The law makes it a crime to remove voted ballots from the custody of local election officials, a provision prompted in part by an incident earlier this year in Riverside County. Sheriff Chad Bianco, who is running for governor, seized more than 600,000 ballots from the county registrar of voters, saying his office was looking for evidence of fraudulent voting. No evidence has emerged showing that ballots were improperly cast.

Newsom said the state needed to make clear that election materials cannot be taken or handled outside established legal procedures.

“We have to step up, and we have to draw the line,” Newsom told reporters before signing the bill. He said the law is intended to clarify election rules and serve as a warning to those who might try to interfere with California’s voting process.

The measure, Senate Bill 73, was initially introduced by state lawmakers amid concerns about possible federal interference in California elections. Those concerns were heightened by tensions between the state and the Trump administration, as well as the national political stakes surrounding control of Congress.

But the Riverside County ballot seizure shifted the debate from a theoretical concern to an immediate one, prompting lawmakers to move quickly so the restrictions would be in place before voters cast ballots in the primary.

Under the new law, county registrars are prohibited from turning over ballots or voting equipment to law enforcement officers, including county sheriffs and deputies. If the law had been in effect at the time of the Riverside County incident, Registrar Art Tinoco would have been barred from allowing the sheriff’s department to take custody of the ballots, even with the search warrant deputies presented.

Assemblymember Gail Pellerin, a Democratic coauthor of the bill and former Santa Cruz County registrar of voters, said voters must be able to trust that ballots remain secure.

“Voters should never wonder whether ballots were improperly handled,” Pellerin said. “And law enforcement powers should never be misused in ways that jeopardize the integrity of our democratic process.”

The law also confirms that the state attorney general, secretary of state or local election officials may sue any person, company or entity that takes a package containing ballots from an election official’s custody.

Voting rights advocates welcomed the swift action, calling the Riverside County seizure extraordinary.

Kim Alexander, president of the nonprofit California Voter Foundation, said she was not aware of any similar ballot seizure occurring elsewhere in the country. The Legislature’s response, she said, signals to voters that state officials recognized the seriousness of what happened.

The law includes additional provisions allowing the attorney general and secretary of state, in certain circumstances, to override county election officials. Supporters say those safeguards are intended to prevent local officials from undermining statewide election rules, such as by allowing armed personnel to gather near voting sites.

Those provisions come amid scrutiny of election administration in Shasta County, where Registrar of Voters Clint Curtis has drawn attention for his ties to 2020 election deniers and public skepticism of voting machines. Curtis, who had no prior experience running elections before being appointed registrar in 2024, also reduced the number of ballot drop boxes in the county. He has faced allegations of workplace violence and harassment, including claims that he threatened to drag employees from his office by their hair. Curtis has denied the accusations.

The new law also bars individuals from allowing law enforcement officers to access, disrupt, alter or take possession of voting technology without a court order.

Another section prevents election observers from challenging voter signatures. That issue gained attention last fall when the U.S. Justice Department, at the request of the California Republican Party, announced it would send election observers to California during the special election on Proposition 50. The move prompted concerns among Democrats and voting advocates that President Donald Trump was attempting to influence the outcome.

Alexander said the removal of ballots is only one potential threat to confidence in California elections. She also pointed to the state’s extended vote-counting timeline, which has become a frequent target of conspiracy theories and unsupported claims about election results.

Election advocates are urging Newsom to include roughly $55 million in the state budget for county election offices to purchase updated equipment and hire more staff, with the goal of speeding up ballot counting.

Newsom said Wednesday that budget discussions over election funding are progressing and that an agreement is expected soon.

Original source: CalMatters

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As of the latest statewide ballot-tracking figures cited by Political Data Inc., about 92% of California voters had not yet returned their ballots. Voters still have time, but election officials urge residents not to wait until the last moment, especially if they plan to vote by mail.

The June 2 primary features a wide-open contest for governor, with several well-known Democrats and Republicans competing for just two spots on the November ballot. Under California’s primary system, the top two vote-getters advance to the general election regardless of party.

