Home>Articles>BREAKING: California Republican Party Sues Gov. Newsom to Prohibit Ballot Harvesting For California’s May 12 Special Elections

CAGOP Chairwoman Jessica Millan Patterson. (Photo: CAGOP)

BREAKING: California Republican Party Sues Gov. Newsom to Prohibit Ballot Harvesting For California’s May 12 Special Elections

‘If we can’t see our mothers on Mother’s Day, then strangers shouldn’t be visiting our homes to collect ballots’

By Katy Grimes, April 29, 2020 3:55 pm

The California Republican Party last week sent a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom asking him to prohibit ballot harvesting for the upcoming special elections on May 12, to avoid risks to public health and safety in light of COVID-19, California Globe reported.

Receiving no response from the governor, the CAGOP filed a lawsuit Wednesday in Sacramento Superior Court asking Governor Newsom to prohibit ballot harvesting ahead of the May 12 Special Elections in Congressional District 25 and State Senate District 28.

“Governor Gavin Newsom has yet to make clear that ballot harvesting stands in direct conflict with the social distancing guidelines he claims to support,” said California Republican Party Chairwoman Jessica Millan Patterson. “The governor’s stay-at-home order clearly prohibits ballot harvesting, and we are asking him to break his silence and prohibit the practice ahead of California’s Special Elections.

“Governor Newsom has told Californians that they can’t open their businesses, their kids can’t go to school, and they can’t attend family events including weddings and funerals. If we can’t see our mothers on Mother’s Day, then strangers should not be visiting our homes to collect ballots. He must stop dodging this issue.  His silence is irresponsible and is putting Californians’ lives at risk – and without direction from the Democrats in office, we need the courts to weigh in,” Patterson said.

In the letter to the governor last week, CAGOP Chairwoman Patterson explained:

“It is true that in-person voting presents risks to public health and safety in light of COVID-19. It is also true that other activities in connection with voting present the same risk (or even higher) that must be mitigated during this historic event.

As you know, Section 3017 of the Elections Code ordinarily allows a vote by mail voter to “designate any person to return the ballot to the elections official who issue the ballot” on their behalf. (Elec. Code § 3017(a)(2).)

During normal times, this may involve a stranger visiting a voter’s home and offering to return the voter’s ballot to the elections official. During these times, this activity presents an intolerable risk to public health and safety.”

Patterson’s letter was in response to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s statewide “Stay-at-Home Order” March 19, 2020, directing all California residents to shelter in place unless they were essential workers.

On March 20, 2020, Gov. Newsom issued another Executive Order applying specifically to the May 12 special elections in California’s 25th Congressional District and California’s 28th State Senate District, which declared that although the state’s Election Code would normally determine the special election be held using in-person voting, because of COVID-19 and social distancing measure, the election would be conducted as an all-mail election.

The California Republican Party is now asking Gov. Newsom to suspend other provisions of the Election Code, specifically permitting a voter to designate any other person to return a ballot – or ballot harvesting – because they present the same dangers as in-person voting.

Attorneys Harmeet Dhillon, Mark Meuser and Gregory Michael filed the lawsuit on behalf of the CAGOP.

 

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29 thoughts on “BREAKING: California Republican Party Sues Gov. Newsom to Prohibit Ballot Harvesting For California’s May 12 Special Elections

  1. GOOD. Law suit or not, these scuzzy ballot harvesters had better re-think knocking on doors anyway this time around. They won’t be welcome. They’re going to get an earful if they knock on mine. In my city other solicitors are not allowed now — in fact while I was out for a walk a police helicopter hovered overhead yelling at someone who was going door to door. Seems a bit fascist to me but if the city is going to clamp down on people trying to make a living, why should the damn ballot harvesters get a pass?

  2. Hallelujah!!!

    It’s about dam* time that the CAGOP turned the tables on Gov. Hairgel and his trusty sidekick, X. Becerra, to drag them through the same legal morass that they put President Trump through…

    If this suit doesn’t work, appeal it all the way to the SCOTUS because this endemic voter FRAUD must stop besmirching the formerly great state of California.

