{"id":462727,"date":"2026-09-13T18:22:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-13T18:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/462727\/"},"modified":"2026-09-13T18:22:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-13T18:22:12","slug":"with-mail-in-rules-uncertain-heres-how-californians-can-prepare-to-vote-in-november","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/462727\/","title":{"rendered":"With mail-in rules uncertain, here\u2019s how Californians can prepare to vote in November"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ballots are going out in less than a month, and California remains locked in a legal battle with the Trump administration over the president\u2019s push to rein in universal mail-in voting<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The back-and-forth has some California voters likely wondering whether they\u2019ll be able to vote by mail in this upcoming election. And if so, should they?<\/p>\n

In short \u2014 yes, mail-in voting will still be an option this year. And yes, it\u2019s still safe and generally reliable, although county election officials are urging voters to send in their ballots as early as possible ahead of the Nov. 3 election<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In case you missed it, the U.S. Supreme Court is poised to issue a ruling that will determine, at least for now, whether President Donald Trump<\/a> can force the U.S. Postal Service to restrict vote-by-mail ballots in time for the midterm election. Trump wants to create a federal database of registered voters that the postal service would then cross-reference to ensure mail-in ballots are only delivered to eligible voters \u2014 in other words, U.S. citizens. His plan would have the postal service refuse to deliver ballots in states that withhold the data.<\/p>\n

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The dizzying, monthslong legal saga has baffled voters and even some election officials<\/a>, which some voting rights advocates argue is probably the point.<\/p>\n

But California election officials say the state is well-equipped to administer the election, regardless of how the Supreme Court rules. Although county registrars are monitoring the court rulings, they\u2019re also preparing to mail ballots<\/a> as usual by the state\u2019s Oct. 5 deadline. Local and state officials are urging voters to make a plan to vote early and to use the state\u2019s various non-mail voting options, such as drop-boxes and in-person voting sites, if they\u2019re worried about the postal service.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike we do for all of our elections, we have contingency plans or disaster plans put into place,\u201d said Tricia Webber, clerk and registrar of voters for Santa Cruz County and president of the California Association of County Election Officials.<\/p>\n

Some counties, including Santa Cruz and Los Angeles, are exploring options for pop-up stations<\/a> where voters could request and submit ballots. In Santa Cruz County, Webber said her team is strategizing how to deploy their votemobile around the county to add yet another option for voters.<\/p>\n

\u201cUntil there\u2019s an answer,\u201d Webber said, speaking of the pending court ruling, \u201cCalifornia counties are doing business as usual.\u201d<\/p>\n

What does Trump want USPS to do?<\/p>\n

Trump issued an executive order in March that sought to give the federal government control over who receives mail-in ballots. Almost immediately, more than 20 Democratic attorneys general, including California\u2019s Rob Bonta, sued the Trump administration on the grounds that the Constitution allows only Congress and state governments to administer elections.<\/p>\n

Federal district and appellate courts sided with the Democratic states and upheld a temporary injunction preventing the postal service from implementing any part of its plan while litigation continues.<\/p>\n

The central questions in the case remain unresolved. The Supreme Court last month allowed the Trump administration to continue planning for how it would implement the president\u2019s order. Democratic states promptly sued again to contest the postal service\u2019s plans.<\/p>\n

The postal service\u2019s proposal, the final version<\/a> of which was published in August, would create a system to track each voter\u2019s ballot with a unique barcode and cross-reference it with a database of eligible registered voters.<\/p>\n

While some states fear they\u2019ll need to reprint envelopes if the postal service\u2019s rule is upheld, the vast majority of California counties already use compliant ballot envelopes, Webber said.<\/p>\n

The federal government does not have a comprehensive list of every eligible registered voter and would need to rely on states to submit voter information to a \u201cfederal ballot mail portal\u201d that does not yet exist.<\/p>\n

It seems unlikely that the postal service\u2019s portal would even be functional in time for the 2026 midterm elections. A postal service whistleblower asserted that the process to develop and deploy the portal was \u201crushed,\u201d \u201crisky and haphazard\u201d due to the \u201cimpossible timeframe,\u201d according to Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal\u2019s office, which received the whistleblower complaint.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn an effort to meet impossible deadlines, USPS has eliminated standard and needed testing, thereby creating substantial risk of a \u2018catastrophic failure\u2019 of the system that could \u2018derail the midterm elections,\u2019\u201d wrote Blumenthal, of Connecticut, in a late August letter<\/a> to Postmaster General David Steiner.<\/p>\n

The postmaster in June told a congressional committee that the postal service would withhold ballots in states that refuse<\/a> to share basic voter information, including name, address and the unique ballot barcode.<\/p>\n

Secretary of State Shirley Weber, California\u2019s chief elections administrator, has not said whether California would comply with the proposed voter information requirement.<\/p>\n

\u201cCalifornia\u2019s elections officials will continue to do everything within our power to ensure that every eligible California voter has the right to cast a mail ballot and have that vote count.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last year, the U.S. Justice Department sued Weber and five other Democratic secretaries of state for refusing to turn over their unredacted voter files, which contain far more sensitive personal information than the postal service rule would require. A federal judge in Southern California dismissed that case<\/a> in January.<\/p>\n

Uncertainty could fuel more early voting<\/p>\n

Ironically, concerns about the postal service\u2019s reliability could facilitate what election officials and voting advocates have struggled to do for years \u2014 get people to vote earlier.<\/p>\n

Unlike the lead-up to the June primary, where nervous Democrats urged fellow voters<\/a> to wait until the last minute to pick a candidate for governor, social media is now awash with posts urging people to vote early and use ballot drop-boxes rather than rely on the mail.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis whole play may backfire,\u201d said Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation. \u201cWhat you\u2019re seeing now on social media in response to this court drama and this confusion are lots of people urging their friends to vote early \u2014 and that\u2019s exactly what we\u2019ve been saying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Voting earlier helps county election officials tabulate results more quickly on election night, which helps race callers like The Associated Press declare winners faster. And since ballots in envelopes take the longest to process, dropping them off several days before the deadline is the best way to help election officials count faster, since they can remove ballots from envelopes and prepare them for counting before Election Day.<\/p>\n

\u201cFortunately, we give voters lots of options, and that\u2019s really going to work to California\u2019s benefit,\u201d Alexander said. \u201cOther states do not have the kind of robust process that creates lots of redundancies and avenues for voters to vote.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ballots are going out in less than a month, and California remains locked in a legal battle with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":462728,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8],"class_list":["post-462727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}