California Attorney General Rob Bonta rolled out four new resources Wednesday aimed at shielding voters, poll workers and election materials just days before the Nov. 3 general election, as concerns mount over possible immigration enforcement near polling places and a wave of federal scrutiny of mail-in ballots. Bonta briefed reporters in San Francisco, saying his office developed the guidance partly in response to fears that federal agents could show up at voting sites.
The announcement, covered by krcrtv.com, includes guidance for election officials on law-enforcement access to voting sites and ballots, protections against attempts to seize election materials, voter-intimidation safeguards and warnings about election misinformation, including content generated by artificial intelligence. The California Department of Justice said it would have attorneys and administrative staff available statewide to assist the Secretary of State's Office with election-law enforcement, according to the same report. Bonta also said California elections are proceeding as usual and that voting rights and ballot-casting rules remain protected under state law, as reported by SFGATE.
ICE Sighting Near a Yuba City Polling Site Fuels Concerns
Bonta said federal law bars armed individuals, including ICE, National Guard members and military personnel, from being at or near polling stations, according to SFGATE. The warning comes after reports that ICE agents were seen near a polling center in Yuba City in Northern California the previous week. The Department of Homeland Security said it was not planning operations targeting polling locations, though it said it may conduct intelligence-driven, targeted enforcement in response to an active public-safety threat at a polling place, and that it would enforce laws against noncitizens casting ballots, with noncitizen voters facing arrest, criminal charges and deportation, per SFGATE.
That tension fits a broader pattern described by CBS News, which reports that federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security have been knocking on doors in several states to question residents about their immigration status and voting history. Those field operations hit a legal snag Oct. 22, when a federal judge restricted DHS's efforts targeting suspected noncitizen voters, finding the government had used flawed data and that the initiative likely violated the Voting Rights Act, according to NPR.
DOJ's Push to Toss 20,000 Ballots Rejected by Appeals Court
The scrutiny extends into the courts. Bonta said the U.S. Department of Justice had tried to have California set aside roughly 20,000 mail-in ballots it claimed were cast by noncitizens, an effort a federal appeals court rejected in October, according to SFGATE. Bonta described the episode as part of a broader pattern in which the federal administration has tried to control voting, threatened to send federal law enforcement to polling places and spread election misinformation, the outlet reported.
Those federal moves echo a case much closer to home. After California's November 2025 special election, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco seized hundreds of thousands of ballots in an attempt to prove voter fraud, and the California Supreme Court ruled the seizure illegal and ordered the ballots returned, per SFGATE. Governor Gavin Newsom's office has separately said no evidence of fraud was ever produced in that incident, according to a statement from the governor's office. A separate example cited by Bonta involved the FBI, which seized ballots from an election office in Fulton County, Georgia, in January using a warrant connected to the 2020 election, SFGATE reported.
New Notices Cover Ballot Seizures and AI-Generated Misinformation
Bonta's office posted four notices addressing these scenarios directly. The first offers guidance for judges and election officials on law-enforcement seizures of election materials under criminal search warrants, while a legal alert addresses ballot chain-of-custody requirements and judicial review of warrant requests, according to SFGATE. A second bulletin walks election workers through Senate Bill 73, which Governor Newsom signed earlier this year to strengthen protections against law-enforcement intimidation in election procedures and against taking election materials without a court order, per the same report. A third bulletin outlines the state and federal limits on law-enforcement operations in or around polling places.
Bonta also warned that AI and social media can spread inaccurate voting-eligibility information and intentionally mislead voters, which is illegal under state law, SFGATE reported. A misinformation notice urges voters to approach sensational election content with caution and to verify it against credible sources. That warning lines up with national trends tracked by the Brennan Center for Justice, which says AI and social media have become powerful tools for misleading voters and that false election narratives are expected to keep resurfacing through the midterms. The organization also notes that more than 12 million Americans had already voted nationally as of its most recent count, and that any federal deployment intimidating voters or interfering with elections would be illegal.
How to Vote, Track a Ballot or Report a Problem
Members of the public can report false or misleading information about where, when or how to vote to the Secretary of State's office at [email protected], according to SFGATE. Voting-rights denials can be reported through the Secretary of State's confidential toll-free voter hotline at 800-345-VOTE (8683) or by email to [email protected]. Bonta said his office is prepared to respond to election interference before and on Election Day, and urged every Californian who hasn't voted to make a plan and cast a ballot early, preferably at a drop box or vote center.
Eligible Californians who missed the registration deadline can still use conditional voter registration, also called same-day registration, through Election Day on Nov. 3, according to krcrtv.com. Bonta noted that vote-by-mail ballots sent around the time of his briefing might not arrive by Election Day, but the California Secretary of State confirms that any ballot postmarked on or before Election Day and received within seven days after will still be counted. Voters can check official election information at sos.ca.gov/elections and track a mailed ballot through the Where's My Ballot service, which sends status notifications as a ballot is mailed, received and counted.
Statewide Monitoring Efforts Ramp Up for Election Day
California's new guidance arrives alongside a much larger national mobilization around Election Day security. Tens of thousands of volunteers organized by Democrats and voting-rights groups plan to watch polling places amid concerns about federal interference and intimidation, according to the Los Angeles Times. The Justice Department is expected to deploy roughly 1,000 staff to observe voting and ensure federal laws are followed, in what the paper describes as the department's largest-ever election-monitoring effort. The Republican National Committee, meanwhile, has enlisted nearly 22,000 poll workers and plans to deploy election-integrity deputy state directors in 22 states, the Los Angeles Times reported.
