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SACRAMENTO — California could have some zany theater this fall: county prosecutors charging federal postmasters with felonies for obeying President Trump’s order to withhold delivery of mail ballots to voters.

Does Trump then federalize the California National Guard to protect his postmasters from local sheriffs bent on hauling them off to the jailhouse?

Just wondering after reading legislation whipping through the state Capitol.

None of it seems likely to happen, but with this unhinged president and his conservative Supreme Court hardly anything is certain — except chaos.

Trump keeps making himself even more unpopular with Democratic voters and tarnishing the GOP image.

One glaring example is Trump’s hypocritical move to interfere with state elections and cripple voters’ ability to cast ballots by mail.

“Mail-in voting means mail-in cheating,” Trump asserted in March, while escalating his crusade against popular “absentee” voting. “Cheating on mail-in voting is legendary. It’s horrible what’s going on.”

It’s a big lie. There has never been any hard evidence produced by anyone, anywhere of significant mail-ballot cheating.

It’s also hypocritical because Trump routinely votes by mail himself in Florida elections.

Why is mail-voting OK for him but not for other Americans? “Because I’m president of the United States,” he told reporters. “I had a lot of different things” to do. As if the rest of us don’t. Voting apparently only needs to be convenient for him.

But Trump obsessively keeps trying to justify his false claim that Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory over him was rigged. It’s sick.

It may please his MAGA base, but Democrats and independents across America — especially in California — frown on Trump’s attack against their voting rights. They favor mail voting.

Overall, 58% of Americans support allowing ballots to be cast by mail, according to a recent survey by the Pew Research Center. But there’s a huge difference between the parties — 83% of Democrats and left-leaning independents favor mail voting while 68% of Republicans oppose it.

In California, 72% of all voters approve of balloting by mail, according to a recent poll by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies. But there’s a big split ideologically: 93% of Democrats and 72% of independents approve, but 62% of Republicans disapprove.

Regardless of what GOP voters tell pollsters, they must be overwhelmingly voting by mail. That’s because 81% of all California ballots were cast by mail in the 2024 presidential election. In this year’s gubernatorial primary, it was up to 89%.

In March, Trump issued an executive order directing the Homeland Security Department to compile a list of eligible citizen voters in each state and commanding the U.S. Postal Service to handle only the ballots of people on the list.

Gosh? What could possibly go wrong with Trump’s Homeland Security agency — the overseer of divisive ICE — deciding who is entitled to vote in the pivotal midterm elections?

California, along with a coalition of several blue states, sued.

The nation’s Founders decreed in the Constitution that states could decide on “the times, places and manner” of federal elections — unless Congress wanted to alter the rules. Trump persuaded the House of Representatives to pass legislation restricting mail voting, but the bill died in the Senate, blocked by Democrats.

Trump’s executive order was an effort to bypass Congress and essentially enact a law by himself.

The Supreme Court decreed on a 6-3 vote last week that Trump could proceed with his planning. But since no precise regulations had yet been announced by the administration when the opposition lawsuit was filed, it was premature to rule on their constitutionality.

But now Trump’s draconian rules have been revealed. And California has joined other states in filing a new lawsuit.

“Donald Trump does not run elections. States do,” Gov. Gavin Newsom declared. “California will continue to lead the way in defending democracy.”

In the Legislature, a bill was introduced to make it a felony punishable by up to four years in prison for a person in authority to order the withholding of a ballot’s delivery to a voter or its return to a local election official.

A person like a postmaster? Who else could order mail carriers not to deliver ballots to some registered voters?

“That’s for law enforcement to decide,” says the bill’s author, Sen. Aisha Wahab (D-Hayward), who was just elected to finish the current term of resigned U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell.

“My bill is trying to protect all voters. They may be on vacation, they may be ill. They may want to vote early or late. Whatever. They remain entitled to vote by mail.”

Her bill breezed through three Assembly committees in 24 hours — Democrats voting yes and Republicans no.

The measure is unlikely, however, to ever result in a postmaster being jailed for obeying the president.

For starters, it’s hard to envision the president’s executive order ever being ruled constitutional — even by this lackey court.

“Trump is trying to exercise control over elections when he has absolutely no authority to do so,” UC Berkeley Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky wrote in a Times opinion piece last week.

If the Supreme Court shockingly did rule that Trump has the authority, then could his postmasters be arrested under the new state law? Under the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, the answer would seem to be “no.” Federal law generally supersedes conflicting state law.

“An executive order cannot supersede state law,” says UCLA law professor Rick Hasen, who specializes in election law. “But there are all kinds of immunity doctrines and other reasons why a state would have a hard time prosecuting a federal official for violating state law in the conduct of official duties.”

The real answer is for Trump to stop trying to concoct a solution to an election problem that only exists in his warped imagination.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Will Trump interfere in the midterms? Democrats and their allies are preparing
California vs. Trump: Racist ‘Magic Deportation Bus’ isn’t the way for Trump to keep Latino voters
The L.A. Times Special: Two of California’s top law enforcement leaders trade barbs over state election integrity

Until next week,
George Skelton

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Judge blocks Trump’s mail voting rules for a second time, just days before ballots go out for the midterms.

A United States federal judge has for a second time blocked the Trump administration’s overhaul of election rules aimed at limiting voting by mail.

District Judge Indira Talwani late on Thursday blocked the US Postal Service’s new ballot rules for 14 days, hours after the agency said they had taken effect.

The ruling is part of an ongoing battle prompted by President Donald Trump’s bid to limit voting by mail, which is heating up as the US heads towards midterm elections in November that will decide control of Congress and the Senate.

Nearly a third of American voters cast votes by mail. The first ballots for the midterms are due to be sent out in about a week.

The new rules require states to submit approved voter lists and follow new ballot formatting before USPS can deliver voting slips. The restrictions were enacted on Thursday after the Supreme Court cleared the way for them.

Talwani wrote in a statement late on Thursday that states “have neither time nor funds” to redesign ballots, update election systems or train officials on the new USPS portal before the upcoming election.

The fight traces back to March, when Trump ordered the Postal Service to withhold ballots unless states supplied approved voter lists and new formatting rules.

Voting rights groups and democratic officials sued, arguing only states and Congress, not the president, can set election rules. Talwani agreed, blocking the rules over the summer.

On Monday, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority threw out that earlier ruling on a technicality, saying that the legal challenge on which it was based was filed too early.

Democratic officials and voting rights groups quickly refiled their challenge once the rules became official, allowing Talwani to block them once more in a late-night order.

Separately, attorneys general from 24 states filed a new lawsuit this week making the same core argument: that only the Senate and Congress, not the president, can have constitutional authority to set election rules.

A hearing on the refiled case is scheduled for September 3, just as ballots are set to go out. That timeline means whatever Talwani or a higher court decides next could take effect as voting begins, or after it is already under way.

A federal judge on Wednesday lifted a major obstacle to President Trump’s executive order limiting mail voting, even as Democratic state officials filed a new court challenge with the midterm elections fast approaching.

The fresh round of legal wrangling comes just two days after the Supreme Court handed down a procedural ruling in Trump’s favor, and could mean the issue lands before the high court again before the pivotal contests for control of Congress. The first mailed ballots are set to be sent out next week.

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston agreed to lift an order prohibiting the U.S. Postal Service from carrying out Trump’s order for November’s elections. She wrote that she was “compelled” to do so after the Supreme Court’s conservative majority ruled that a similar injunction she granted in a separate case was premature.

Talwani nevertheless said the executive order could unleash “chaos” and referred to it as “likely unconstitutional.”

The administration can now move forward and implement a Postal Service rule published late Friday. It would require states to follow a uniform envelope style for mail ballots and to give the Postal Service a list of voters eligible to receive them. Talwani found on Tuesday that the rule’s issuance technically violated her injunction, but she declined to penalize the administration.

The new lawsuit, filed by about two dozen Democratically controlled states against the U.S. Postal Service, marked a new phase in the high-stakes litigation creating confusion around the midterm elections.

It came after the Supreme Court ruled against them in a separate case, but did not say Trump’s order was legal.

The high court majority found the initial Democratic lawsuit was premature, but that was before the Republican administration issued a rule governing Postal Service delivery of mail ballots. Election officials warn it will be impossible to implement before the first wave of mail ballots are sent out next week.

