Citing concerns that federal election monitors might be mean to state election monitors, California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced Monday that California will deploy its own monitors to stand next to the DOJ monitors and make sure nobody gets their feelings hurt during Tuesday's voting on whether Democrats get to redraw some maps.
"We've all seen what happens when you leave federal employees unsupervised," Bonta explained while unveiling a 47-page monitoring protocol that includes sections on "appropriate observer spacing" and "conflict de-escalation through passive-aggressive note-taking." "They might stand too close. They might ask pointed questions. They could even—and I shudder to think of it—write things down on their clipboards in a threatening manner."
The elaborate monitoring operation will cost California taxpayers approximately $850,000 to ensure that federal taxpayer-funded monitors don't somehow ruin an election about a ballot measure that eight people total plan to vote on.
Orange County Registrar Bob Page responded to the news by saying he's "excited to host everyone," apparently under the impression that Election Day is a potluck and not a jurisdictional pissing match between two levels of government that have both forgotten what their actual jobs are.
DOJ officials confirmed they're sending monitors because California Republicans filed a complaint about duplicate ballots, which is apparently now grounds for federal intervention rather than, say, just fixing the duplicate ballot problem like a normal place.
The monitoring arms race has escalated to the point where Los Angeles County is reportedly considering hiring a third party to monitor both sets of monitors, creating what political scientists call "a monitoring singularity" or "an absolutely ridiculous waste of everyone's time."
Governor Gavin Newsom held a press conference to denounce the federal monitors as "intimidation," standing in front of a chart showing how California already has 47 different types of election observers including county monitors, state monitors, party monitors, nonprofit monitors, and one guy named Derek who just really likes watching people vote.
The Trump administration defended sending monitors by noting that Democratic administrations did the same thing, which is true except those were usually sent to places with actual voter suppression problems and not to California because some Republicans are nervous about a gerrymandering ballot measure.
Federal monitors will arrive Tuesday equipped with official DOJ badges, clipboards, and a vague sense that they're involved in something important rather than a elaborate performance art piece about bureaucratic territorialism.
California's counter-monitors will be armed with their own clipboards, stern expressions, and instructions to "monitor aggressively but professionally," which sources say means "stand slightly closer to the federal monitors than is comfortable and sigh audibly whenever they write something down."
By Tuesday afternoon, polling places across California will feature more monitors than voters, creating scenes that one election official described as "like a middle school dance where all the chaperones are watching each other instead of the kids, except the kids are 47-year-old engineers voting on redistricting and everybody wishes they'd stayed home."