Thu. Mar 28th, 2024

From today’s San Diego Union-Tribune:

Earlier this year, state Sen. Tom Umberg pointed to an often-overlooked confluence of events amid discussion about California’s efforts to make it easier to vote in 2020 — something typically thought to favor Democrats.

“Democrats lost four seats (in Congress) this past election and we had the highest voter turnout since 1952,” the Santa Ana Democrat said. “I think more people voting, irrespective of what happened to Democrats, is a good thing for democracy.”

Lots of Republicans in other state legislatures aren’t buying that and launched a methodical drive to restrict voting access not long after the 2020 votes were officially tallied — along with seeking to overturn the results in some states where then-President Donald Trump lost.

There are a lot of reasons why Republicans gained some California congressional seats last year, just as there were when they lost several in 2018. How much — or how little — California’s voting rules had to do with that is open to debate. But greater access didn’t seem to hinder them.

Umberg’s comments came in February as the Legislature was passing his bill to extend last year’s California vote-by-mail system to special elections this year, which includes the Sept. 14 recall election for Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The bill was drafted long before it was certain the recall would qualify and there already were two other special elections scheduled to fill legislative vacancies, according to The Associated Press.

Several states expanded the use of mail ballots last year because of the coronavirus pandemic, including some that sent a ballot to every registered voter whether they requested it or not, as California did. That was opposed by Trump and many Republicans, contending it was designed to boost Democratic prospects.

Regardless, the mail-ballot system was widely viewed as a success last year, not just because of turnout, but because it gave everyone an automatic option to skip voting in person during the coronavirus pandemic. There were still polling places available and opportunities for early voting in addition to the mail ballots. That will be the case next month.

In February, the COVID-19 outbreak was lingering, but appeared to be winding down when the Umberg bill was passed. Now the action seems prescient, given the pandemic resurgence with the Delta variant.

California is such a blue state that Democrats would seem certain to dominate regardless of how accessible voting is here. The national balance of power lies mostly in red states where political and demographic trends aren’t favoring the GOP, such as Georgia. And those are the states where voting laws are becoming more restrictive.

California’s accessible mode of voting may not be threatened, but the state is entering the fight over restrictive laws elsewhere. On Monday, California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced he was joining nearly two dozen other attorneys general in filing an amicus brief supporting a U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit challenging a new Georgia law passed as Senate Bill 202.

Read the complete story here.

By Editor