“Across the country, states are already deep into preparations for the 2026 elections. Now, at the last moment, the federal government is attempting to meddle in those preparations and potentially threaten countless Americans’ right to vote,” New York Attorney General Letitia James, one of 25 Democratic attorneys general filing the lawsuit, said in a statement. “USPS has no authority to decide who can and cannot vote by mail.”

The Trump administration plan faces a third lawsuit originally filed in May in the nation’s capital, though judges there have so far declined to block it.

All previous challenges were filed before the administration published its mail ballot rule Friday night.

White House spokesperson Lauren Bis on Wednesday said the Postal Service’s proposals were “commonsense measures that protect the security of mail-in ballots” and that the administration would continue to work to implement them to boost “the safety and security of our elections.”

The Postal Service said it would not comment because of the pending lawsuit.

National Democrats on Tuesday cited the rule in asking the federal judge in the Washington case to block Trump’s order after he declined to do so last spring, saying the administration at the time had not taken concrete action. In Boston, Talwani also found that the administration had violated a separate injunction she had placed on the Postal Service in drafting the new rule, although she did not take any action against the government.

Talwani had issued the injunction against Trump’s executive order in the prior Democratic state case, which is the one the Supreme Court overturned on Monday. She also issued a second injunction Aug. 11 in a case filed by the League of Women Voters and other voting rights groups, while the Supreme Court was considering the administration’s appeal of the judge’s first order.

Trump has long targeted mail voting, which he falsely blames for his 2020 election loss and is disproportionately used by Democrats as a result of Trump’s condemnations. Since returning to power, Trump has tried to claim authority over election rules, saying he thinks Republicans should “take over” vote counting in Democratic areas.

He issued his first election executive order just months after retaking office, attempting to require documentary proof of citizenship to vote, among other changes. He has also been pushing a sweeping election bill that has stalled in the Senate amid opposition from Democrats and even some within his own party.

Riccardi and Whitehurst write for the Associated Press.

California and a coalition of other Democratic-led states sued again Wednesday to block the U.S. Postal Service from implementing new nationwide rules for mail ballots, arguing they usurp state authority over elections at President Trump’s behest, expose voter information unnecessarily and threaten chaos in the rapidly approaching November election.

The Postal Service formally issued a 95-page “final rule” on Friday asserting that it was amending its mailing standards for mail ballots in federal elections to comply with Trump’s March executive order.

Trump demanded the rule changes as part of a broader plan to combat what he alleges — without evidence — is widespread voter fraud in the U.S., including by noncitizens voting through the mail. Election experts say there is zero evidence of such problems existing at scale.

“This mail-in voting rule is an unlawful overreach that shows just how far President Trump will go to control elections, but as I’ve said before, this fight is far from over and we are confident that the facts and the law are on our side,” California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said in a statement.

“Donald Trump does not run elections. States do. And his latest attack on democracy is proof of how weak he has become,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom. “California will continue to lead the way in defending democracy — using every tool at our disposal and every minute in our day. This perilous moment in history demands no less from us.”

The new postal rules require states to submit lists of eligible voters — including their names and addresses — to the Postal Service, and to use new ballot envelopes with digital barcodes that would allow the Postal Service to identify and reject ballots that don’t match those lists.

The rules do not give the Postal Service authority to dictate which voters may appear on state lists. However, the rules do acknowledge that the lists would provide state voter data to federal law enforcement for the first time, and would put those authorities in “a better position to identify any potential issues regarding compliance with federal law that may merit further investigation.”

Trump’s March executive order also required the Department of Homeland Security to use available federal data to compile its own state lists of eligible citizen voters, ostensibly to compare them with the mail voter lists provided by the states to the Postal Service, and identify and pursue any ineligible voters.

Wednesday’s lawsuit follows a Monday decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that found an earlier challenge from the states was premature, in part because it sought court relief to a rule-making process that required nothing of the states and before the Postal Service had moved to implement any changes.

“On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to fully close the door on the President’s attempt to interfere in our election administration. Today, we’re taking legal action to stop this unlawful rule in its tracks and ensure that voters can exercise their constitutional right to vote,” Bonta said.

The White House did not immediately respond Wednesday to a request for comment on the latest lawsuit.

However, it has defended Trump’s executive order as overdue and badly needed to secure U.S. elections, and hailed the Supreme Court’s ruling allowing the rule-making to proceed as “a major win for the security of American elections.”

“These are commonsense measures that protect the security of mail-in ballots and ensure only Americans are electing American leaders,” White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said.

The high court allowed the Postal Service to move forward with its work to comply with Trump’s order, but explicitly noted that it had reached no conclusions as to the legality of the pending rules.

Trump administration officials have said they are pursuing fraudulent voters, and have warned state election officials that they could face legal consequences personally if they don’t do everything in their power to prevent voter fraud, including by noncitizens.

Critics contend Trump’s executive order was devised as an end run around laws and a slew of recent court rulings blocking the Trump administration’s demands for state voter rolls — which states, including California, have refused to provide.

States have argued the administration’s demands are in bad faith, intended to bolster Trump’s baseless claims that U.S. elections are compromised rather than enhance election security.

In issuing its new rules, the Postal Service rejected a slate of concerns from critics who submitted comments on the proposed rules, including that the changes are being proposed far too close to the November election and will cost states and localities a huge amount of money to comply with.

It also rejected concerns that creating a single nationwide voter database — which has never existed before — will provide a massive new target for foreign adversaries and other bad actors interested in disrupting U.S. elections.

The Postal Service concluded that the cost to the states is outweighed by the benefits of the changes. It said it has sufficient staffing to implement the changes, and is ready to safeguard the database it builds using “multi-layered security controls.”

The lawsuit, brought by 24 state attorneys general and the governor of Pennsylvania, asks for immediate court intervention to halt the Postal Service changes from being implemented while the litigation continues.

“Let’s be clear: the U.S. Constitution gives states the power to regulate elections — not the President and not USPS,” Bonta said. “Ballots are an extension of our voices and we’re asking the court to ensure that every person has the right to make theirs heard.”

Independent voting rights groups have also sued to block the Postal Service rules from being implemented.

WASHINGTON  — The Supreme Court cleared the way Monday for President Trump to seek new limits on the use of mail ballots, but they are not likely to take effect this year.

Acting by a 6-3 vote, the court’s conservatives granted an emergency appeal from Trump’s lawyers and set aside a judge’s order that blocked new federal regulations on states and their use of mail ballots.

It’s not clear, however, what happens now, since the midterm elections are less than three months away.

About 30% of the nation’s voters — and 80% of Californians — cast their ballots by mail in 2024. Trump, however, has long maintained the voting by mail leads to fraud, including voting by noncitizens.

The court’s order stressed the new regulations do not put new requirements on the states this year.

Trump’s executive order “is internal directive from the President to his subordinates mandating that certain agencies pursue certain policies. It neither requires nor forbids anything of anyone outside the Executive Branch,” the court said.

The Department of Homeland Security will compile state-by-state lists of citizens who are over 18 and eligible to vote.

“States are not required to use the Lists,” the court said, although they could lead to future prosecutions.

The most disputed provision could have authorized the Postal Service to restrict mail ballots to those who are on the Homeland Security lists, but that is a future proposal, not a rule that will take effect this year.

The unsigned order spoke for the six Republican appointees. The three liberals, all Democratic appointees, dissented into two separate opinions.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said Trump’s order was unlawful and should have been struck down. “It needlessly injects chaos and uncertainty into the upcoming midterm elections,” she said.

“Today’s decision does not address whether the President’s attempts to interfere with States’ administration of the November 2026 elections are lawful,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a dissent joined by Justice Elena Kagan. “Nor does it suggest that the Executive Branch has any constitutional or statutory authority to implement the President’s directives. Instead, today’s decision merely postpones adjudication of those challenges.”

Trump issued his executive order on March 31 with the aim of “ensuring citizenship verification” in federal elections. California and 22 other Democratic-led states sued a few days later and said Trump sought to use the Postal Service to impose new restrictions on voting by mail. They also argued the Constitution gives states and Congress the power to regulate elections, not the president.

A federal judge in Boston and 1st Circuit Court agreed with the challengers and blocked Trump’s executive order from taking effect for the November elections.

The case on appeal was Trump vs. California because California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta was a leader of the Democratic state attorneys who sued.

Aug. 21 (UPI) — Prince Harry, Sir Elton John, Liz Hurley and four others who accused the Daily Mail of improper reporting tactics and privacy violations have been ordered by the court to pay the publisher $13 million in legal costs by Aug. 28.

