House Democrats will hold a pair of \u201cshadow hearings\u201d in California next week on the upcoming midterm elections \u2014 part of a broader party effort to defend state voting systems against mounting critiques and threats of intervention from the Trump administration.<\/p>\n
Such hearings, similar to those recently held in Los Angeles on President Trump\u2019s immigration raids<\/a>, provide Democrats an opportunity to highlight issues their majority Republican counterparts won\u2019t schedule for more formal hearings in Washington.<\/p>\n The hearings \u2014 scheduled for Los Angeles on Tuesday and San Francisco on Thursday \u2014 will feature testimony from voting and elections experts, and will be led by Rep. Joseph Morelle of New York, ranking Democrat on the House Administration Committee with oversight of elections, and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), the former House speaker.<\/p>\n Morelle, in a statement to The Times, said, \u201cDemocracy\u2019s defenses are under attack\u201d and must be defended.<\/p>\n \u201cWe will not let President Trump and House Republicans\u2019 efforts to take over our elections prevail. We\u2019re going to use every tool in our toolbox and that includes working with pro-democracy allies in communities across the country,\u201d he said. \u201cI look forward to hearing about the work being done in California to protect democracy as we fight on the ground and in Congress.\u201d<\/p>\n Pelosi, in her own statement to The Times, said protecting democracy \u201cdemands vigilance, transparency, and action,\u201d and the shadow hearings \u201cwill bring together voices on the front lines of election security, voting rights, and accountability to ensure that every American\u2019s vote is protected and every institution earns the public\u2019s trust.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAt a time of rampant threats to our democratic system, we must strengthen and defend the integrity of our elections to reaffirm that our government is of, by, and for the people,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Redlands), chair of the Democratic Caucus, and other Democrats from California are also expected to attend. Republican members of Congress are not expected to be there.<\/p>\n The hearings will be the first in a while to be led \u2014 at least in part \u2014 by Pelosi, 86, who gave up her position in party leadership and does not currently hold any committee assignments. She announced in November that she will not seek reelection<\/a>.<\/p>\n Trump has alleged for years, without evidence, that U.S. elections are undermined and swayed by widespread voter fraud, and that such fraud cost him the 2020 election that he lost to Joe Biden. He and his personal attorneys have repeatedly argued as much in court, but always lost \u2014 in part because they could never produce any evidence to back their claims.<\/p>\n Since retaking the White House last year, Trump has continued pushing his baseless claims, and pushed his administration to attack voting systems \u2014 particularly in blue states where he has been unpopular. <\/p>\n In September, Trump loyalists in the Justice Department sued California and other states<\/a> for their voter rolls and other sensitive voter information, but were pushed back by the courts<\/a>.<\/p>\n In January, the FBI raided and seized 2020 election records<\/a> from an elections office in Fulton County, Ga., that was the subject of Trump\u2019s allegations of voter fraud in 2020.<\/p>\n In February, Trump said Republicans should \u201ctake over the voting in at least 15 places,\u201d alleging that voting irregularities in what he called \u201ccrooked states\u201d are hurting his party. \u201cThe Republicans ought to nationalize the voting<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n This week, Trump issued an executive order<\/a> purporting to give federal agencies control over ballot processing by the U.S. Postal Service.<\/p>\n Trump administration officials and allies have also raised concerns that they might send immigration agents to polling locations during the midterms, in part by refusing to rule out such a move in the wake of mass deployments of such agents into American cities to pursue Trump\u2019s mass deportation agenda.<\/p>\n Trump has framed his efforts to end voting by mail \u2014 which he recently did himself<\/a> \u2014 and increase voter identification requirements as \u201ccommon sense\u201d steps to combat fraud that most Americans agree with. A vast majority of California voters cast ballots by mail, including nearly 90% in last year\u2019s special election on Proposition 50, the state\u2019s mid-decade redistricting measure.<\/p>\n Democrats and many elections experts have rejected Trump\u2019s election claims as baseless, defended state-run systems as safe and secure, and said his demands for stricter voter ID regulations would disenfranchise millions of U.S. citizen voters who lack the sort of documents he wants to mandate \u2014 including women who changed their name in marriage.<\/p>\n Voting experts say fraudulent votes, including by noncitizens, are rare, and that there is no evidence that fraud swings U.S. elections.<\/p>\n States including California have joined voting rights organizations in suing to block Trump\u2019s various attempts to intervene in state-run elections, including his order last week and a previous one<\/a> purporting to place new federal requirements on voter identification and proof of citizenship.<\/p>\n California officials and others have repeatedly noted that federal law gives states the right to administer elections as they see fit, and promised to fight any attempts by the president or his administration to infringe on state election powers.<\/p>\n