The California Republican Party has set up unauthorized ballot boxes in multiple counties around California. The unauthorized ballot boxes are nearly indistinguishable from official ones and were installed in Los Angeles, Fresno and Orange County.
On Monday, California Secretary of State Alex Padilla, working with the state justice department, issued a cease-and-desist order to the California Grand Old Party. Padilla said they would have until Thursday to comply with the orders and remove all the fake ballot drop boxes. “If they refuse to comply, then of course we will entertain all of our legal options,” Padilla said alongside State Attorney General Xavier Becerra during a virtual press conference.
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In response to the cease-and-desist order, California GOP spokesman Hector Barajas said the California Republican Party would remove the word “official”, but the boxes themselves would not be removed. He said they might even add more boxes around the state.
Tom Hiltachk, the California GOP general counsel, responded to the Secretary of State’s cease-and-desist order and blamed “perhaps an overzealous volunteer” who accidentally mislabeled the voting boxes as “official.” One photograph of an unofficial ballot box appeared in front of a church in Castaic, Calif., which was a major concern for Democratic California officials who feared the location of the voting box would not ensure the integrity of the votes at that particular location. Hiltachk responded that this particular box was taken inside the church after somebody photographed it and that the box was in a safe location.
The installment of these ballot boxes has even attracted the attention of former California Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who called the actions by the California GOP “off the rails.”
The California GOP says their ballot boxes are perfectly legal because their actions constitute nothing more than ballot harvesting. This practice allows a designated person to deliver a voter’s mail-in ballot for them. Padilla says that the problem with the installed ballot boxes is that they are labeled “official”, even though county officials did not install them. Padilla also says the unofficial boxes are problematic because “voters are led to believe they are turning in their ballots to elections officials.” According to Brook Staggs at the OC Register, California GOP spokesman Hector Barajas agreed that the term “official” was “a poor choice of wording.”
State law defines vote by mail ballot drop boxes as a “secure receptacle established by a county or city and county elections official.” County elections officials are tasked with choosing the amount and location of official ballot-collection boxes, to ensure the boxes can not be tampered with and that ballots are traceable.
According to Jessica Levinson, an election law professor at Loyola Law School, the votes in the unofficial ballot boxes are still valid, but that does not mean the California GOP could not be held accountable for their actions.
Although the California GOP’s actions are not necessarily illegal, the installment of improperly-labeled unofficial ballot boxes that as such can cause one to worry about the integrity of the party within the state of California. They seem to be toeing the line between vote manipulation and vote-streamlining. During a time of unprecedented uncertainty due to the coronavirus, more confusion is not what any voter needs.
