State GOP warned over drop boxes
SACRAMENTO — State officials ordered the California Republican Party on Monday to immediately stop collecting mail ballots for the November election via unofficial drop boxes it set up in at least three counties.
The appearance of the unauthorized collection boxes at churches, gyms, gun stores and local party headquarters in Los Angeles, Orange and Fresno counties raised alarm over the weekend that voters could be misled. Photos shared
on social media and by local news outlets show that at least some of the boxes were falsely labeled as official ballot dropoff locations.
Secretary of State Alex Padilla and Attorney General Xavier Becerra said they had sent a ceaseanddesist order to the California Republican Party and its chapters in the three counties, telling them to remove the collection boxes by Thursday. If they do not, they could face unspecified legal consequences.
“Tampering with the vote is illegal, and anyone who knowingly engages in the tampering or misuse of a vote is subject to prosecution,” Becerra said at a news conference. “We are prepared to work with the secretary of state and his office to protect the interests of our voters and to support any action in court that the secretary may wish to take.”
The California Republican Party said it did not intend to comply with the order. Party spokesman Hector Barajas said earlier Monday that the strategy is no different from another election tactic known to critics as “ballot harvesting,” in which organizations canvass neighborhoods to collect and return ballots on behalf of voters. Barajas said the party would not take down its boxes, though it had changed some of the signs.
“We are going to continue on with our ballot harvesting programs,” he said, blaming Democratic legislators for passing laws with few restrictions on who can return ballots or how. “They set up the rules. They set up the chessboard. So we are operating within the rules and the chessboard that they set up for us.”
California law allows voters to designate someone else to return their mail ballot. That person must provide on the ballot their name, signature and relationship to the voter, and then drop off the ballot or put it in the mail within three days.
In 2016, lawmakers eliminated a requirement that only a relative or a person living in the same household as the voter could return a ballot. Democratic campaigns took advantage of the change the following election cycle, organizing massive ballot collection drives that may have helped tip seven targeted House races in their favor. Republicans were highly critical of the move.
This year, however, the GOP decided to get in the game by putting drop boxes at places that Republican voters would be familiar with and would trust, Barajas said. He declined to say how many boxes the party had set up or in which counties, only that the effort was statewide.
The Orange County Register first reported on the collection boxes Sunday, after a regional field director of the California Republican Party posted about them on Twitter. A drop box outside a church in Castaic in Los Angeles County drew complaints. The Fresno County Republican Party posted to its website, then removed, a list of a dozen “secure locations” to drop off ballots at local businesses.
“President Trump is very concerned about the lack of security with mail in ballots,” the party wrote. “Don’t take a chance that your vote will not be counted.”
Elections officials and top Democrats said the GOP was misleading voters.
“Nothing reeks of desperation quite like the Republican Party organization these days,”
Gov. Gavin Newsom tweeted Monday, “willing to lie, cheat, and threaten our democracy all for the sake of gaining power.”
Padilla issued a memo to county registrars of voters Sunday warning that the drop boxes are prohibited by state law, because they do not meet security standards and no designated person would be signing for the ballot when the voter dropped it off.
“State law is very clear in terms of the options voters have to return their ballots,” he said Monday. “Unofficial, unauthorized drop boxes undermine both that voter confidence and potentially security.”
The California Republican Party disputes that analysis. Barajas said there are no specific regulations prohibiting private drop boxes, and he noted that another state law from 2018 prevents election officials from disqualifying a ballot “solely because the person returning it did not provide on the identification envelope his or her name, relationship to the voter, or signature.”
“The way the Democrats wrote the law, if we wanted to use a Santa bag, we could,” he said. “A locked, heavy box seemed safer.”