The field became especially fluid after some of the state’s most prominent Democrats, including former Vice President Kamala Harris and U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, opted not to run. Former Rep. Eric Swalwell had appeared to be gaining support among Democratic voters earlier in the year, but he left the race after allegations of sexual misconduct.

The candidates include Xavier Becerra, a Democrat and former U.S. Health and Human Services secretary who previously served as California attorney general; Chad Bianco, a Republican and Riverside County sheriff; Steve Hilton, a Republican, former Fox News host and former adviser to British Prime Minister David Cameron; Matt Mahan, a Democrat and mayor of San Jose; Katie Porter, a Democrat and former Orange County congresswoman; Tom Steyer, a Democratic billionaire entrepreneur and former presidential candidate; Tony Thurmond, a Democrat and California’s superintendent of public instruction; and Antonio Villaraigosa, a Democrat, former Los Angeles mayor and former Assembly speaker.

Recent polling has not shown a decisive front-runner. A Democratic Party poll showed Hilton at 22%, Becerra at 21% and Steyer at 15%, leaving open the possibility of a closely contested finish.

California’s top-two primary system has been in place since voters approved Proposition 14 in 2010. Supporters said it would encourage candidates to appeal beyond their party bases, while critics warned it could narrow choices by allowing two candidates from the same party to advance to November. With so many contenders in the governor’s race, that remains a possibility this year.

Voters who still plan to mail their ballots should make sure the envelopes are postmarked on or before Election Day and received by county election offices within seven days. Election officials generally recommend mailing ballots at least five days before June 2. Those mailing close to the deadline should consider taking the ballot inside a post office and requesting a hand-stamped postmark.

Ballots also may be returned at official drop boxes or voting locations. Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Election Day. Voters can look up polling places and ballot drop-off sites through the California Secretary of State’s office or their county elections office.

Results will begin coming in on election night, but final tallies will take longer. County election officials must begin reporting results to the secretary of state no more than two hours after they start counting. Counties have 30 days to complete their counts and submit final results, and the state has 38 days to certify the election.

In addition to governor, voters will see several statewide offices on the ballot, including superintendent of public instruction, lieutenant governor, controller, secretary of state, treasurer and insurance commissioner.

Another office on the ballot is the Board of Equalization, an elected tax board created by the state in 1879. Its authority is now limited largely to property tax oversight, though the office has also served as a steppingstone for politicians seeking higher office.

For Inland Empire voters, the governor’s race carries a local connection through Bianco, the Riverside County sheriff, who is among the Republicans seeking a place in the November runoff. But with the field divided and many ballots still unreturned, the outcome remains uncertain heading into the final days of voting.

Original source: CalMatters

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The Central Valley county is among those experiencing one of the largest increases in registered voters, reflecting a broader statewide push as Californians prepare for upcoming elections.

The trend highlights growing voter engagement across California, including in counties outside the state’s largest metropolitan areas. Election officials continue to encourage eligible residents to check their registration status, update their information if they have moved or changed their name, and make sure they are prepared to participate when ballots are cast.

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Lorena Gonzalez, head of the California Labor Federation, thinks she has at least a partial solution.

“We’ve got to listen to them,” she said, “and not talk about things that do not play in their life, or that they don’t identify with.”

That may seem as straightforward as a palm-slap to the forehead. (Well, duh!) But it’s not necessarily something union leaders have done in the past. Often, Gonzalez said, the top-down instruction to labor’s political troops has been, “This is our message. Go sell it.”

Vote Harris. Elect a Democratic Congress. Stop Trump.

But none of that, she said, resonated with the large number of Republican and conservative-leaning California voters who also happen to be union members in proud standing. So the Labor Federation tried something different this election, avoiding words such as “Democrat” and “Republican,” “Biden,” “Harris” and “Trump” in its political pitch.

“The usual go-to, the top-of-the-ticket discussion with our union members, wasn’t going to get us anywhere,” Gonzalez said last week in a lengthy conversation at the Labor Federation’s downtown Sacramento headquarters. “And it would just shut them down for everything else.”California was an oasis this November in a largely barren Democratic landscape. Even as they lost the White House and Senate, the party flipped three House seats in the state, helping Democrats to an overall gain of a single seat and holding Republicans to the barest majority in decades.

