His contortions come as activists cast doubts on voting by mail and top California officials like the attorney general and secretary of state say that it\u2019s fine.<\/p>\n
So what\u2019s a voter to do? Relax and take voting seriously, experts say.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no reason California voters should avoid the mail. The most important thing is for voters to return their ballots early, if they can\u201d said Justin Levitt, a Loyola Law School professor and former White House voting rights adviser. \u201cBut how a voter chooses to return the ballot \u2014 by mail, by dropbox, dropping the ballot off at a voting center \u2013 is entirely up to the voter\u2019s preference. They\u2019re all good choices, and they\u2019ll all mean that the ballot gets where it\u2019s supposed to go.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Conflicting ballot advice is everywhere\u2014fund reporting that clarifies San Diego\u2019s choices.Give $10<\/a><\/p>\n San Diego County voters have several ways<\/a> to return ballots before Election Day on Nov. 3. They can mail them (postmarked by Nov. 3), take them to an official ballot drop box or bring them to a vote center.\u00a0<\/p>\n A slew of California politicians have sought to reassure voters in recent weeks that everything is OK.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI know some Californians may be wondering whether everything coming out of Washington has changed how they can vote,\u201d California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement Monday. \u201cThe answer is no. We successfully secured a U.S. Supreme Court order that protects your ability to vote by mail.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n California Secretary of State Shirley Weber,<\/a> the San Diego County registrar of voters<\/a> and others have also told voters that they can vote as usual.<\/p>\n Their assurances have come after Trump pushed for voting reforms to address his long repeated but unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud, despite substantial evidence<\/a> that it is rare.\u00a0<\/p>\n The U.S. Supreme Court last month rejected<\/a> the Trump administration\u2019s emergency request to impose new mail-ballot rules before the November election. The blocked rule would have had\u00a0 the U.S. Postal Service refuse to mail local ballots unless voter data was uploaded to a federal database and envelope designs met new requirements.\u00a0<\/p>\n The proposal was just one of several Trump administration attempts at election reform that led Democrats like California Treasurer Fiona Ma<\/a> and Rep. Mike Levin<\/a> to tell San Diego voters to use secure drop boxes rather than the U.S mail.<\/p>\n On Monday, a coalition of local activists including SanDiego350, Alliance San Diego and CBFD Indivisible, gathered at the county Registrar of Voters\u2019 Office and urged voters to use secure drop boxes and to vote early.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cTo ensure your voice and your fight counts, we ask you to vote early and deliver your ballots by hand,\u201d Maria Echevarria, a volunteer at SanDiego350, said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t want the post office deciding if our vote is valid,\u201d Emmy Jordan, an activist in the group CBFD indivisible, said. \u201cThe post office doesn\u2019t want to decide if our vote is valid.\u201d<\/p>\n The warnings are also circulating online, where some San Diego County residents are explicitly telling voters to avoid Postal Service collection boxes.<\/p>\n Eduardo Santiago, a member of the U.S. Postal Service postal workers union, also spoke at Monday\u2019s rally. He didn\u2019t echo the sentiment that mail-in voting is insecure.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe administration has made this doubt in the vote-by-mail process,\u201d he said. \u201cIf something has worked, why should it be politicized?\u201d<\/p>\n Yet Jack Shu, one of the rally\u2019s organizers said that even though Postal Service employees do what they can to keep the vote secure, the administration can\u2019t be trusted.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe have an administration that will break the law,\u201d he said. \u201cKnowing that it\u2019s against the law. Only to test it out through the court system, hoping that maybe the Supreme Court will flip and side with them. That\u2019s a very dangerous situation.\u201c<\/p>\n Shu said he\u2019s seeing a shift in messaging to push voters to drop off the ballots at a secure ballot box as opposed to putting them in the mail, but he acknowledges mailed ballots \u201cshould be fine.\u201d<\/p>\n Everyone does seem to agree on one thing \u2014 vote, and vote as early as you can.<\/p>\n Journalism costs money. Less journalism costs society.<\/p>\n Your support makes independent local reporting possible.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/REgistrar-rally-5-edited-721x1024.jpg\"){kind=spacer}
Activists hold signs at a rally in front of the San Diego County Registrar of Voters on Oct. 5, 2026, (Jake Kincaid for inewsource) <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Jake_Web_CTA.jpg\")
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