Wikipedia, October 24, 2025.
⁴ Jill Colvin and Michael R. Blood, "DOJ prepares to send election monitors to California," ABC7 San Francisco, October 24, 2025.
⁵ Pete Williams, "GOP officials in 3 states move to block DOJ observers from entering polling places," NBC News, November 5, 2024.
⁶ "NJ GOP urges DOJ Civil Rights Division to oversee Passaic County mail-in ballot counting," The Post Millennial, October 20, 2025.
⁷ "New Jersey Republicans ask for federal monitors in critical county ahead of governor’s election," ABC News, October 21, 2025.
⁸ Josh Findlay, "Troubled History, Troubling Choices: Passaic County’s Failed Election Safeguards," SaveJersey, October 22, 2025.
⁹ "DOJ prepares to send election monitors to California, New Jersey," Associated Press, October 24, 2025.
¹⁰ Ibid.