Judge Justice Nicklin ruled on Friday that the claims made by the claimants were “unreasonable to a high degree” and they should have to pay more than what was agreed upon previously. They have until Oct. 2 to file an appeal.

Nicklin dismissed the claims against Associated Newspapers Limited, the publisher of the Daily Mail, last month.

The claimants were insured to cover up to $22.1 million of ANL’s legal costs. ANL says it incurred about $47 million in legal costs.

Nicklin’s ruling on Friday means that ANL does not need to show that the costs it incurred were reasonable and proportionate.

“The claims, and the manner in which they were brought, pleaded, pursued, maintained and publicly advanced, involved a combination of circumstances and conduct which took the litigation outside the ordinary and reasonable conduct of civil proceedings,” Nicklin said in his ruling.

Nicklin did not put a limit on the costs that the claimants may have to pay to ANL, though this does not mean that ANL can recover all of its costs. Nicklin did say the costs reported to the court are “excessive,” “striking” and “largely unexplained.”

He explained that he came to this ruling, in part because of the “speculative and substantially inferential character of the claims at their origin,” the “exceptional breadth” of the cases and the “public presentation of allegations of serious criminality and impropriety which were not ultimately established.”

Nicklin added that the claimants did not reassess their allegations when evidence required them to do so.

“The truth is that these outrageous claims should never have been brought,” ANL said in a statement. “That they were pursued raises disturbing questions about the conduct of elements of the legal profession.”

Prince Harry and a group of six other high-profile figures have been ordered to make an initial payment of £9.54m to the Daily Mail’s publisher after they lost their High Court privacy case.

The seven claimants, also including Sir Elton John and Liz Hurley, must pay the initial figure by 28 August – and could potentially pay up to £25m more after that in a victory for Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL).

The group had sued ANL over allegations of unlawful information-gathering, which the publisher had strenuously denied.

On 7 July, Judge Mr Justice Nicklin dismissed the claims and said the public figures had failed to prove the allegations.

It comes just days after the Duke and Duchess announced their plan to return to the UK, with their children Prince Archie, seven, and Princess Lilibet, five, enrolled to start school in September.

The seven claimants who have been ordered to pay an initial £9.5m in the coming week are Prince Harry, Sir Elton John and his husband David Furnish, Sir Simon Hughes, Sadie Frost, Liz Hurley, and Baroness Doreen Lawrence.

During the trial, dozens of people gave evidence including Prince Harry and the other claimants. The Duke of Sussex flew in from the US to attend court in person.

Many current and former Associated Newspapers journalists and executives gave evidence denying illegal activity.

In a joint statement following the judge’s ruling last month, Prince Harry and Baroness Doreen Lawrence, another claimant and peer whose son Stephen was murdered in 1993, said: “We came to Court seeking justice and accountability. But we have received neither.”

“It is a complete and obvious whitewash, but sadly not altogether unexpected”, the pair added.

ANL had asked for more than £9.9 million as an interim payment ahead of future hearings to decide its legal costs in depth.

However, lawyers for the claimants said the interim payment should be just over £7.9 million.

Mr Justice Nicklin previously said the claimants would need to pay the interim payment on August 28.

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The Trump administration again on Wednesday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene — and fast — to save President Trump’s plan for the U.S. Postal Service to place new nationwide limits on mail voting ahead of the November midterms.

It did so after a lower court judge blocked the Postal Service plan from moving forward for a second time on Tuesday.

Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer wrote to the high court that if it does not act quickly to lift both of the lower court’s “erroneous” rulings blocking the plan, those orders “will effectively run out the clock on the government’s ability to implement” the changes in time for the November election, “thereby causing irreparable harm to the federal government, the public, and election integrity.”

Sauer’s latest argument was filed in an emergency case already before the Supreme Court, in which the Trump administration is challenging a June decision blocking the Postal Service’s rule changes by U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani.

Talwani, an appointee of President Obama, ruled in favor of California and 22 other states that had challenged the new rules as coming far too late in the election year to be implemented without causing significant disruptions and harming voters. That decision, which was upheld by an appellate court in July, had barred the new measures from being implemented in the states that sued, but not elsewhere.

However, Sauer filed his latest argument in response to a second ruling by Talwani in a separate case Tuesday, in which she sided with the League of Women Voters and other voting rights groups to block the Postal Service plans from moving forward nationwide.

“That it is now less than 90 days before the November 3, 2026 midterm elections underscores the critical need for an injunction to prevent Defendants from changing election rules on the eve of the election,” Talwani wrote.

The court battle follows an executive order Trump issued in March, in which he called on the Postal Service and the Department of Homeland Security to ensure “citizenship verification and integrity in federal elections” by compiling their own state-by-state lists of citizens who are eligible to vote and then using those lists to restrict who may vote by mail in each state.

The order said the Postal Service “shall not transmit mail-in or absentee ballots from any individual unless those individuals have been enrolled on a State-specific list.”

The order was immediately slammed by Democratic attorneys general and independent voting rights groups as a ploy by the Trump administration to get its hands on state voter rolls, which it has failed to secure in separate legal challenges, and severely limit mail voting, which Trump has without evidence alleged is a major source of voter fraud.

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta helped lead the states’ lawsuit challenging Trump’s order, and has praised Talwani’s orders blocking it from taking effect. Bonta has said the law is clear that states control elections, not the federal government, and that Trump’s order is an illegal and dangerous power grab ahead of a pivotal election in which the president’s party is poised to lose power.

A spokesperson for Bonta’s office said it was aware of Sauer’s filing and considering “next steps” Wednesday.

The Trump administration’s appeal to the Supreme Court is limited in scope, in that it hinges on a technical argument that the challenges to the new rules are premature — and that the Postal Service should be allowed to continue preparing for the new rules to be implemented while the legal battle over their legality continues.

Sauer reiterated that argument in his filing Wednesday, asking the high court to not only issue its order soon, but to make clear in it that not one but both of Talwani’s orders are premature.

He wrote that courts cannot block the implementation of an executive order “that merely instructs agencies to pursue a proposed policy in a manner that is consistent with law,” particularly before those agencies “actually take concrete actions that injure” the groups suing to block the order.

Therefore, Sauer wrote, it would be “prudent” for the high court to make clear that it was halting Talwani’s first order “based on the uncertainty concerning the government’s future actions, not anything specific to the individual plaintiffs” — or, in other words, on grounds that would apply to her second order, too.

He wrote that it was “critical” that the court “act promptly.”

The states have asked the high court to block Trump’s order, which they said would deny mail ballots to “many of the millions of voters who rely on mail voting — especially voters with disabilities and those in rural areas.”

The League of Women Voters hailed Talwani’s order Tuesday as a win for voters and for the U.S. Constitution, which it said makes clear the president does not have the authority to rewrite election rules.

“Millions of Americans, including seniors, military voters, voters with disabilities, rural voters, and citizens living overseas, rely on voting by mail to participate in our democracy,” said Marcia Johnson, the group’s chief of activation and justice. “Today’s decision reaffirms that the rules governing our democracy must be set by the Constitution and the law, not by executive overreach.”

When the high court will rule is unclear, though the emergency nature of the appeal calls for a prompt response.

A judge in a Northern California county that has become a poster child for election skepticism has halted a voter-approved measure that would dramatically reshape elections there, including by eliminating most voting by mail and requiring ballots to be hand-counted.

Shasta County Superior Court Judge Benjamin L. Hanna on Friday issued a preliminary injunction that temporarily blocks Measure B, a citizens’ initiative approved by 56% of voters in the June primary.

None of the measure’s sweeping changes will be implemented for the November general election, and all active registered voters in Shasta County will receive ballots by mail, as mandated by state law, the county said in a statement.

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and Secretary of State Shirley Weber, the state’s top elections official, sued Shasta County in mid-June, days after the primary, arguing that Measure B violates multiple state election laws and must be struck down before the November election.

The case initially was filed in California’s 3rd District Court of Appeal, but judges there declined to review it, saying the case first should proceed through the trial court.

In his ruling last week, Hanna wrote that he was halting implementation of Measure B while the case proceeds because allowing it to go into effect now “would likely result in the disenfranchisement of many Shasta County voters who would be clearly eligible to vote under state law, but would not meet the improperly narrow criteria to vote under Measure B.”

The measure, Hanna wrote, “seeks to create a whole new electoral system that would require creation of new voter rolls and re-registration of existing voters.” Doing so “would be “difficult under normal time frames, let alone three months before the November general election.”

