California officials urge people to vote in November election

LOS ANGELES — When someone asks her why they should vote, California’s secretary of state has an answer ready.

Failing to cast a ballot empowers someone else, she explains to them.

“I always tell young people, you’re giving [your vote] to someone else — and maybe someone who doesn’t like you,” Shirley Weber said.

Joined by California Attorney General Rob Bonta, the officials on Friday held a news conference at the Los Angeles Central Library, encouraging people to vote in the Nov. 5 election. Both pointed to the handful of ways Californians can cast their ballot in the weeks leading up to election day.

People can complete a mail-in ballot and send it through the post no later than Nov. 5. They also can take their completed ballot to an official drop box, leave it at a vote center once they open or simply vote in person. Voters should start receiving their ballots in the mail next week.

“In short, you have options,” Bonta said. “You’ve got more days and more ways to vote in this election.”

Like the rest of the nation, California voters will of course cast ballots for president. They will also decide on a U.S. Senate seat, the Golden State’s delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives, several legislative offices and local races, as well as 10 statewide ballot measures.

Noting she’s a second-generation voter, as her father had no option to vote in the Jim Crow South, Weber said no one should be turned away from the polls when they have the right to vote. She also stressed that no voter ever has to tell another person how they voted.

Not everyone can hold elected office or attend every governmental meeting, but they can vote, Weber said.

“Voting is so precious,” the secretary of state said. “We are here because we believe in this process."

Bonta emphasized that California elections are free, fair and accessible. He said people with disabilities have a right to an accessible place where they can cast their ballot independently.

The attorney general also pointed to legal violations people should know about when voting. It’s a felony for someone to coerce or intimidate another person into voting a certain way or not voting, he said, just as it’s illegal to tell someone they’re not eligible to vote when they in fact are.

Election disinformation is rampant online, officials warned. Bonta pointed to disinformation in a previous election, telling voters — falsely — that they needed identification.

“Let’s be clear: You do not need to show an ID to vote in California,” Bonta said. “Your vote is your voice. It is your right. It is protected.”

The issue of voter identification flared up earlier this year, after Huntington Beach voters in March approved a local ballot measure that could have required them in municipal elections.

Responding to efforts like that, state Senator Dave Min, an Irvine Democrat, wrote Senate Bill 1174 — signed this week by Governor Gavin Newsom — which prohibits cities from imposing such requirements. Huntington Beach officials had argued that the city’s status as a charter city gave it power to regulate its elections.

Min’s bill wasn’t the only legislation targeting elections. Newsom also signed Assembly Bill 2839, written by Santa Cruz Democratic Assemblymember Gail Pellerin. It prohibited digitally manipulated communications about election workers, election officials, voting equipment or candidates that are false or misleading.

The law was challenged by a political satirist, who argued in a lawsuit that the law makes computer-generated parody illegal. A federal judge this week issued a preliminary injunction, stopping the state from enforcing the new law.