    No more voter fraud!!!

    1. People are trying to sue him about beaches being closed. When the U.S. has the most cases of covid-19 in the world. And will be three times what any other country has in a few months. And New Zealand has barely any cases or even deaths. It’s so sad, that people can’t see how their actions have caused so many deaths. And New Zealand shut down all their beaches for over a month. And people actually obeyed the stay at home orders and didn’t protest and complain, and spread their covid, imagine that! If people are going to the beaches, grocery and stores are delivering food. How is ballot harvesting any different!? The republicans are not using logic. They are just looking for any excuse to cause more problems then the U.S. already has. Maybe we should’ve followed suit and done what New Zealand did if we cared about the lives of other people. But apparently republicans don’t give any cares. they just want to trash the beaches, and let everyone else clean up after them and the oil spills they support! and can’t even be bothered to recycle. they just throw their cigarettes in the ocean. That last for 400 years. Vote yes for Hemp for fuel, coal, composting plastics, termite and burn proof building supplies, Paper l, pharmaceutical Products. Every piece of plastic made today is still existing somewhere. And When throwing away, remember there is no away. instead of complaining, and killing people in the U.S. with your disregard for your governor, why don’t you go for a walk/ jog and clean up your trash?’

    2. Mr. Flynn pleaded guilty a second time, in December 2018, to lying to the F.B.I. about his conversations with Sergey I. Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the United States at the time, as the Obama administration was about to place sanctions on Russia for its election sabotage. Talk about fraud! Trump is a fraud. He didn’t even win the popular electoral vote.

  3. This is so dumb. What?? It’s safer than in person voting? Honestly I’m not even surprised. California Globe is the worst. Heavily biased. Why don’t people understand that the governor is doing this for the safety of the most populated state in the county? Get yours heads out of your as*es

    1. You first, dearie…

      The Governor is taking away individual responsibility under the guise of “safety” and you’ve drunk the Kool Aid

      Go back to HuffPo where you belong….

    2. RuralCalgirl
      Dirt for brains….you are the problem with America…we need valid voter ID. THIS PANDEMIC IS A FRAUD. Get your lazy but out there with a valid US citizen ID and vote.
      Or is this drunk Nancy Pelosi I’m talking to…
      Promoting voter fraud.

    3. Wake up you live in commiefornia it’s all a lie and a scam the numbers are all false he is working this covid-19 to the extreme repeat the numbers are false do your homework do not believe a word I say look at what is happening to California wake up do not vote for Gavin Newsom again.

      1. How did this comment get approved it’s a sick sad world we live in where people don’t care about the lives of others, and can’t even have a debate like an adult. Bunch of children calling names just like the president.

  4. The whole pandemic is bullcrap. People are so stupid. Go vote the right way so theres no voter fraud. Quit being stupid and open your eyes and see that the Demoncrats are crooked!!!

  5. Very dumb. You can easily control the condition of heath of the small number of people that would collect the votes. You cannot control the condition of heath for the entire population. Therefore, having the state collect the votes is FAR less dangerous than in person voting.

    1. ” You can easily control the condition of heath of the small number of people that would collect the votes. You cannot control the condition of heath for the entire population.” Seriously? I know a few nursing homes that would beg to differ. This is controlling the population more than it is controlling their health.

  6. I hope Newsome gets dragged into the street. Stripped naked, tarred and feathered then left stuck to a light pole in down town frisco so the homeless have a place they can legally shit on.

  7. Newsom won’t do anything voluntarily . It does not fit his political agenda.

    We all should have to show up and prove we are entitled to vote, to cast a ballot.

  8. I daresay the CADEM ballot-harvesters are at little risk of infection; cemetery districts in general are not contagion high-risk zones.

  9. Good job!! This is controlling the population more than it is controlling their health. read this—to limit voter confusion in California by banning the use of the word “independent” in a political party’s name.

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