Hanna cited the state’s “high likelihood” of success in the lawsuit.

Weber said in a statement that the judge’s decision “made clear what we already know — creating unnecessary barriers does not strengthen our democracy, it weakens it.”

The new public observation room at the Shasta County elections office.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

The Shasta Election Task Force, the citizens’ group that wrote the initiative and collected thousands of signatures to get it on the ballot, said in a statement that Measure B “was enacted by the voters” and that they do not believe the state has established a lawful basis for blocking it “merely because Sacramento objects to the election reforms they adopted.”

The fight over election integrity in mostly-rural, deeply conservative Shasta County comes as President Trump — who remains fixated on his 2020 election loss — is calling for the federal government to “nationalize” state-run elections and fighting to restrict voting by mail.

Measure B gained popularity amid Trump’s baseless claims of cheating. California’s anticipated but painfully slow vote count after the June primary — largely the result of the labor-intensive process for tallying millions of mailed ballots — only fueled such claims. But it also prompted Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democratic state lawmakers this summer to allocate $40 million to help counties speed up the process.

The citizens’ initiative approved in Shasta County would limit voting by mail, the method used by an overwhelming majority of Californians, to only “the infirm, military, and U.S. citizens living overseas.”

Measure B would require elections to be held in person on a single day and create a separate county voter registration system disconnected from the state’s uniform system. It also would require residents to present government-issued photo identification to cast a ballot (as would a statewide ballot measure that voters will decide upon in November).

The measure drew steep opposition from numerous civil and voting rights organizations — including the ACLU, the League of Women Voters, Disability Rights California, the Asian Law Caucus, and Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California — who said it would disenfranchise voters.

One prominent supporter of Measure B told The Times in May that he expected the county to be sued if voters approved it.

“We don’t like the state laws,” said Richard Gallardo, a leader of Save Shasta Elections. “We want to enact our own local election reform. … There’s a lot in there, so, yes, we do expect the state to sue us.”

Gallardo, an election integrity activist who once tried, unsuccessfully, to place all of the county supervisors under citizen’s arrest during the COVID-19 pandemic, is among the “real parties in interest” named in the state’s lawsuit. He said he believed the onus was on the county to “fully and fervently” defend Measure B in court because it’s “the will of the voters.”

Richard Gallardo, a leader of the citizens’ group that wrote Shasta County’s Measure B, is blocked by a guard in November 2022 after attempting to go into a restricted area to observe ballots at the elections office in Redding. At right is then-assistant county registrar Joanna Francescut.

(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

In recent years, the election skepticism movement bolstered by Trump has found a strong foothold in Shasta County.

In 2023, the Shasta County Board of Supervisors, swept up in unfounded election fraud allegations promoted by the president, ditched Dominion voting machines and opted to hand-count ballots for the county’s more than 110,000 registered voters — quickly prompting a new state law that banned them from doing so.

Last year, the supervisors appointed Clint Curtis — a Florida-based attorney whose claims about rigged voting machines stretch back to the early 2000s — to be the Shasta County registrar of voters, a position vacated by two previous registrars who resigned for health reasons, saying they were exacerbated by the stress of the job.

Curtis promptly eliminated nine of the vast county’s 13 ballot drop boxes. He accused his predecessors in the registrar’s office, without evidence, of stuffing ballots to sabotage conservative Republicans. And he called for federal authorities to raid his office and seize ballots.

Curtis — a vocal proponent of hand-counting ballots who has worked with MyPillow Chief Executive and pro-Trump conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell — advocated for Measure B and is named as a defendant in the state’s lawsuit.

He was voted out of office in June and will be replaced in January by Joanna Francescut, the former longtime assistant registrar, whom he fired.

Kim Wyman’s phone started ringing at the end of February.

As the rapid spread of the coronavirus made it clear that the 2020 election cycle would have to accommodate social distancing, reporters and election officials across the country started reaching out to Washington’s two-term secretary of state to discuss the vote by mail system she oversees.

“From March until the end of April, every day was nonstop calls,” Wyman, 58, said in an interview this month.

More than a dozen states postponed their presidential primaries or conducted them entirely by mail, and others loosened absentee rules, allowing people at high risk of COVID-19 complications or concerned about contracting the disease to request ballots. And Congress included $400 million for states to prepare for elections amid the pandemic in its March stimulus bill.

Wyman, known nationally as an expert on mail voting, became a go-to resource for election officials scrambling to adapt. The blue state Republican was elected secretary of state in 2012, a year after the Washington Legislature voted to transition all counties to mail balloting. Before that, she spent two decades working on elections in Thurston County, home to Olympia, the capital.

“Secretary Wyman is unique among secretaries of state in that she was a local election official,” said Amber McReynolds, the CEO of the National Vote at Home Institute and the former director of Denver’s elections. “She has a very clear understanding of the needs of local election officials and she’s always very particular in her attention to that.”

As the pandemic rages on and some in her party attack mail voting, Wyman has become a vocal supporter of the system in interviews, opinion pieces and as co-chair of the circle of advisors for the National Vote at Home Institute.

For voters, the main appeal prior to the pandemic had been convenience, Wyman said. “In Washington state, we haven’t had lines on election day in 10 years, 15 years, for a reason,” she said.

In her attempts to maintain voters’ confidence in the system and to win a third term, her biggest hurdle on both fronts may be President Trump.

During one June speech, Trump claimed with no evidence that states like California wouldn’t send ballots to some Republican voters, that ballots could be stolen from mail boxes, postal service workers could be robbed, signatures could be forged and foreign nations could create falsified ballots. “Mail-in ballots is a disaster for our country,” he said.

Wyman’s top rival in her reelection bid, Democratic state Rep. Gael Tarleton, has tried to tie her to Trump and accused her of not defending the state’s voting system against Republican attacks.

The secretary of state said she hasn’t shied away from her party identity during her statewide runs, but she’s avoided partisanship. “What I learned in my years in the county is that the job is more important than partisan politics,” she said.

Wyman, who grew up in California, cast her first vote in 1980 for Ronald Reagan. “It’s why I’m a Republican to this day, because Ronald Reagan was very inspiring to a young kid from Long Beach,” she said.

She voted in every election until one day in Germany, where her husband was stationed with the Army, she received a mail ballot for an election that had taken place the day before.

“I didn’t realize the significance of it until I started overseeing elections,” she said. “Then you realize how important being able to have your voice heard is and when you’re disenfranchised because somebody makes an error that’s inexcusable.”

From Germany, the couple moved to Washington, where Wyman served as Thurston County’s election manager from 1993 to 2001 and auditor from 2001 to 2013. Her time there overlapped with the state’s transition from the early stages of widespread absentee voting to a virtually all-mail system, and she experienced firsthand the obstacles election officials face as they transition.

During the 1994 primary, her office sent notices asking voters if they wanted to permanently receive absentee ballots ahead of the general election. About 10% said yes — far more than election officials were expecting.

“What we didn’t factor in was, ‘Oh, God, we have to enter all of those in and issue all those people a ballot in the next two weeks.’ We became very aware the hard way that you have to be mindful of that expansion and what that looks like,” she said.

Washington isn’t alone in conducting all elections almost exclusively by mail; Oregon, Colorado, Hawaii and Utah do as well. And every state offers at least some voters the option to request an absentee ballot. Nearly 21% of ballots cast in the 2016 presidential election were mail votes, up from 8% in 1996, according to the Pew Research Center.

Although millions of voters will have greater access to mail voting in November, there’s only so much states with historically low absentee balloting can do in a few months to get to where Washington has arrived over several years. Wyman’s calls with election officials have focused on the logistics of scaling up, she said.

“It’s a whole gamut of how do we gear up, how do you make the transition from going from 3% ballots returned by mail to 50% or 75% or 100%,” Wyman said.

Louisiana’s Republican secretary of state, Kyle Ardoin, said he started talking to Wyman in late February, weeks before the state delayed its April 4 primary. Ardoin said Wyman was an “absolute wealth of information” but was clear about the challenges expanding absentee ballots would pose.

“I think it really confirmed my fear of it,” he said in an interview after the state’s July 11 primary. The state increased mail voting from less than 4% in past elections to 18% in July after adding new coronavirus-related reasons for voters to request absentee ballots, he said.

Now election officials are preparing for the challenges of running the general election during a pandemic that has killed more than 150,000 people in the U.S. In addition to expanding absentee balloting and educating voters, election officials face a campaign against mail voting from the president and his allies.

