Newsom faces pushback over DOJ federal election monitors criticism

California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s rebuke of the Justice Department’s move to monitor his state’s November elections is facing strong criticism, including from a Justice Department official who suggested the move was not out of the ordinary.

Newsom posted on Friday in response to news that “the Department of Justice, Donald Trump’s puppet, had nothing to do with tampering with next month’s election.” The Justice Department plans to send federal election observers To California and New Jersey for their closely watched elections next month.

“Sending the feds to the polls in California is a deliberate attempt to intimidate voters and undermine a fair election. We will not back down. Californians decide our future — no one else.”

Many on social media, including DOJ Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon, quickly pointed out that the DOJ has a long history of sending election monitoring resources to areas with a history of cases in order to ensure election laws are followed.

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California Governor Gavin Newsom attends a signing ceremony for a bill redrawing the state’s congressional maps on August 21, 2025. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

“Lol calm down bro” Dillon Published on X. “@TheJusticeDept under Democratic administrations has sent federal election observers for decades, and not once have we heard that this was voter intimidation from states like California. Do you really want to go there? Isn’t transparency a good thing?”

Dr. Houman Hemmati Published on X“Hey @GavinNewsom, why would any legitimate voter be ‘intimidated’ by the presence of federal election observers? Most people believe that legitimate voters are more likely to vote because they trust the process.

“But you’re clearly afraid of something. I wonder what it is…”

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, the Republican nominee for governor of California to replace the term-limited Newsom, Written on X“Gavin certainly seems concerned about how people view how he handled the election.”

The Republican parties in both California and New Jersey have requested federal observers, while California is voting on a ballot measure aimed at redrawing the state’s congressional map in favor of the Democrats, to confront states such as Texas, which redrawn its map in favor of the Republicans, and the votes of New Jersey in widely watched gubernatorial elections.

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Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon arrives for a press conference at the Department of Justice on September 29, 2025 in Washington, DC (Andrew Harnick/Getty Images)

The Justice Department sent election observers to California twice during the Biden administration, during Biden’s term General elections 2022 and General elections 2024.

“This is not a federal election,” Newsom’s press office said. Published on X. “The US Department of Justice has no business or basis to interfere in this election. It is only a matter of whether California will amend our state constitution.

“This administration has made no secret of its goal of undermining free and fair elections. The deployment of these federal troops appears to be an intimidation tactic aimed at one thing: suppressing the vote.”

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Governor Gavin Newsom speaks in San Francisco, California, on August 7, 2025. (Photo by Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Biden’s Justice Department has sent election resources to several non-federal elections as well, including Municipal elections in Alaska In October 2023, A.J New Jersey General elections outside the year in 2023, and a Mississippi is out for the year overall In 2023.

Fox News Digital has reached out to Newsom’s office for comment.

“In recent elections, we have received reports of irregularities in these counties that we fear may undermine either voters’ desire to participate in the election or their confidence in the announced election results,” California Republican Party Chairwoman Corinne Rankin wrote in a letter to Dillon on Monday.

the The New Jersey Republican Party sent a similar message About Passaic County, a majority-Latino county that once favored Democrats, but voted for Trump in 2024.

The state Republican Party alleged a “long and sordid history” of mail-in voting fraud.

Democrats in both states opposed the resolution.

New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin called the move “wholly inappropriate” and said the Justice Department “did not even attempt to establish a legitimate basis for its actions.”

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Voters make their selections at their voting booths inside the early voting site (Melissa Sue Gerrits)

Los Angeles County Clerk Dean Logan said election monitoring is standard practice across the country, and that the county, which has 5.8 million registered voters, is constantly updating and verifying voter records.

“Voters can trust them Ballots are handled securely “And he calculated it carefully,” he said.

During the 2024 elections, Many states are Republican-led It rejected the Biden administration’s efforts to send federal resources to monitor the election, arguing that the actions taken by the state were satisfactory.

Election observers are lawyers who work for the Department of Justice, including the Civil Rights Division and U.S. Attorney’s offices across the country. They are not law enforcement officers or federal agents.

For decades, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has sent lawyers and staff to monitor polling places across the country in both federal and non-federal elections. Observers are charged with ensuring compliance with federal voting rights laws.

The Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division enforces a number of laws that protect the right to vote. This includes the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits intimidation and threats against those who cast ballots or count ballots. It includes the Americans with Disabilities Act, which requires election officials to ensure that people with disabilities have a full and equal opportunity to vote.

Fox News Digital’s Bree Stimson and The Associated Press contributed to this report