California’s fight against Trump’s unhinged war on voting by mail
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SACRAMENTO — California could have some zany theater this fall: county prosecutors charging federal postmasters with felonies for obeying President Trump’s order to withhold delivery of mail ballots to voters.
Does Trump then federalize the California National Guard to protect his postmasters from local sheriffs bent on hauling them off to the jailhouse?
Just wondering after reading a bill that whipped through the state Legislature and was sent to the governor Sunday.
None of it seems likely to happen, but with this unhinged president and his conservative Supreme Court hardly anything is certain — except chaos.
Trump keeps making himself even more unpopular with Democratic voters and tarnishing the GOP image.
One glaring example is Trump’s hypocritical move to interfere with state elections and cripple voters’ ability to cast ballots by mail.
“Mail-in voting means mail-in cheating,” Trump asserted in March, while escalating his crusade against popular “absentee” voting. “Cheating on mail-in voting is legendary. It’s horrible what’s going on.”
It’s a big lie. There has never been any hard evidence produced by anyone, anywhere of significant mail-ballot cheating.
It’s also hypocritical because Trump routinely votes by mail himself in Florida elections.
Why is mail-voting OK for him but not for other Americans? “Because I’m president of the United States,” he told reporters. “I had a lot of different things” to do. As if the rest of us don’t. Voting apparently only needs to be convenient for him.
But Trump obsessively keeps trying to justify his false claim that Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory over him was rigged. It’s sick.
It may please his MAGA base, but Democrats and independents across America — especially in California — frown on Trump’s attack against their voting rights. They favor mail voting.
Overall, 58% of Americans support allowing ballots to be cast by mail, according to a recent survey by the Pew Research Center. But there’s a huge difference between the parties — 83% of Democrats and left-leaning independents favor mail voting while 68% of Republicans oppose it.
In California, 72% of all voters approve of balloting by mail, according to a recent poll by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies. But there’s a big split ideologically: 93% of Democrats and 72% of independents approve, but 62% of Republicans disapprove.
Across California and the nation, Democratic leaders and voting rights advocates are ramping up coordination and gaming out responses to a raft of potential actions by the Trump administration to subvert the November vote or deny its outcome.
Regardless of what GOP voters tell pollsters, they must be overwhelmingly voting by mail. That’s because 81% of all California ballots were cast by mail in the 2024 presidential election. In this year’s gubernatorial primary, it was up to 89%.
In March, Trump issued an executive order directing the Homeland Security Department to compile a list of eligible citizen voters in each state and commanding the U.S. Postal Service to handle only the ballots of people on the list.
Gosh? What could possibly go wrong with Trump’s Homeland Security agency — the overseer of divisive ICE — deciding who is entitled to vote in the pivotal midterm elections?
California, along with a coalition of several blue states, sued.
The nation’s Founders decreed in the Constitution that states could decide on “the times, places and manner” of federal elections — unless Congress wanted to alter the rules. Trump persuaded the House of Representatives to pass legislation restricting mail voting, but the bill died in the Senate, blocked by Democrats.
Trump’s executive order was an effort to bypass Congress and essentially enact a law by himself.
The Supreme Court decreed on a 6-3 vote last week that Trump could proceed with his planning. But since no precise regulations had yet been announced by the administration when the opposition lawsuit was filed, it was premature to rule on their constitutionality.
But now Trump’s draconian rules have been revealed. And California has joined other states in filing a new lawsuit.
“Donald Trump does not run elections. States do,” Gov. Gavin Newsom declared. “California will continue to lead the way in defending democracy.”
In the Legislature, a bill was introduced to make it a felony punishable by up to four years in prison for a person in authority to order the withholding of a ballot’s delivery to a voter or its return to a local election official.
A person like a postmaster? Who else could order mail carriers not to deliver ballots to some registered voters?
“That’s for law enforcement to decide,” says the bill’s author, Sen. Aisha Wahab (D-Hayward), who was just elected to finish the current term of resigned U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell.
“My bill is trying to protect all voters. They may be on vacation, they may be ill. They may want to vote early or late. Whatever. They remain entitled to vote by mail.”
Her bill breezed through three Assembly committees in 24 hours — Democrats voting yes and Republicans no.
The measure is unlikely, however, to ever result in a postmaster being jailed for obeying the president.
For starters, it’s hard to envision the president’s executive order ever being ruled constitutional — even by this lackey court.
“Trump is trying to exercise control over elections when he has absolutely no authority to do so,” UC Berkeley Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky wrote in a Times opinion piece last week.
If the Supreme Court shockingly did rule that Trump has the authority, then could his postmasters be arrested under the new state law? Under the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, the answer would seem to be “no.” Federal law generally supersedes conflicting state law.
“An executive order cannot supersede state law,” says UCLA law professor Rick Hasen, who specializes in election law. “But there are all kinds of immunity doctrines and other reasons why a state would have a hard time prosecuting a federal official for violating state law in the conduct of official duties.”