Trump’s critics have suggested he is setting the stage to reject the results of the election. The president — who falsely claimed that millions of people voted illegally in 2016 — has refused to say whether he would accept a loss.

There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud, by mail or otherwise. Election officials, including some in red states, have pointed to expanded absentee voting as a secure option to keep voters safe, at times facing pushback from state legislatures. At the same time, public health officials have urged voters to use mail ballots when possible and asked Congress to help states fund efforts to increase mail voting.

“This year round there’s a much bigger pro on the side of vote by mail than there has been in most years, where the argument has been about the benefits and convenience and easier access,” said Brian J. Gaines, a political science professor at the University of Illinois. Gaines said the downside of voting from home is that ballots aren’t secret and voters risk being coerced by roommates or family members.

Supporters of mail voting say that states’ ability to discover cases — such as attempted ballot fraud in a North Carolina congressional election in 2018 or a local election in Paterson, N.J., in May — show that security measures work. “Those were bad actors doing something to voters that they should not be doing, and the system caught it,” McReynolds said.

Wyman compared running an election to running a bank. The state has built in measures to prevent and detect fraud, “but ultimately if someone wants to walk into a bank and rob it, or if somebody really wants to try to perpetrate voter fraud, I imagine they can,” she said.

“And then we have ways to detect it and prosecute it on the back end.”

Signature verification is the “linchpin” of Washington’s election security, Wyman said. Julie Wise, the top election official for King County, where Seattle is located, said her own signature has been challenged twice, including once while she held her current position. Voters have 21 days after the election to verify their signatures after a challenge.

The state is also a founding member of the Election Registration Information Center, a group of 30 states and the District of Columbia that shares voter registration and motor vehicle license lists to help maintain voter rolls.

With the help of the partnership, Wyman’s office announced in May that it had found 142 potential voter fraud cases — out of more than 3.1 million ballots cast in the 2018 general election — involving individuals who may have voted in more than one state or on behalf of a deceased person. Wyman’s office plans to prosecute the cases if counties don’t.

“Is it rampant fraud? No,” Wyman said of the 0.004% of ballots flagged for potential fraud. “Is it acceptable? No.”

Despite the president’s growing attacks on mail voting, the country is likely to see a massive increase in the number of ballots sent to voters this fall. Wyman said the lasting result of the 2020 election cycle might be an increase in the number of states following in Washington’s footsteps: from no excuse absentee voting to permanent absentee ballots to statewide vote by mail.

“When people vote by mail they love it,” she said. “I think you’re going to see a natural migration.”

WASHINGTON  — California and 22 other Democratic-led states urged the Supreme Court on Monday to block President Trump’s plan to take control of voting by mail through the U.S. Postal Service.

They said it is too late in the election year to impose a new set of regulations for mail ballots.

Doing so, they said, would lead to mistakes, including eligible and registered voters being told they are not on the federal government’s approved list.

“Because of the high risk of errors and the limited window for correcting mistakes, many of the millions of voters who rely on mail voting — especially voters with disabilities and those in rural areas — would likely be denied mail ballots and disenfranchised,” they told the court.

More broadly, they argued that the Constitution “entrusted the states and Congress — not the president — with the responsibility to set rules for federal elections.”

The justices are likely to act in a few days on whether to allow the Trump administration‘s plan to proceed pending the adoption of new and detailed guidelines.

Last week, Trump Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer sent an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court contending judges in Boston moved too quickly to halt the administration’s new federal restrictions on voting by mail.

He argued judges should stand back for now, even though the midterm elections are only three months away.

Trump’s executive order required the U.S. Postal Service to use state-by-state lists of eligible voters who may send a ballot by mail.

Until now, states have had the constitutional authority to register voters for federal and state elections. And nearly a third of Americans now vote by mail.

Trump, however, has insisted that voting by mail leads to fraud, including by allowing noncitizens to vote.

Congress has refused to adopt new voting restrictions at Trump’s behest.

Instead, he issued an executive order on March 31 to enlist the Postal Service and the Department of Homeland Security to ensure “citizenship verification and integrity in federal elections.”

The order called on Homeland Security to compile state-by-state lists of citizens who are eligible to vote. And it told the postal service that it must use those lists to restrict who may vote by mail.

“The USPS shall not transmit mail-in or absentee ballots from any individual unless those individuals have been enrolled on a State-specific list,” the order said.

But a federal judge and the 1st Circuit Court in Boston ruled Trump’s new regulations may not be enforced this year, at least in the 23 Democratic-led states which sued.

On Monday, they told the court that USPS delivered nearly 100 million mail ballots to or from voters in 2024, with roughly 30% of all voters nationwide casting ballots by mail.

Roughly six weeks before the first midterm ballots are mailed out, the U.S. Postal Service is emerging as a pivotal player in an election season that will determine control of Congress.

President Trump is seeking greater control over mail balloting through an executive order while a change to how the agency processes mail is leading to criticism that it’s failing to deliver ballots on time.

Democratic officials have raised concerns over the past week about how quickly the Postal Service will process ballots after tens of thousands of them in California and hundreds in Wisconsin arrived at local election offices too late to be counted in elections earlier this year. The top election offices in Kansas and Michigan are urging voters who want to cast their ballots early to avoid the mail and instead drop them off in person.

The Postal Service replied to those concerns by saying it remains “committed to fulfilling our role in the electoral process.”

“We provide a secure, efficient, and effective way for citizens to participate when policymakers decide to use mail as part of their elections,” it said in a statement Tuesday.

Trump’s order puts more focus on mail ballots

The Postal Service faced similar questions about mail delivery in 2024, but the scrutiny this year is heightened because of an executive order Trump issued in March that seeks to create a national voter list to guide the Postal Service in deciding who gets a mail ballot.

The order has sparked multiple lawsuits and federal court orders, leading to a case now before the U.S. Supreme Court in which the administration is asking the justices to allow it to impose its restrictions on mail balloting.

Trump has lied for years about voter fraud to try to explain away his loss to Democrat Joe Biden in 2020, and mail balloting is a favorite target, even though he has used the method himself. During a recent stop in Michigan, he falsely characterized mail balloting as “inherently corrupt” and added, “Hopefully there will be no mail-in ballots.”

A 2025 report from the research group Brookings identified about four cases of fraud for every 10 million mail ballots cast.

Despite Trump’s attacks, the method remains popular with voters of both major parties. In 2024, nearly 30% of U.S. voters cast their ballots by mail, according to federal data. In Michigan, where competitive U.S. House and Senate races could help determine the balance of power in Congress, the state said it has sent out more than 2 million absentee ballots for the state’s Aug. 4 primary.

“We want to keep vote by mail. We want to protect it. We want to expand it,” said Jonathan Smith, president of the 200,000-member American Postal Workers Union, which launched a campaign in April promoting it and is opposed to turning the Postal Service into an election administrator. “Why? Because it works.”

Legal battles intensify over Trump’s order

The Postal Service proposed a rule in June in line with Trump’s executive order that would create a national list of eligible voters, based on databases kept by other federal agencies. Only those on the list would be eligible to receive mail ballots.

Democratic officials in nearly two dozen states filed a federal lawsuit in Massachusetts. A federal judge there blocked Trump’s order last month, and an appeals court upheld that ruling, prompting Trump’s appeal to the Supreme Court. But the appeals court for the District of Columbia refused Tuesday to block the order in a separate case, calling a legal challenge premature.

Democratic senators and governors have written to the Postal Service urging it to abandon efforts to implement Trump’s order.

“Donald Trump has shown he’ll stop at nothing to meddle in our upcoming elections,” Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin said in a statement to The Associated Press. “At best, this new push will exacerbate already severe delays for mail-in voters and at worst, it will stop eligible Americans from casting their ballots.”

In a letter to Democratic senators earlier this month, the heads of the Postal Service said they were abiding by the court rulings that had halted the executive order. But Smith, of the postal workers union, told the AP on Tuesday that USPS information technology staffers who are union members are working on a planned portal for the list of eligible voters “behind the scenes.”

The Postal Service declined to respond to Smith’s statements and said it could not comment about whether it’s moving forward with work related to Trump’s order because of the litigation.

The postal workers’ union opposes the plan for a portal, a national list of eligible voters and using that list to determine who can receive a mail ballot. Smith said it shouldn’t be postal workers’ responsibility “to decide who can vote and who can’t vote.”

A plan to consolidate mail processing centers upsets officials

The Postal Service has been under financial stress for years and has been consolidating mail processing into fewer regional centers. Mail travels an average of 139 miles to reach one and sometimes 500 miles, according to a recent Brookings report.

