California enacts new election safeguards against potential Trump interference in midterms

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed a sweeping package of election laws Saturday, including a measure making it a felony to seize ballots, election records or voting technology before an election is certified. 

It’s the latest move by the Golden State to prevent law enforcement or federal officials from disrupting the counting of votes ahead of November’s midterm elections.

At the center of the 13-bill package is Assembly Bill 282, which makes it a felony for anyone to seize, cause or assist in the seizure of ballots, election records or certified voting technology while election officials are still counting and certifying results. A person in authority who orders someone under their supervision to carry out such a seizure could face up to four years in prison.

“California WILL protect our elections,” Newsom wrote after signing the legislation. “I just signed legislation to make it A FELONY to illegally seize or interfere with ballots before elections are certified. When it comes to our elections, California is not messing around.”

The measure is part of California’s escalating response to concerns about law enforcement intervention in elections — concerns that became concrete this year when Republican Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco seized roughly 1,000 boxes containing about 650,000 ballots from the county registrar’s office. 

The seizure grew out of years of unsubstantiated election fraud claims pushed by right-wing activists. Unsealed search warrant records showed Bianco’s investigators had no witnesses, insider sources or independent forensic analysis establishing voter fraud, and Riverside County’s top election official said the allegations of miscounted ballots relied on flawed and incomplete data. 

An earlier sheriff’s department investigation into similar claims had found no evidence of a crime. 

Despite that, Bianco obtained warrants and seized roughly 650,000 ballots from election officials. The legality of that unprecedented seizure is now before the California Supreme Court, where the state has argued that Bianco exceeded his authority and relied on “debunked misinformation” about Riverside County’s elections

Bianco’s actions already prompted Newsom to sign Senate Bill 73 in May. That law restricts law enforcement, including federal agents, from accessing or disrupting voter rolls, election technology and election workers without specified legal authority. 

It also criminalizes knowingly taking ballots from the custody of election officials.

The new legislation signed Saturday goes further by establishing an explicit prohibition on removing protected election materials before results are certified, regardless of who attempts the seizure. 

Another measure signed Saturday requires local officials to alert California’s secretary of state and attorney general within one calendar day of learning about a warrant, subpoena or law enforcement investigation involving election records or certified voting technology, allowing state officials to challenge such actions in court.

The package also comes amid a broader fight between California and the Trump administration over federal involvement in elections.

Earlier this year, President Donald Trump directed the U.S. Postal Service to impose new requirements on mail voting. 

The resulting rule would have required states to provide lists of mail-ballot recipients and use Postal Service-approved envelopes with unique barcodes. The Postal Service could have refused to transmit ballots that failed to meet the new requirements. The administration said the changes were intended to combat voter fraud.

But federal courts blocked the rule, and last week the U.S. Supreme Court declined to let the administration implement it before the midterms. A federal appeals court had concluded the rule would likely disenfranchise millions of voters while producing minimal, if any, benefits in combating alleged fraud.

Newsom has framed Saturday’s legislation as preparation for further attempts at federal intervention.

“Donald Trump won’t stop until he can exert dictatorial control over your free vote and disenfranchise millions of people this November. California will stop him at every opportunity,” Newsom said. “We have no bigger task than fighting to protect the right to vote from interference and meddling – the future of democracy is on the line. These bills today build upon the wall California has built to safeguard our electoral process.”

The legislation does not depend on proving that a particular federal intervention is imminent. 

Instead, California lawmakers have written protections around the election process itself — keeping ballots and voting systems in election officials’ custody while votes are counted and creating criminal penalties for anyone who tries to remove them before the result is certified.