California leaders decry Trump call to ‘nationalize’ election, say they’re ready to resist

WASHINGTON- President Trump’s repeated calls to “nationalize” elections drew stiff resistance this week from California officials, who said they were prepared to fight if the federal government tried to assert control over the state’s electoral system.

“We would win this on day one,” California Atty. » General Rob Bonta told the Times. “We would go to court and get a restraining order within hours, because the U.S. Constitution says that the states primarily determine the time, place and manner of elections, not the president. »

“We’re prepared to do whatever we have to do in California,” said California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, whose office recently fought a Justice Department lawsuit demanding California’s voter rolls and other sensitive voter information.

Bonta and Weber said their offices are closely monitoring any federal action that could affect voting in California, including efforts to seize election records, as the FBI recently did in Georgia, or to target the counting of mail-in ballots, which Trump has baselessly alleged is a major source of fraud.

Weber said California plays an outsized role in the nation and is “the place people want to beat,” including through illegitimate legal challenges aimed at undermining the state’s vote after elections, but California has fought off such challenges in the past and is ready to do so again.

“There is already a group of lawyers who are always ready, during our elections, to go to court to defend everything we do,” she said. “Our election teams cross their T’s, dot their I’s. They’re there.”

“We have attorneys ready to deploy wherever there is a problem,” Bonta said, noting that his office is in contact with local election officials to ensure a quick response if necessary.

The impasse reflects an extraordinary deterioration in trust and electoral cooperation that has existed between state and federal officials for generations — and follows a remarkable doubling down by Trump after his initial remarks about election care raised alarms.

Trump has long claimed, without evidence and despite several independent studies concluding to the contrary, that the 2020 election was stolen from him. He alleged, again without evidence, that millions of fraudulent votes were cast, including by non-citizen voters, and that blue states were turning a blind eye to gain political advantage.

Last week, the Justice Department followed up on those claims by raiding election-center Fulton County, Georgia, and seizing 2020 ballots. The department has also sued states including California over their voter rolls, and is defending a Trump executive order to end mail-in voting and add new proof of citizenship requirements for voter registration, which California and other states have sued to block.

On Monday, Trump further ramped up his pressure campaign, saying on former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino’s podcast that Republicans should “take control of the vote in at least 15 places,” alleging that voting irregularities in what he called “bad states” are hurting his party. “Republicans should nationalize the vote. »

On Tuesday morning, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt appeared to attempt to walk back Trump’s comments, saying he was referring to the Save Act, a measure pushed by congressional Republicans to codify Trump’s proof of citizenship requirements. However, Trump doubled down on his efforts later in the day, telling reporters that if states “can’t count votes legally and honestly, then someone else should take over.”

Bonta said Trump’s comments were a serious escalation, not just bluster: “We always knew they were going to come after us for something, so this is just an affirmation of that — and maybe they’re taking it one step further.” »

Bonta said he would particularly monitor elections in congressional districts across the state, which could play a role in determining congressional control and therefore be targets of legal challenges.

“The strategy of going after California is not rational unless you go after a few congressional seats that you think will make a difference in the balance of power in the House,” Bonta said.

California Democrats in Congress have stressed that the state’s elections are secure and reliable, but have also begun to express concern that the administration will interfere in the election soon.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) said last week on “Meet the Press” that he thought the administration would try to use “every tool at its disposal to try to interfere” but that the American people would “overcome this problem by having a battalion of lawyers at the polls.”

California Sen. Adam Schiff said this week that the Trump administration’s recent actions — including the raid in Fulton County, where Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard put Trump on the phone with agents — were “wrong” and set off “alarm bells about their willingness to interfere in the upcoming election.”

Democrats called on their Republican colleagues to help them fight such interference.

“When he says we should nationalize elections and Republicans should take over, and you don’t make a sound? What’s going on here?” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Tuesday. “This is the path that has ruined many democracies, and our democracy is deep and strong, but it requires – and allows – resistance to these things. Verbal resistance, electoral resistance. Where are you?”

Some Republicans have expressed disagreement with Trump. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said Tuesday that he “supports only citizens voting and showing ID at polling places” but is “not in favor of federalizing elections,” which he called a “constitutional issue.”

“I’m a big believer in decentralized, distributed power. And I think it’s harder to hack 50 election systems than it is to hack just one,” he said.

However, other Republican leaders sympathized with Trump over his misgivings about state-run elections. House Majority Leader Mike Johnson (R-La.), for example, took aim at California’s system of counting mail-in ballots in the days after the election, questioning why such counting had led to Republicans being “magically whittled down until their leads were lost.”

“This appears on its face to be fraudulent. Can I prove it? No, because it happened so far in advance,” Johnson said. “But we need more confidence from the American people in the electoral system.”

Election experts have expressed dismay at Johnson’s comments, calling them baseless and illogical. The fact that candidates leading the vote can fall behind as more votes are counted is not magic but mathematics, they said — with Democrats agreeing.

“President Johnson seems confused, so let me explain. Elections in California are safe and secure. The purpose of an election is to make sure *every* eligible vote is counted, not to count quickly,” Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) wrote on X. “We don’t just give up while we’re ahead. That’s called a democracy.”

Democrats also expressed concern that the administration could use the U.S. Postal Service to interfere with the counting of mail-in ballots. They specifically raised questions about a rule issued by the Postal Service last December that says mail is considered postmarked on the day it is processed by the USPS, rather than the day it is received — which would impact mail-in ballots in places like California, where ballots must be postmarked by Election Day to be counted.

“Election officials are already concerned and warning that this change could ultimately lead to a higher number of mail-in ballots being rejected,” Senate Democrats wrote to U.S. Postmaster General David Steiner last month.

Some experts and state officials said voters should plan to vote early and consider dropping off their ballots at polling stations across the state or delivering them directly to voting centers.