California Gov. Gavin Newsom plans to escalate his battle against President Donald Trump’s administration’s claims of election fraud by enlisting a legal army on Election Day, the governor announced Wednesday night.
Newsom’s political team said he will “pre-deploy” attorneys specialized in election law to monitor vote counting at county election offices in key congressional districts across the state.
“I’m deploying election lawyers directly to county registrars to monitor the count for as long as it takes,” Newsom said in a statement.
“A federal badge is not a license to intimidate voters or interfere with an election. We beat Trump’s redistricting power grab. And if he tries to steal this election, we’ll beat him again.”
Trump’s Department of Justice has been pursuing fraud charges over alleged noncitizen voting in California.
This week, three alleged noncitizens in Southern California were indicted by a federal grand jury, drawn from a list of more than 20,000 suspected noncitizens in the state who allegedly registered to vote in next month’s midterm election.
The federal government has also sued California to try to force elections officials not to count the potentially 20,000 registered voters’ ballots. A federal court rejected the DOJ’s emergency bid to set aside those ballots, and First Assistant US Attorney Bill Essayli said he’s filed a notice of appeal.
According to Newsom, the counties will be in the 6th, 13th, 22nd, 45th and 48th congressional districts. Only the 22nd district is considered a toss-up by The Cook Political Report.
The attorneys could be present in the counties beyond Election Day, as California is notorious for its drawn-out ballot-counting process that can stretch for days or even weeks.
In addition, the California Democratic Party announced it is mobilizing nearly 1,000 trained voter protection volunteers, including more than 800 poll observers, 134 attorneys, and 54 hotline operators.
“Donald Trump doesn’t get to decide which votes count, which ballots get counted, or who wins an election. California voters do,” California Democratic Party Chair Rusty Hicks said in a statement.
Newsom in his announcement cited a new state law that he said would make it a felony for anyone, including federal agents, to seize ballots before election results are certified.
That law was enacted after Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, a former Republican gubernatorial candidate, seized over 650,000 ballots this March as part of an investigation, prompting outcry from Democrats.
The legal army, Newsom said on social media, is “a warning to Donald Trump” to not do the same.
The Post reached out to the White House’s press office for comment.
