The Republican National Committee, the Republican National Congress Committee and the Republican Party of California sued Governor Gavin Newsom and State Secretary Alex Padilla on Sunday, claiming the executive order to send ballots to all registered voters in the state was an “illegal force” take “which invited potential fraud .
Newsom’s order, which aims to enable voters to avoid exposure to the corona virus, will send ballots to all registered voters including inactive voters. This raises concerns that ballots sent to people who have moved or died will eventually be filled and submitted, unless the voter list is checked and cleared before the ballots are sent. Many Republicans have expressed concern that Democrats may try to use these ballots inappropriately, to swing races in their interests.
“In the direct struggle for legislative authority, Governor Newsom issued an executive order intended to rewrite the entire electoral code for the November 2020 election cycle,” the complaint said, filed Sunday in the U.S. District Court. for the Eastern California District. “This impudent power struggle is not validated by state law and violates the U.S. Election Clause and Constitutional Choice Clause.”
The lawsuit claims Newsom “has created a recipe for disaster” by ordering ballots to be sent to all registered people to vote including inactive voters, arguing that “it invites fraud.” Republicans also claim that by giving Newsom the only power to determine where and if direct elections will take place, it will lead to “arbitrary and separate treatment from individual voters,” violating the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Amendment Amendment Clause.
As an example of a possible violation, the complaint notes that ballots sent easily can be intercepted by the wrong party if they send the wrong address to the wrong address or if the recipient lives in a large residential building. In addition, Republicans write, voters can be vulnerable to pressure from others when voting outside the private, secret boundaries of the voting booth.
Republicans also claim large-scale voting as such can lead to violations involving third-party ballot collectors.
Complaints ask for a court order against the enforcement of an order and a declaration of a declaration from a court that considers it to violate the law.
“Democrats continue to use this pandemic as a tactic to carry out their partisan election agenda, and Governor Newsom’s executive order is the latest direct attack on the integrity of our election,” RNC Chairman Ronna McDaniel said in a statement. “Newsom’s illegal power struggle is a recipe for disaster that will destroy the trust that California people deserve in the security of their voices.”
Fox News contacted the Newsom office to comment but received no response.
Former Representative Darrell Issa, R-Calif., Filed his own lawsuit against Newsom on an order last week. Issa, who has run for the seat of the former Rep. Duncan Hunter after his resignation, claimed in his complaint that Newsom’s order could cause “countless voters to be discarded or not counted.” He also claimed that the costs of the Issa campaign would increase and that it would force him to “re-evaluate his electoral strategy,” Politico and Court News reported.
Newsom and other Democrats, however, say the coronavirus pandemic is guaranteed to take drastic steps to send ballots that are not present to everyone so voters do not need to expose themselves to the crowd at the polls, thus risking capturing or spreading COVID-19.
“Elections and the right to vote are the basis of our democracy,” Newsom said in a statement after signing an order earlier this month. “No California citizen should be forced to risk their health to exercise their right to vote.” Ronn
Newsom acknowledged when he announced the order that voting by mail was not always ideal, and stressed that California citizens would continue to have access to direct election sites, so that balloting by mail would not be needed.
“Ballots by mail are not the perfect solution for everyone, and I hope public health experts and state and legislative partnership secretaries will create safer personal opportunities for Californians who cannot vote by mail,” he said.
