The long number of California voting bulletins could be Trump’s next target in the war to vote
The last salvo of the campaign of President Donald Trump against the vote sent by La Poste arrived on Monday, because he announced that he wanted to “direct a movement” against the ballots by mail and rather defend ballots in person and paper, which, according to him, are “faster, and leaves no doubt, at the end of the evening, for whom won, and who lost the elections”.
Trump has criticized the postal ballots since their rapid increase in 2020, while after years of slower growth, they exploded as a key innovation in the cocovated election. But the logistics of postal voting counts contributed to maintaining the pending nation which won for almost four days after the surveys are closed.
The latter’s last push could also have the convenience of being the last line of attack in the redistribution wars. In California, State Democrats attempt their own Gerrymander from mid-December to counter the push led by Trump by the Republicans to draw more friendly districts in Texas. And California presents itself as one of the most important embraces of the vote sent by post – and among the slowest to count them.
Overall, voting by mail represented 30% of the total national votes in 2024, down compared to its 2020 peak by 43%. However, in California, the practice represented 81% of the total vote, according to a recent report by the election assistance committee.
The voting by mail overall has proven to be a difficult process for many elections administrators, with obstacles, in particular the verification of voters and ballots and logistical problems such as the opening of envelopes, the maintenance of equipment in safety and, in many cases, hand accounts. Essentially, all the processes that occur in person when someone vote in a polling station – in particular the registration and verification of their registration – can accumulate quickly when this occurs by mail.
But California had some of the greatest difficulties in quickly sorting mail votes. Among the states with the largest voting by mail in the 2024 elections, California established a reference for the slowest progress in the morning after the elections.
While the Democrats have had a constant success at the level of the state in recent years, the enumerations of prolonged votes of California have left the pending nation on which the party would gain control of the House of Representatives for days after the elections of 2022 and 2024.
The County of Northern Lake of California reached the halfway of the tab of its electoral results in 2024 before more than two weeks after the night of the elections. Responding to a meticulous examination, the election supervisor complained: “Why do we need to rush?”
Following the elections, state legislation was introduced forcing the counties to conclude a majority of their counting process 13 days after the elections. The bill adopted the State Assembly with bipartite support and is part of a senatorial state committee to request a financing failure.
Meanwhile, Trump faces legal and political obstacles raised to the evolution of laws by mail by itself at the federal level. Without new federal laws, states have broad latitude to define their own electoral procedures. And his recent position may have been at the top of him due to an invitation from Russian President Vladimir Putin.
But this also happens while California’s state legislators gathered on Monday to move forward on plans for a Congress map which, if approved by voters, would target five Republicans to lose the seats in terms of the next intermediaries. The effort was launched by the Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom in response to the referral to the Congress of the Texas Republicans seeking to fortify their majority.
This can put the redistribution wars and Trump’s renewed crusade on postal votes on a political collision course in the Golden State.
