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To Fix Our Government We Must Fix Our Election System
It Starts With AB 13
By Bill Essayli, March 8, 2023 7:28 am
Nothing is more sacred in our American system of government than the right to vote. Generations of Americans have made great sacrifices to protect and expand the right to vote. Today, our republic is under threat because the public is losing faith in our voting system. The lack of sufficient safeguards to mail voting, poorly maintained voter rolls, and delayed election result reporting are prime culprits. To restore trust I have introduced legislation, Assembly Bill 13, to restore our voting system to pre-pandemic procedures and increase accessibility to voting by making Election Day a holiday.
Many tend to think that their vote in a sea of millions does not make a difference, but not voting means giving up your voice. Your vote ensures that government continues to derive its just authority through your consent, and allows you to have a say in making key decisions on the quality of life for yourself, your family, and your community. Unfortunately, many individuals are discouraged by recent modifications to our election system undermining confidence in the system itself.
Our state has made great progress in making it easier for everyone to vote – automatic voter registration, same-day voter registration, and increasing access to vote-by-mail are all great strides that have helped our elections to be more inclusive and representative. However, just as important is ensuring that we have safe, secure, and accurate elections. Elections are often how we resolve our greatest political disagreements and it’s critical that the outcome of those decisions be accurate and accepted by the public.
Recent changes like legalizing Ballot Harvesting have eroded trust in the system and allows any person to collect an unlimited number of ballots from anyone – no questions asked. There is no chain of custody of who handled the ballot. This makes it impossible to know whether the voter actually completed the ballot themselves, whether the ballot was tampered with after collection, or whether a voter was coerced into surrendering the ballot over to a harvester. Harvesters are often paid political operatives working for a campaign or group with a vested interest in the outcome of the election. In my profession we call this a “conflict of interest.”
Recently, a Lodi City Councilmember was arrested on suspicious of election fraud and resigned his seat on the city council. We know election fraud is real, even those elected and expected to uphold the public trust can be guilty of this criminal activity, and my bill will help put a stop to this potential fraud.
The shift to mail voting has also resulted is massive delays in obtaining election results. This extended delay breeds distrust and skepticism in the tabulation process. Just this year, Californians across the state waited weeks without knowing who their elected representative in several districts and it was especially offensive that two members of the Legislature could not be seated on swearing-in day because those races still had not been called, denying the People of those districts a voice in their elected government.
My bill, AB 13, will reform vote by mail, ensuring only those who request an absentee ballot in the mail receive one. It will return us to a system of in-person voting on Election Day as we have always done. To ensure that every Californian has the opportunity to vote, my bill would make Election Day a holiday. It will also ban the practice of ballot harvesting, which is currently illegal in most other states. These reforms will strengthen the integrity of our elections while ensuring the will of the voters is timely and accurately represented. It is only through a health electrical system can the People hold government accountable and exercise their authority to decide who will continue to lead our Great State.
- To Fix Our Government We Must Fix Our Election System - March 8, 2023
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Dear Bill,
I wish you luck and I hope you can convince your Democrat colleagues to support this bill.
If it does not pass I hope to see it as a voter referendum.
Then if and when it passes I hope that when it is challenged in court by the Democratic Cartel (nationwide organization) that you have a judge in your back pocket to rule in its favor.
Good Luck, I am on your side!
Mr Essayli,
These are good reforms; however, we also need to transition away from the use of voting machines back to hand tabulation. With limited mail-in voting, single-day in-person voting, and hand tabulation at the precinct level, interested parties could observe the vote count in a meaningful way. That is not possible currently with machine tabulation and extended election “seasons.”
So glad to see Asm Bill Essayli weigh in here at The Globe, and on CA’s election mess especially. Bills such as AB 13 address the CA issues that normal citizens actually care about the most.
Can’t say enough good stuff about this guy — I’ve been following his work for years and Californians are lucky to have him in the Assembly now. In addition to smarts, honesty, valuable experience, persistence, common sense and a plainspoken style, he has a gift for revealing just how absurd the positions of our Usual Suspect Dem legislators are. And he doesn’t give up, so some of these people would be wise to “cry uncle” sooner rather than later on these matters. With the backing of sensible Californians I believe he can prevail, even against the worst nonsense of our ridiculous mega-majority Dem legislature. Let your own reps know you support AB 13 to reform CA election practices.