The real answer is for Trump to stop trying to concoct a solution to an election problem that only exists in his warped imagination.
What else you should be reading
The must-read: Will Trump interfere in the midterms? Democrats and their allies are preparing
California vs. Trump: Racist ‘Magic Deportation Bus’ isn’t the way for Trump to keep Latino voters
The L.A. Times Special: Two of California’s top law enforcement leaders trade barbs over state election integrity
Until next week,
George Skelton
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Ideas expressed in the piece
The column portrays Trump’s executive order limiting mail ballots as an unconstitutional attempt to usurp states’ constitutionally granted authority over elections and to centralize control of voting procedures in the White House. This view echoes recent multistate lawsuits that argue Trump’s order and ensuing Postal Service rules are unconstitutional because they intrude on the Elections Clause, which reserves election administration to states and Congress, and thus exceed presidential power.[4][8][9]
The article argues that Trump’s claims of “legendary” cheating in mail voting are a false pretext for undermining confidence in elections and sustaining a narrative that prior losses were rigged, rather than the product of documented fraud. News coverage of the order notes that Trump demanded the changes as part of a broader effort to combat what is alleged, without supporting evidence, to be widespread voter fraud in mail balloting, including by noncitizens.[4][11][13]
The piece emphasizes that Californians, especially Democrats and independents, strongly favor voting by mail and already rely on it at very high rates, suggesting that restricting mail ballots would disenfranchise large numbers of lawful voters. In line with that argument, reporting on California’s latest lawsuit underscores how central mail-in ballots have become, noting that more than 89% of voters used mail ballots in the state’s June primary.[4]
The column contends that California’s elected leaders see themselves as defending democracy and state sovereignty, not merely partisan advantage, by suing to block Trump’s order and the Postal Service’s implementing rules. Statements from Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta in recent suits describe the fight over the executive order and Postal Service rules as necessary to safeguard Californians’ right to vote by mail, protect state control over elections and prevent disruption and disenfranchisement.[2][4][8]
The article further argues that California’s proposed felony law targeting officials who withhold ballots is mostly a deterrent and symbolic backstop, given constitutional limits on prosecuting federal actors, but it is presented as a clear assertion that interfering with voters’ mail ballots is a serious crime. Legal analysis of Trump’s order emphasizes that the executive branch lacks explicit constitutional authority to regulate elections and that federal officials acting under federal directives may be shielded from state-level prosecution, reinforcing skepticism about the practical effect of such state felony provisions.[3][7][9]
Ultimately, the column suggests that the real solution lies in stopping Trump from meddling in election administration and reaffirming longstanding constitutional boundaries that leave the “times, places and manner” of federal elections to states and Congress. Federal courts considering the order have already found core sections legally void, ultra vires and likely unconstitutional, concluding that the executive branch has no authority to unilaterally redesign mail voting rules.[3][7][9]
Different views on the topic
Trump argues that tighter federal rules on mail ballots are needed to combat what is described as widespread cheating and voter fraud, including fears that ballots could be sent to ineligible voters such as noncitizens or people not properly registered. In this perspective, restricting ballot delivery to names on new federal voter lists, and tightening Postal Service handling of ballots, is framed as a necessary safeguard against systemic abuse of mail voting.[4][11][13]
In addition, administration filings and public explanations invoke a broad view of federal responsibility to guarantee a “republican form of government,” contending that this gives the president room to push nationwide standards aimed at securing election integrity. From that standpoint, increased federal involvement—through Homeland Security voter lists and Postal Service regulations—is defended as a legitimate effort to protect the constitutional order rather than an encroachment on states.[9][13]
Justice Department lawyers have characterized injunctions blocking the order as “indefensible” and argue that states lack standing or sued prematurely, insisting that courts should not assume whatever regulations agencies eventually adopt will necessarily be unlawful. By this reasoning, federal agencies must be allowed to complete rulemaking before judges intervene, and challenges to the order are portrayed as speculative attempts to stop reforms that could be crafted within constitutional limits.[5][10][12]
Some federal judges and appellate panels have agreed that parts of the challenges were not yet ripe, declining to issue broad injunctions before final rules were in place and allowing planning for new mail-ballot regulations to proceed for now. These rulings, including a Supreme Court decision permitting Trump’s administration to continue developing regulations while reserving judgment on their legality, are cited by supporters as evidence that the president’s approach deserves further consideration rather than immediate judicial rejection.[1][6][10]
Supporters of the order contend that existing state-run mail voting systems are vulnerable to errors, inconsistent standards and possible exploitation, and they argue that federal lists of eligible voters and uniform Postal Service procedures would reduce confusion and enhance public confidence in election results. In this view, centralized oversight and stricter eligibility checks are presented as tools to prevent misdelivered ballots, administrative chaos and suspected fraud, even if courts ultimately narrow how far those reforms can go.[3][5][9]
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