Several of those California races were very close, so the Democratic success can be attributed to any number of factors. But at least some credit goes to the Labor Federation and its speak-no-partisanship strategy, which helped yield a significant number of crossover votes in a several closely fought congressional contests.

As Democrats spend the next few years soul-searching and wilderness-wandering, it’s an approach to winning union members and working-class voters that, Gonzalez suggested, is worth studying across the country.

As recently as 2012, Democratic presidential candidates could count on the support of about 6 in 10 voters from union households. (That’s how exit pollsters typically measure the sentiment of union members; they ask whether a voter or someone they are living with belongs to a union.)

That percentage has fallen in every election Donald Trump has been on the ballot, to just about 5 in 10 voters. The decline may not seem like a lot, but even a small shift matters in close elections — especially in battleground states with large union memberships, such as Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

The California strategy grew out of a series of focus groups undertaken soon after Gonzalez, a former state lawmaker, became head of the Labor Federation in July 2022. “What did I want to do?” she asked, as the clang of a trolley car rang from the K Street Mall below. “Not talk to our members, but listen to them.”

Discussions were held throughout the state, in the Central Valley, the Inland Empire, Orange County and the L.A. region — home to the half-dozen most competitive congressional races in California. The groups were split among men and women, Democrats and Republicans; the separation was intended, Gonzalez said, to avoid turning conversations into political arguments.

The survey found that in virtually every district there were more self-identified Republican union members than Democrats — which didn’t necessarily match up with members’ voter registration. “Take back the House,” the national Democratic rallying cry, was obviously “not gonna fly,” Gonzalez said, nor would a message built around keeping a Democrat in the White House — even if both were seen as being to the greater advantage of union members.

Instead, strategists drew on something that emerged from those focus groups: a fundamental belief in the value of diligent labor. “We would ask questions like, ‘What do you like about your union?’ ” Gonzalez recollected. The oft-heard response: “My union fights for me because I work hard.”

That, in turn, led to a campaign focused on the failings of the 118th Congress, historically one of the least productive in history. The message was simple. If you performed as poorly on the job as your representative in Washington, you’d be fired.

Variations on that theme were repeated to tens of thousands of union members in each of the six competitive districts. In mailers. In discussions on front porches. On refrigerator magnets sent to their homes. “If I got as little done at my job,” the magnets read, “this refrigerator would be empty.”

Care was taken to include documentation from the likes of CNN and Fox News, lest attacks on the do-nothing Congress came across as a one-sided attack.

(It was a somewhat tougher sell in the open-seat contest to replace Democrat Katie Porter, but union strategists counted on Republican Scott Baugh being tainted by association with the Republican-led House. Democrat Dave Min narrowly won the Orange County contest.)

Rather than telling union members who they should vote for — the usual approach — “we left them to come to their own conclusion,” Gonzalez said. Not by making a partisan argument, but appealing to their work ethic.

It seemed to work. Not perfectly. Democrats knocked off Reps. Mike Garcia in northern L.A. County, Michelle Steel in Orange County and John Duarte in the Central Valley. (The latter two by not much). They failed to oust Republicans David Valadao in the Valley and Ken Calvert in the Inland Empire.

But the strategy was successful enough that Gonzalez plans to sit down with national labor leaders for a debriefing.

It was admittedly difficult for the self-described “bleeding-heart liberal” not to press the hair-on-fire argument about the dangers of Trump and the need for a Democratic check on his authoritarian impulses. Typically, Gonzalez said, “That’s how we talk.”

The approach to California union members — more a nudge than a shove — also had to be sold to skeptics. There has long been a sense within the labor movement that if “we just … ‘educate’ them enough,” she said, “they’ll be good Democrats.”

But that bespeaks an arrogance the party will have to overcome if it’s going to stanch the bleeding among union and working-class voters. Only then will Democrats end their exile in Washington.

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