Also I highly recommend that readers follow his activities on Twitter. Even if you’re not a Twitter user, you can still go and lurk and look. 🙂 @billessayli
Republican Assemblyman Bill Essayli’s AB 13 bill sounds like a reasonable reform of the current election system that is broken and rife with fraud? For that reason, the Democrat cabal that controls the legislature will reject it? A broken election system is how they’ve been able to steal elections for years?
They can try, Mario, and as you know they will, but it will become increasingly difficult to do so with more and more Californians metaphorically but incessantly pounding on their heads as they try to carry on with their absurd nonsense. We’ll see…
Hear Asm Bill Essayli on KFI 640 John & Ken Show talk about the absurd statements made in the legislature’s “public safety” committee yesterday before they proceeded to deep-six AB 328 (as predicted/reported by Katy Grimes) which would have restored gun enhancements and mandatory sentencing for those who use a gun during the commission of a violent crime. Approx 10 minutes:
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/john-and-ken-on-demand-20635765/episode/john-ken-show-hour-2-110107111/
Be sure to go to the beginning of the excerpt posted at the link above to catch the entire Bill Essayli interview.
FINALLY!!! An intelligent first-step towards reforming California’s completely dysfunctional election platform & procedures…
Even though it likely won’t make it through the sea of corrupt Dems that currently rule this state, at least SOMEONE is finally TRYING to take a necessary step in the right direction, and hopefully this snowball will continue to gain traction and eventually people will wake up to the resistance that it will undoubtedly trigger, and the voting populace will wake up to who is AGAINST “free and fair” elections…
Newsom was not legitimately elected – I believe that D o m i n i o n was utilized to “adjudicate the will of the voter” (paraphrasing the security weakness exploit(s) described in the CA SOS PDF regarding the security testing performed on the system and signed off by Alex Padilla…
Assemblyman Essayli, I do hope your Bill passes. We have a Jorge-Suaros-backed Elections Manager in my County, and the lack of accountability and outright hostility toward those who would dare question is appalling. They are not forthcoming in my County regarding Election security and the use of secure electronic ballot counting and issue. Of course, our lovely Sect’y of State helped facilitate a lot of the problems we now face, along with our Legislators, who basically gutted the system, in violation of the State Constitution. There are likely 8-13+ million voters on the CA voter rolls who shouldn’t be there. There are two of “me” in my County, about which I have vociferously complained for years. My County Elections Manager keeps assuring me everything is fine. The Secretary of State’s Office has just run me in circles until I’ve been exhausted, on this particular issue. There is a lot of monkey-business going on in my County, but I can’t get into it here. Better that the Election Integrity Project or True the Vote takes this up. But if we don’t get this under control SOON, we’ll never right the ship. The iceberg is fast approaching.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jodywestby/2020/04/16/hbo-documentary-shows-the-value-of-cybersecurity-in-election-security/?sh=198a97873f1c
The Forbes article link shows how easy it is to hack voting machines without leaving a trace. So why is there no outcry on this? Why are we still using these machines?
I would love it if your bill passed. Even if it doesn’t, please keep trying. We can’t just give up on saving our state.
“Our state has made great progress in making it easier for everyone to vote – automatic voter registration, same-day voter registration, and increasing access to vote-by-mail are all great strides ”
This exemplifies why Reps are perennial losers. Those changes were intended to and do facilitate Dem Party vote fraud.
If the Reps were serious about election integrity and winning, they would qualify an election integrity initiative that requires voting on election, in person (absent a good excuse), on paper, with photo ID, ballots hand counted.
But, alas, Reps are not serious about either election integrity or winning.
As Steven Crowder says, “change my mind.”
This bill has exactly ZERO chance of passing. But nice try.
Restore to pre-pandemic process? Howzabout restoring to 1999, to eliminate ballot harvesting and all other methods the Dems put in place to both give them their super majority and guaranty it’ll be there in perpetuity?
California is a prime example of what the Founding Fathers feared – a simple Democracy where A simple majority rules all.
So you are going to ask the cheaters not to cheat?
They actually mailed ballots to “Last Known Address”. Who does that besides communist countries? Do you really think they will take a chance on a fair election? You have got to be kidding.
We will have honest elections in California when pigs are flying over my house in formation!
We need to change the “EUREKA” in the state seal to “BOHICA” .
Call it truth in advertising!
I agree, with one exception. Election day should not be a holiday. I’m 79 years old and have voted since I was 18. Never was it a burden to vote on election day, even when I was working 11 hours a day. In any case, not everyone would have a holiday, such as medical personnel, emergency responders, and many others. We don’t need to make it “easier” for people to vote; people need to be more patriotic and get out and vote. If they aren’t, they don’t need to vote.