Federal election monitors deploy to Alameda County
As people hand delivered their ballots to drop boxes and collection sites around the Bay Area, Alameda County got some special attention from the federal government, sending agents to monitor the voting process.
Outside the elections office in Oakland, ballot handlers were doing brisk business as voters lined up at the drive-up collection site. Rucha Chatnis walked her ballot up to the box. And just becoming a citizen two years ago, she was excited to exercise her democratic right.
"I mean, I can't imagine not voting given everything that's at stake right now." she said. "So, I'm just trusting the 'road' and I'm trusting the system in Oakland to make it right, yeah."
Trust is a large part of why the system works. But with so many claims of voter fraud recently, it's causing doubts among people who don't know what to believe anymore. A voter named Monique made sure to watch her ballot be put in the box because she said, after all she's heard, she doesn't have the trust she once had.
"Not 100 percent. Not 100 percent," said Monique. "Now, I did. We never really thought about it. We never thought about, oh, the ballots, are they being counted properly? Are they being placed properly, electronically? I just thought it was, honestly. But over the last couple of years, with all these stories coming out, it's, like, huh."
The latest story to come out is Tuesday's official announcement from the U.S. Department of Justice that it was sending monitors to observe elections in all 50 states. In a statement, it said: "We will have around 1,000 monitors in counties throughout the United States. Every monitor will merely observe and report any potential violations of federal law to the Department, which will be reviewed after Election Day."
Alameda County was one of four counties in California selected to be monitored, along with Los Angeles, Sacramento and San Diego counties.
"We haven't been told specifically why our county was chosen," said Registrar of Voters Cynthia Cornejo. "I will say that we have had federal monitors in the past, quite a few times, actually, usually during federal elections."
On Tuesday, Cornejo said DOJ agents met with elections officials ahead of time, and she said it seemed they were focused on making sure that proper procedures were being followed. Things like providing translators for non-English speakers or proper assistance for disabled voters. Cornejo said there didn't appear to be anything political about the monitoring.
"From our meeting with them? No. And like I said, to date we haven't had any issues today with the monitors," Cornejo said.
But Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is frequently at odds with President Trump, wasn't buying it.
"We're taking this very, very seriously," he said. "We will be monitoring his monitors. And I assure you it will be 10-to-1. We are flooding the zone. And we're going to do it in key congressional districts that we think he's most likely to assault."
Cornejo said they're doing what they can, allowing public monitoring, including live-streaming the vote processing room. As someone who was just promoted to Registrar six months ago, Cornejo said this election felt pretty personal.
"I've been in elections for 31 years," she said. "And it means, it's a right. And we should take that seriously, honestly. And we need to convey that to our voters, that we're here to ensure that that happens."
