A Republican state representative is upset with what he sees as abuse of power on the part of Secretary of State Alex Padilla (D) and Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D).
“Operating to intimidate our voters for political purposes is not the job of the Secretary of State,” said Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA). “His job is to work with us to fix an error If we had one and resolve it. Instead, they just put out a cease-and-desist to intimidate people of faith and Republicans to suppress their vote.”
Calvert is among Republicans who drew ire from state officials for using unofficial ballot boxes to collect votes.
“As our attorney said our legal ballot collections will continue,” Calvert said. “I've been telling people for the past two years that the ballot laws passed by the California Democrats are a disaster. The Secretary of State puts out a lot of information, publications, and materials except when it comes to California ballot collection laws. Even reporters are confused and that's not by accident. California Democrats don't want anyone to know about ballot collection laws. They want to be the only one to take advantage of it.”
As previously reported by Fox40, Becerra and Padilla issued cease-and-desist orders last week, threatening legal action if the unofficial ballot boxes were not withdrawn.
“At some point in time, as this whole charade has demonstrated, it might be a good idea for the parties to work together to tighten up or better yet eliminate the ballot harvesting law in California,” said California Republican Party national committeewoman Harmeet Dhillon, a civil rights attorney. “Some counties don't even bother to print a line that is required by state law on the ballot for people to fill in when there is some third party turning it in. They ignore their own laws and yet they expect Republicans to follow made-up laws.”
California law specifies that a voter-by-mail who is unable to return his or her ballot may designate a third party to return the ballot to an election official.
But Philip B. Stark, associate dean with the division of mathematical and physical sciences at the University of California Berkeley, said the practice can easily be weaponized to disenfranchise voters and interfere with custody.
“Presumably, some people who deposited their ballots were misled into thinking they had voted when in fact they had handed their ballot to a third party,” Stark told the Southern California Record. “Even if everyone has the best intentions, ballots could be lost on the way to the county election office.”
Dhillon added that she views the sluggish attempts by Padilla and Becerra to intimidate Republican voters and Republican party officials in the state as nothing short of an Equal Protection and First Amendment violation under the U.S. Constitution.
“It’s something that will be covered in a civil rights lawsuit if this matter proceeds further,” Dhillon said. “We are not backing down. We will continue to harvest ballots and we will continue to compete fairly.”
Mark Meckler, a political pundit, recently relocated from California to Texas because California is a disaster zone, he said.
"It's rife with ballot fraud," Meckler told the Southern California Record. "They set up legalized ballot harvesting in California the last election cycle, which is largely responsible for the loss of all the congressional seats in Orange County that went Blue for the first time. Orange County, California is historically one of the more conservative areas in California. Ballot harvesting is just designed to legalize fraud. I think it's a disaster for the system to have legalized ballot harvesting."