In January, a group of mostly Democratic senators said it was concerned about a decision to end twice-daily mail dispatches from local post offices to regional processing centers. The result is that mail arriving after the only daily dispatch would go out the next day.

California officials said the change was a factor in the state rejecting more than 148,000 ballots from its June primary, with 63% of them arriving too late despite a seven-day grace period. Officials worried that some ballots were postmarked at processing facilities the day after they were dropped off at a post office, possibly invalidating them. Wisconsin officials also said hundreds of ballots from an election in April arrived late.

The Postal Service said postmarks generally are being applied with automated equipment at processing centers, “in the same manner and to the same extent as before.” It said someone who wants to make sure their ballot envelope gets a timely postmark can get a free one applied by a postal worker.

A report on the 2024 election by the USPS Office of Inspector General said the Postal Service handled more than 59 million pieces of ballot mail from Sept. 1 to Nov. 15 that year and that 97.3% arrived on time.

Some state election officials advise voters to avoid the mail

The Michigan secretary of state’s office is advising voters to hand-deliver ballots to their local clerk’s office or a drop box.

“We’ve seen these issues over a number of election cycles now — they’re always concerning, and that’s why we’ve put out that guidance,” said Deputy Secretary of State Aghogho Edevbie.

The Postal Service said its Michigan centers are not seeing processing delays.

In Kansas, concerns about late ballot deliveries in the state’s 2024 primary election prompted a quip on the social platform X from Secretary of State Scott Schwab, a Republican: “The Pony Express is more efficient at this point.” Asked his view now, spokesperson Whitney Tempel said Schwab still believes “keeping your ballot out of the hands of the federal government is best.”

Jamie Shew, a Democrat elected to oversee elections in Douglas County, home to the main University of Kansas campus, said his office is trying to change voters’ perceptions.

“I think voters are used to, you can drop it off on Friday and we’re going to receive it by Election Day,” Shew said Tuesday. “That’s just not the reality.”

California’s state budget includes $10 million for social media campaigns and other efforts to discourage last-minute ballot mailings.

And the Postal Service said it hasn’t changed its own longstanding advice for voters: They should get their ballots in the mail at least a week before their state’s deadline for receiving them.

Hanna writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Scott Bauer in Madison, Wis., Michael R. Blood in Los Angeles, Michael Casey in Boston, and Jacqueline GaNun in Lansing, Mich., contributed to this report.

SACRAMENTO — Backers of a November ballot measure that would require Californians to verify their identity when voting sued state officials on Monday, alleging bias in how the ballot’s summary is written.

A group led by California State Assemblymember Carl DeMaio (R-San Diego) allege in a 10-page lawsuit filed in Sacramento Superior Court that Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta violated election laws that require the “impartial” labeling of a measure’s purpose.

DeMaio accused Bonta of trying “to rig the vote” against the measure with “a false title claiming it prohibits citizens from voting” in California elections.

He also said the measure, which will appear as Proposition 39 on the November ballot, is “a bipartisan solution to Voter ID and is supported by a supermajority of Democratic, independent, and Republican voters.”

“We take our duty to prepare a title and summary and ballot label seriously, and we are confident the court will agree we have faithfully executed that duty here,” said a spokesperson for Bonta.

Proposition 39 would require voters to present government-issued identification, such as a state driver’s license, every time they vote in person.

Voters who use mail-in ballots — by far the most popular method of voting in California — would be required to write a four-digit number, essentially a PIN, on their ballot envelopes. The PIN would come from ID such as a driver’s license or could be generated from the county.

The measure also requires that the secretary of state and county elections officials to maintain accurate voter registration lists, verify citizenship, and report annually the percentage of each county’s voter roll that have been citizenship-verified.

Under current law, Californians are required to provide identification when registering to vote and must swear under penalty of perjury, a felony, that they are eligible to vote and are U.S. citizens.

They are not required to show or provide identification when casting a ballot in person or by mail.

The lawsuit, filed by Californians for Voter ID, Yes on 39 and Donald DiCostanzo, a registered voter who lives Orange County, argues that the attorney general office’s summary “is not a true and impartial statement of the measure’s purpose” and violates California Elections Code 9051, which requires neutrality.

The suit claims the language used for the summary during the signature-gathering process — a required step to get the measure on the ballot — was “neutral” and named both of the measure’s chief purposes.

The final language omits the measure’s mandate to maintain accurate voter rolls and and verify citizenship, and describes the measure in “prohibitive terms,” according to the suit.

The original language said the measure “establishes additional voters identification and citizenship verification requirements.”

“This measure would amend the California Constitution to further require that voters present government-issued identification at the polls or the last four digits of a government-issued identification number when voting by mail; the State provide voter identification cards on request; and elections officials annually report percentage of each county’s voters whose citizenship they have verified.”

The summary language now states that the measure: “Prohibits citizens from voting unless they present government-issued identification.”

“Invalidates mail ballots that do not have last four digits of designated government-issued identification number written on envelope. Prohibits in-person voting without presenting government-issued identification.”

Election law expert Fred Woocher said that the law allows the ballot measure summary to be different than the description of the measure in circulation.

UCLA law professor Rick Hasen declined to weigh in on the arguments in the lawsuit, but said that “it’s common practice for the AG to write things in ways that that align with the political interests of the Attorney General.”

Hasen previously called the ballot measure a “disaster,” writing in a blog post that its requirements are vague and it would be costly and difficult for agencies to verify citizenship.

Proponents of an initiative to repeal gas tax increases in California sued then-Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra, now a candidate for governor, in 2017 over a state-drafted title and summary which they argued was misleading and negative.

A judge sided with proponents, but an appellate court later rule in Becerra’s favor.

WASHINGTON — President Trump has spent months waging an unusually aggressive campaign to reshape how states run elections, leveraging federal agencies in ways no previous president has attempted.

He has pushed the Department of Homeland Security to compile a list of citizens in each state to help determine voter eligibility. He is seeking to give the Postal Service a role in deciding who can receive mail ballots. He has threatened to withhold federal funding from states unless they phase out electronic voting machines. And he is pressuring Republican lawmakers to overhaul voting laws, claiming without evidence that elections are being rigged.

The efforts have run into resistance in court and within his own party. They have also left postal workers and local election officials bracing for an election cycle marked by deepening doubts about election integrity, and uncertainty about how the federal government may challenge the post-election results.

“It’s an unprecedented power grab to reshape how our elections work so that he and his allies can maintain and expand power,” said Eric Kashdan, director of federal advocacy at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan government ethics organization.

The White House defends the effort as fulfilling a campaign promise, and argues the administration is “lawfully enacting the agenda President Trump was elected to enact.”

One of Trump’s defining efforts to assert some federal control over state elections has been his insistence on passing the SAVE America Act, which would require voters to provide proof of citizenship when they register, require Americans to show identification when casting a ballot and require states to send voter data to the Department of Homeland Security.

His relentless push for the measure has prompted him to derail a bipartisan housing bill and threaten to forgo signing any piece of legislation unless the voting measure is approved. He says he considers the matter a “national emergency.” Despite the pressure campaign, Senate Republican leaders maintain there is not enough support to pass the measure.

The political stakes ahead of the midterms have been laid out more bluntly by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), whose chamber has approved the SAVE America Act. Last month, Johnson warned conservatives gathered at the Faith & Freedom Coalition that if Democrats win back control of the House, they will “go after the president’s family, the Cabinet, his donors, friends,” and supporters.

“I run the protection program,” Johnson said. “I will take care of you.”

Setbacks in court

The administration’s ambitions have hit numerous snags in court in the last month, with judges reaffirming in many cases that the Constitution gives states — not the federal government — primary authority over elections.

In one case, U.S. District Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan, who was appointed by President Biden, went further.

She said a federal immigration database the Department of Homeland Security was compiling to determine voter eligibility violated privacy laws. She added that the database has resulted in states actively removing U.S. citizens from voter rolls based on inaccurate information.

“All in all, the federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote,” Sooknanan wrote. “This Court cannot stand idly by while that happens.”

James Percival, the general counsel for Homeland Security, said the ruling was the latest example of “how hard the Left will fight to stop us from solving problems they insist do not exist.”

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority this week also dealt a blow to the GOP and upheld state laws that allow for counting mail ballots that are postmarked by election day but arrive late.

