A political fight in Washington over the future of mail-in voting could end up nudging more Californians to cast their ballots early — a shift election officials have been hoping for, but rarely achieved, for years.
As the Trump administration and more than 20 states continue fighting in court over whether the president can direct the U.S. Postal Service to restrict how mail ballots are handled ahead of the Nov. 3 election, a wave of social media posts is urging voters to skip the mail altogether. Instead, users are encouraging friends and family to vote early in person or drop their ballots directly into official drop boxes.
Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation, said the uncertainty swirling around the Trump administration’s plans may end up working against the president’s own goals.
“This whole play may backfire,” Alexander said. “What you’re seeing now on social media in response to this court drama and this confusion are lots of people urging their friends to vote early — and that’s exactly what we’ve been saying.”
Election officials have long pushed early voting because ballots that arrive by mail take longer to process. Workers must open each envelope, verify signatures and prepare the ballot before it can be counted. When voters submit ballots several days ahead of the deadline, county officials can get a head start on that work, which speeds up results once polls close — and allows race callers to project winners sooner.
The dispute traces back to March, when President Trump signed an executive order attempting to give the federal government oversight of who can receive a mail ballot. To implement that order, the Postal Service last month proposed a system that would assign a unique tracking barcode to every mailed ballot and cross-check it against a database of registered voters.
The catch: no such comprehensive federal voter database currently exists. The plan would rely on individual states voluntarily submitting voter registration data to a so-called “federal ballot mail portal” that has not yet been built. Under Trump’s proposal, the Postal Service would refuse to deliver ballots in any state that declines to share that information.
So far, federal courts have blocked the plan from moving forward, siding with the states that sued to stop it. The U.S. Supreme Court, however, allowed the administration last month to continue preparing for implementation while the justices consider a final ruling.
Until that ruling comes down, California counties are proceeding as usual, according to Tricia Webber, clerk and registrar of voters for Santa Cruz County and president of the California Association of County Election Officials.
Locally, residents can expect county registrars across the Inland Empire and Southern California to continue promoting early voting options — ballot drop boxes, vote centers and mail-in ballots submitted well ahead of the deadline — regardless of how the federal case unfolds.
Community members interested in learning more about ballot security closer to home can attend a public forum hosted by CalMatters and the UC Riverside School of Public Policy on Sept. 24 in Riverside. The event will examine the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department’s handling of mail ballots and what the incident could mean for future elections in the region.
Original source: CalMatters
