LWVC Acts to Protect Mailed Ballots in California
House of Representatives’ member (CD 48) Darrell Issa’s lawsuit is an attack on voting rights and fair, accurate elections in nation’s most populous state.
Hundreds of thousands of California voters could have their ballots wrongfully discounted, according to a motion to intervene filed by the League of Women Voters of California (LWVC) on Friday, April 14, against a lawsuit seeking to block counting mailed ballots received after Election Day.
The LWVC, represented by the ACLU and the ACLU Foundations of Northern California, Southern California, and San Diego & Imperial Counties, seeks to intervene in a lawsuit brought last month by California Congressman Darrell Issa. Issa’s suit alleges that the state is violating federal election laws by allowing voters who cast and mail their mail ballots by Election Day to have those ballots counted if they are received within seven days after Election Day. Issa’s lawsuit, if successful, would require voters to cast and mail their ballots well in advance of Election Day or risk that their vote will not be counted.
In 2014, California legislators voted to implement a grace period of three days after Election Day for mail ballots postmarked by Election Day to be delivered. After a temporary extension to 17 days during the COVID-19 pandemic, state legislators in 2021 settled on the current window of seven days post-Election Day.
“In his lawsuit, Congressman Issa openly admits that he wants to disenfranchise voters simply because they might not vote for him,” said Julia Gomez, interim managing legal director of the ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties. “He is putting his own partisan interests above elections that accurately reflect the will of the people and his arguments are meritless.” Read more here. |