The decision left Trump fuming. He said it was a “a little bit surprising” to see the court’s decision, claiming without evidence that the result will inevitably give “people more time to vote illegally.”

Democrats, in turn, saw the ruling as a necessary check on the Trump administration’s efforts.

“While we continue to see unprecedented efforts to interfere with elections from the Trump administration, it is a relief to see federal courts make clear that these attacks on mail and absentee voting are clearly illegal and unconstitutional,” Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Los Angeles) said in a statement after the ruling.

Trump is still eyeing changes to voting by mail. In March, he issued an executive order that seeks to limit who can receive mail ballots. Under the proposed rule, the Postal Service would not deliver mail ballots to states that don’t turn over sensitive voter data to the federal government, Postmaster General David Steiner told a Senate panel last month.

The admission drew immediate condemnation from Democratic lawmakers. They argued the regulation is an illegal attempt to coerce states into handing over their voter rolls.

“Please push back on being a pawn in this authoritarian playbook,” Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) told Steiner. “The Postal Service is one of the most important institutions in our country. Don’t taint it with the obsession of this one man.”

A day after that back-and-forth, U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani, who was nominated by President Obama, blocked those plans — at least for now.

“The Constitution does not grant the President any specific powers over elections,” the judge wrote, while adding that the Postal Service does not have the legal authority to determine who can vote by mail and how.

The White House said Wednesday that the administration remains confident the executive order will be in place by the November election.

Taken together, the administration’s efforts are unprecedented, UCLA law professor Rick Hasen said. That’s because the Constitution puts control over elections in the hands of the states and grants Congress the ability to pass laws, he said.

“The president really only has authority through federal statutes that have already been passed,” Hasen said. “It’s not surprising that many courts have struck down or stopped him from doing things to try to interfere with how elections are being run.”

Postal workers waiting for clarity

The legal setback for the Postal Service proposed rule was welcome news to the union representing postal workers.

“We believe that what we’re being asked to do is in violation of the oath that we took,” said Jonathan Smith, the president of the American Postal Workers Union, which represents more than 200,000 postal workers.

Following the ruling, the union called on the agency to abandon the rule, arguing it “will crush mailers’ trust in the Postal Service” and undermine “one of the most important functions the Postal Service and postal workers perform in service of the United States and its remarkable democracy.”

In several states, the union has run ads promoting mail voting as safe and a needed option for Americans. The ads were planned before Trump signed his executive order in March seeking to limit who can receive mail ballots, Smith said.

Now, the ads are taking a different meaning. Smith argued that “sometimes God works in mysterious ways.”

“The ad was then and is now intended as a piece to educate America about how good vote by mail is, how much it has been working out,” Smith said. “It’s an educational piece, not a response to the White House.”

Ahead of the election, Smith said postal workers are waiting for clarity on how their duties may change. But right now, he says, there isn’t much.

Orange County Registrar Bob Page said his office is monitoring any changes to existing federal and state election laws to ensure any changes, if needed, are implemented without disruptions. But he acknowledged the timing crunch could create some hurdles the closer the election gets.

“In many ways, any change to how California voters cast their ballots made between now and election day would create a challenge and may even be disruptive,” Page said.

He said many counties have ordered outgoing and return ballot envelopes for the election to ensure envelopes for more than 23 million California voters are ready to use by the Oct. 5 mailing deadline. Any change to how ballots should be prepared or mailed could present an issue.

“Our office has received calls from voters asking about potential changes to vote-by-mail procedures usually tied to media coverage about proposed changes,” he said. “We inform these voters that our procedures have not changed because the law has not changed and that we will mail their 2026 General Election ballots by Oct. 5.”

L.A. County prepares for possible voting changes

In Los Angeles County, election officials are also in a battle to bring clarity to the process as the administration ushers in a series of proposed changes to the election.

Dean Logan, the head of the Los Angeles County registrar-recorder/county clerk’s office, said his office is fighting to contain a wave of election misinformation, including some that is amplified by the White House.

“It’s not something that we’ve seen happen before, and certainly not at the level we’ve seen,” Logan said.

Rather than respond to every claim, Logan says his office picks its battles, intervening only when a falsehood appears likely to reach a wide audience. Even then, the office tries to avoid engagement with whoever is spreading it.

If the administration imposes a new rule closer to the election, Logan said his office is ready to follow the law.

“It’s really been about finding this balance of staying alert and prepared for the possibility [of change] but also not getting sucked into the political distraction,” he said.

Last month, Trump claimed without evidence that Democrats have cheated to win California’s primary elections, and boasted about federal prosecutors in Los Angeles investigating the matter.

Trump has also continued to claim Democrats are trying to rig or cheat in the upcoming election, remarks that have faced rebukes from members of his own party.

“I think it is ironic that we control the House, Senate, Supreme Court and the White House and we are yelling election fraud. I mean, we won all the damn elections,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) told reporters last month.

At the national level, Senate Democrats have said they plan to send election observers to polling places on behalf of Congress in reaction to Trump’s efforts.

“We are not waiting for chaos to arrive,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said last month. “We are preparing now.”

Times staff writer Justine McDaniel contributed to this report from Washington.

IF you need a central London stay but want all the perks of an apartment, then there’s Citadines Islington.

Here is everything you need to know about staying at the aparthotel.

Where is Citadines Islington London?

The hotel is just a short walk from Angel Underground Station in London, which is just one stop from London St Pancras.

Built inside the former Royal Mail postal sorting centre, it dates back to 1907.

What is the hotel like?

The modern hotel is in the heart of Islington Square, and hidden down a quiet side road.

The main lobby is popular with co-workers, and where you will find lounge areas, tables and a 24-hour cofffee machine.

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What are the rooms like?

Being an aparthotel, this means all of the rooms come with a kitchenette, so is perfect for longer stays.

My Studio Deluxe had wonderfully high ceilings so felt extremely spacious.

Inside the kitchenette is everything you’d need from a hob, mini fridge and microwave to crockery and cutlery.

My plush kingsize bed was extremely comfortable, and the floor to ceiling curtains blacked out any light for a great night sleep.

A coffee machine, complimentary tea and biscuits were all included, along with a seating area and huge flatscreen TV.

It was an extremely beautiful and cosy room – especially after some time spent in the walk in shower, followed by a fluffy dressing gown and slippers evening.

Rooms start from £198.90. See here.

What is there to eat and drink?

There’s no restaurant, although guests can enjoy a limited breakfast of fruit, pastries, cereals and some hot options.

But if you want lunch or dinner, there is loads to choose from in the area.

Right outside in Islington Square is everything from brunch at Megan’s to dinner at Rosa’s Thai.

Just round the corner is the main high street as well, with cuisines ranging from Chinese and Japanese to Italian and Mexican restaurants.

Wat else is there to do there?

The hotel also has an on-site gym, as well as laundry services on offer.

Otherwise outside the hotel is a huge Odeon cinema and attractions like indoor golf.

If is family friendly?

The hotel has family rooms that sleep up to four people, and each room can accommodate one extra bed or crib.

Additional beds cost extra but cribs are free.

Is it accessible?

There are accessibility rooms as well as wheelchair access and adapted bathrooms.

Lifts also go to all of the floors as well.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday upheld state laws that allow for counting mail ballots that are postmarked by election day but arrive later.

The 5-4 decision rejects a Republican challenge to laws in California and 13 other mostly Democratic states which permit the counting of these late-arriving ballots.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. joined with the three liberals to form the majority.

The decision is a mild surprise and should bolster Democrats in the fall election.

While California’s seven-day grace period for mail ballots has contributed to slow tabulations, it has not been shown to trigger fraud or unreliable vote counts.

Election law experts blame slow tallies on the surge in voting by mail combined with the need to carefully match signatures on these ballots.

The court said federal law since 1845 has set election day nationwide as the Tuesday after the first Monday in November and voters were required to cast their ballots that day.

Citing that fact, the Republican National Committee and the Trump administration joined a challenge to a Mississippi law adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic that allowed counting ballots that were up to five days late.

Trump’s lawyers said federal law preempted or overrode the state law.

“From the dawn of America, election day has meant the day the ballot box closes — and when election officials must be in receipt of all ballots,” wrote Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer.

Democrats said the Constitution says the “time, place and manner of holding elections” for Congress “shall be prescribed in each state” by its legislature. However, Congress was given the power to override those state rules and set its own regulations for federal elections.

Barrett said the federal election day requires only that the voter must decide by then.

