The state’s Surrendering Vote-by-Mail Ballot procedure is rife with opportunities for election fraud, according to a Republican candidate for Congress.
“The safeguards we need have not been put in place since November 2020,” said Mike Cargile, Republican candidate for California's 35th congressional district. “Nobody has done an audit of California’s election systems and the state refuses an audit of the California election system.”
Cargile's Republican opponents in the June 7 primary include Rafael Carcamo and Bob Erbst. The incumbent is Democrat Norma Torres.
Cargile was reacting to a memorandum issued by Elections Division Chief Jana M. Lean explaining Sections 3015 and 3016 of the Elections Code.
“A surrendered vote-by-mail ballot is one the voter does not intend to cast–rather the voter is returning it so they may receive a nonprovisional, also referred to as “live, regular, or polling place ballot,” the May 7 memo states. “A nonprovisional ballot is one that will be placed directly into the ballot box; it will not go into a ballot identification envelope.”
The problem with the process, according to Cargile, is that every voter statewide receives a mail-in ballot.
“The Secretary of State refuses to purge the voter rolls so everywhere you've ever lived is going to get a ballot,” he said. “This is why there were so many people who were told when they would show to polling places, 'You've already voted.' Someone got their mail-in ballot, placed it and it was counted fraudulently because the actual voter was standing there holding their mail-in ballot.”
Cargile is among the Republican candidates who sued various county election officials on Jan. 4, 2021, alleging in their lawsuit that California’s voting practices are unconstitutional.
Cargile and the Election Integrity Project (EIP) asked the Central District of California to issue an order requiring state officials to allow an inspection of all voting machines by subject matter experts but the case was dismissed.
“Our lawsuit is asking the court to allow us to audit 13 counties simultaneously” the ballots, the envelopes, and the machines from the 2020 November election, not to overturn the election but to see if there's massive fraud or not,” Cargile told the Southern California Record. “If there is, we're asking for the laws that allow unchecked mail-in ballots to be removed because the laws are unconstitutional.”
The case is currently pending with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
“You can only get an original ballot if you surrender your mail-in ballot and if you don't surrender your mail-in ballot, you can either send in your mail-in ballot or get a provisional ballot, but you can’t get an original ballot,” Cargile added. “A provisional ballot is only at the polling location, and it's given to someone who doesn't have a mail-in ballot, but wants to vote.”