“The election-day statutes require the electorate’s choice to be made on election day. That occurs so long as election day is the deadline for individuals to vote — as it is in Mississippi,” she wrote. “But the election-day statutes do not set a deadline for ballot receipt, so they do not prevent Mississippi from counting ballots postmarked before election day yet received afterward.”

While Congress could have prohibited the counting of late-arriving ballots, it had not done so. That may be because states wanted to count ballots from members of the military stationed overseas even if they arrived late.

Last year, however, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans struck down Mississippi’s law that allowed for counting ballots that were cast by election day but arrived up to five days later.

The opinion by three judges, all Trump appointees, concluded that the election day set by Congress “is the day by which ballots must be both cast by voters and received by state officials.”

In its appeal, Mississippi stuck with a states’ rights view and argued that the federal election-day statutes mean that ballots must be cast — not received — by election day.

“This is a victory for voters and for an election system that meets the needs of the people it serves,” said Common Cause President Virginia Kase Solomón. “Eligible Americans shouldn’t lose their voice because of mail delays outside their control.”

June 25 (UPI) — The U.S. Postal Service plans to refuse delivery of mail-in ballots in states that don’t turn over their voter lists to the federal government, the postmaster general told Congress.

Postmaster General David Steiner told the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee about the proposed rule on Wednesday.

“Yes or no — if a state refuses to turn their absentee voter list over to the federal government, will the Postal Service still mail their ballots under this proposed rule?” Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., asked Steiner.

“Under our proposed regulation, no. We would tell the state that we need the manifest,” Steiner said.

Steiner argued the policy is to make sure ballots are delivered “securely, efficiently, and accurately.” But President Donald Trump has repeatedly demanded states’ voter lists over the past year and has been suing states to get them.

The proposed rule says that states would have to give the Postal Service the names, addresses and ballot barcode numbers for the people who are to get ballots in the mail. The proposal follows Trump’s executive order from March 31 that requires the federal government to compile state citizenship lists and for the Postal Service to refuse to mail ballots to those the federal government has determined are ineligible to vote.

The proposed rule is posted on the Federal Register, and the public can comment until July 2.

Democrats have pushed back, arguing the rule shows that Trump is trying to federalize elections and said the Postal Service doesn’t have the authority to enforce that rule. The Constitution says states are responsible for running elections.

“Just because President Trump wants to do this does not make it law, doesn’t make it right, doesn’t make it constitutional. There is certainly a massive difference between general mail requirements and regulating elections,” Peters said.

Steiner admitted that his agency doesn’t have the authority to enforce elections but said the rule is a precaution to be sure that only eligible voters will get ballots.

“I would think that states would want the information to ensure that the ballots that they think they’re sending out are the ballots that are actually getting sent out,” Steiner said.

Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., said the rule is part of a broader strategy.

“The U.S. Postal Service is now part of this bigger story of this president desperate to federalize our elections. He has tried every which way to say that if he and his party don’t win in these November elections, they were rigged.”

Slotkin asked Steiner directly to stop the plan.

“Please push back on being a pawn in this authoritarian playbook,” she said. “The Postal Service is one of the most important institutions in our country. Don’t taint it with the obsession of this one man.”

To the surprise of few, President Trump has once again claimed without evidence that Democrats are somehow cheating to win California’s primary elections — writing on social media late Wednesday that federal prosecutors in Los Angeles are investigating the matter.

“The Dumocrats are at it again! They are trying to STEAL THE GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA PRIMARY, AND THE MAYOR OF LOS ANGELES, PRIMARY, AWAY FROM TWO GREAT REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES. Here we go with the very late and massive numbers of MAIL IN BALLOTS,” Trump posted to his social media platform Truth Social.

“There’s BIG cheating by the Dumocrats in California. Votes are all tied up. May not be in for weeks. Under investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles,” he wrote in a second post. “Why the vote counting DELAY???”

A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles — run by Trump loyalist First Assistant U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli — declined to comment Thursday morning on Trump’s claims of an investigation.

California Secretary of State Shirley Weber’s office also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office responded directly to Trump late Wednesday with its own social media post, writing, “Trump is lying about California again — time to take the phone away from grandpa and put him to sleep.”

On Thursday morning, Newsom’s office wrote that there “is a lot of misinformation floating around about California’s election — including from the President,” and recommended people watch a CNN video about California’s election process. It concluded that delays in vote counting in the state are essentially a result of state leaders deciding that providing voters with “last minute options” for casting ballots is more important than a quick count.

“And yes, for the record: we wish the votes were counted faster, too,” Newsom’s office wrote — a nod to the fact that the issue isn’t new.

In an email, Brandon Richards, Newsom’s deputy director for rapid response, said Trump’s claims are part of “a tinfoil hat level conspiracy theory that has been debunked repeatedly.”

The president’s claims of cheating were predicted before the election by both elections experts and Democratic leaders in California, who dismissed them in advance as more baseless bluster from a president beset by low approval ratings.

A worker puts ballots in a counting machine at the Los Angeles County Ballot Processing Center on Wednesdayin City of Industry.

(Kayla Bartkowski/Los Angeles Times)

Those same experts and Democratic leaders acknowledge that California’s system for counting votes takes a long time and should be quickened, but stress that is not because of anything nefarious. Rather, it is because California allows voters to cast ballots by mail up until election day — and then has to count those ballots, which can number in the millions and are subject to manual signature verification.

Trump has long dismissed such explanations. An election denier since he first entered politics more than a decade ago, Trump has pushed skepticism about elections he and his party lose time and again since — most notably when he claimed, again without evidence, that the 2020 election he lost to Joe Biden was stolen.

Trump even challenged Biden’s victory in court, but his claims were rejected completely because neither he nor his attorneys could produce any evidence substantiating them.

He has combined his tactic of targeting undocumented immigrants for political gain with his skepticism of election integrity by claiming, again without evidence, that such immigrants somehow vote in large numbers, particularly in big blue states such as California, despite experts saying there is no evidence of that.

He has alleged that mail ballots — such as those used by the majority of California voters — are a particularly rich source of voter fraud, despite again having no basis for the claim and it being disputed by experts.

A consistent feature of his election fraud claims is that they arise and target races only when Republicans lose or lose ground.

And, he has tried to use the power of his administration to make sweeping changes to election laws to bar mail ballots and require strict voter ID and proof of citizenship measures, despite the control of elections and their rules being constitutionally given to the states.

Those efforts have prompted a wave of litigation between the Trump administration and California and other blue states, with multiple cases pending in the courts over voter ID, proof of citizenship, mail balloting and the role that the U.S. Postal Service may be allowed to play in processing such ballots.

Trump’s latest remarks came as additional vote counting on Wednesday narrowed the advantage of Republican Steve Hilton over his Democratic challengers in the California governor’s race and closed the gap in the L.A. mayoral race between the MAGA-aligned candidate Spencer Pratt, currently running second, and City Councilmember Nithya Raman, who is running third.

The trend was anticipated. Elections experts warned before vote counting began of the potential for a “red mirage,” wherein earlier voting among Republicans and late voting among Democrats — many of whom were unsure of whom to vote for in the two high-profile races — would create an early illusion of Republican victories despite large volumes of liberal votes from major population centers still to be counted.

It is a trend that has played out repeatedly in past elections, and one that does not come as a surprise to careful elections watchers.

Elections officials in California knew such claims were going to be made, as they’ve been made in the past. Some local elections officials made a point of preparing their staffs for baseless claims of election fraud in advance of this year’s primaries. State officials made repeated efforts to explain the reasons why California elections take time, precisely to undercut claims amid counting that the delays were the result of fraud.

But those claims have come regardless, and not just from Trump.

Above an X post Wednesday suggesting Pratt was losing ground to Raman as more counts came in, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wrote, “California keeps dumping votes. Odds are shifting because the vote dumps always seem to go one way. Count until you get the result you want?”

Above another X post Wednesday noting that the California count would take time, Katie Miller, a former Trump administration official and conservative podcaster married to Trump’s top advisor Stephen Miller, wrote, “The Democrats are about to steal the LA mayoral race once again using mail-in voting.”

Both of the posts that DeSantis and Miller were responding to were from Polymarket, a prediction market where people can bet on the outcomes of political races, pop culture events and a slew of other subjects.

Such emerging financial markets, which process billions of dollars in bets, are causing rising concerns about political meddling for profit — including by campaign staffers and other individuals with insider knowledge of polling and other campaign information, or by politicians and their operatives, whose public remarks about politics can swing those markets.