CA Secretary of State responds to Trump's push to 'nationalize' elections

S1: Welcome in San Diego. It's Jade Hindman on today's show. As Donald Trump tosses the idea of nationalizing elections around while voter suppression laws are being weighed. We'll hear from California's Secretary of State , Shirley Weber , on the safety of California elections. This is KPBS Midday Edition. Connecting our communities through conversation. So the midterm elections are nine months away. President Trump has repeatedly said the federal government should nationalize or take over some state elections. California officials are resisting those calls. They say they're ready to fight back. Joining me now is California Secretary of State Shirley Weber. Secretary , welcome to Midday Edition.

S2: Thank you for the invitation to be with you.

S1: Glad to have you here for this conversation. Let's start with a quick refresher.

S2: Um , and , uh , federal elections necessarily in the state. So those things are laid out before us , but it gives the authority to implement and to run elections to the states. Uh , each state has its own rules and regulations within the Constitution , but then its constitution , as well as the federal constitution that talks about what happens in an election. Uh , we're responsible for implementing those elections. Every Californian has the every registered voter , voter or citizen has the right to vote. And so we have to implement that. We can't violate the Constitution in doing these things. But , um , but we have the authority to actually run the elections and most of the states run their own elections , generally by the broad rules and regulations that govern them , but they can change them. For instance , California does vote by mail. Every voter in California registered voter gets a ballot in the mail. Some states don't have that. They have limitations as to who can get a vote by mail ballot , who cannot. All those kinds of things. Um , uh , the the federal government governs the fact that we vote every , what , the second Tuesday of November , uh , certain elections on , on every two years , so forth and so on. But states can have other rules and regulations concerning when elections take place that are local elections , whether it's city council , uh , school board , all those things are within the the local jurisdiction of the state and sometimes even within the cities themselves. LA has a different time frame for its mayoral election versus others having other time frames. So this this responsibility is parceled out with the broader idea that everyone has a right to vote. Who's a citizen in the United States and those kinds of things. But they vary based on the different jurisdictions that are there. And people have a tendency to appreciate the fact that they have the level of control to decide when they're going to do their local elections.

S1: So Trump says , you know , Republicans should nationalize voting in at least 15 places , including California.

S2: Um , he's he's appealing to the Republicans in the , in the , in the Congress to basically , uh , pass some kind of federal law that would make us have to basically be under the controls of the of the federal government. Most , uh , counties , most , uh , do not want that even in the , the , the red states that he didn't identify because they like control over their own too as well. Uh , they may not vocalize it as much as some others have , but they like the fact that they can have some level of control about , uh , how their how their restricting their , their , uh , their state , how they can decide who , how many , how long you can be in term , whether you have two years , four years , whether you have , uh , you know , limited terms , all those things states enjoy that because each one is a little different their structure to different beliefs. Uh , they have some states that have far , far between , uh , one place to the next because of places like Wyoming that has very few people. And yet I would not like to have so many elections and , uh , so many other kinds of things. So it's not a popular idea. It's a popular idea with him. And it's interesting that he's identified the Democratic states as the ones that he believes should be under control of the federal government and not the others. Uh , mainly because he believes at some point that he controls the others. Uh , so we are definitely opposed to it. We'll be like we were when they asked us for to basically give us all of our data Of everybody that's registered in California and their. Their backgrounds and their Social Security numbers and those kinds of things. We fought that because that's within the control of the state of California. And we won. And so they can't demand that from us. And they really couldn't demand it from anyone else in terms of the other states. But we fought it. So our our thing is that we will fight it. Our people are not in favor of turning over their their elections to the federal government. Given the turmoil and the shutdowns and the open ups and all of the kind of stuff they've come up with , it's not a good idea for any of us to talk about giving something to the federal government that we have demonstrated time and time again , that we do and do well.

S1:

S2: First of all , this is his idea. This is not a a bill that's coming out of Congress. This is one of his thoughts. As always. He throws these things out knowing that that one , it may not even be popular with their own people. And you don't hear them talking about federal losing elections. Um , so it's not necessarily popular with them , but it gets. Gets attention. And once it gets attention and kind of fizzles around for a while , then it may just die out. But this is something that he's recommending , as in some executive order , that they should federalize the , uh , the elections. And , um , that sounds too much like , uh , other countries that we've heard about that where the elections are really , uh , up for grabs , where you can constantly have an election over and over and over again , or when the president decides he wants to call an election , he can call an election in Zimbabwe and other places. You know , people are not , uh , not are hearing him , but that is not a popular idea. Every person has ever mentioned to me like , why in the world would anybody do that ? I said , you're absolutely correct. So we do not plan to we plan to fight anything , any effort at this at the in terms of federal losing the election , it won't have anything to do with the primaries that are coming up. People are too nervous about the primaries to start messing with it , because it might even create a backlash in terms of where people are and find themselves , um , you know , in worse conditions and the conditions they believe they will be in , in terms of the upcoming elections. Mm.

S1: Mm. Also , the the DOJ recently filed a lawsuit against California demanding sensitive voter information. And that lawsuit was rejected by a judge last month.

S2: Um , California is the fourth largest economy in the world , and that says a lot about the resources that exist in California. Um , this this the state is a blue state , a very blue state. And the more activities we see occurring , it becomes even more blue. Uh , so California has , has , uh , has its own voice , its own way of doing things. It does it by its own constitution as well as every state should , its own constitution as well as by the federal Constitution. We have resources we're not about to surrender our stuff over. And so when this whole idea came up about giving us the federal all of our data , it came to my office that was rejected. I spent the last 6 or 7 months fighting the federal government on this particular issue. They eventually sued me , and we won because we knew that this issue of privacy and data , I mean , data is power , you know. So the fact that you want to take data and then just kind of shovel it around , which is almost what's happening now. Um , you you find ourselves in a position where somebody is reading your material , utilizing your material to the , to their best interest. And clearly , this is this is a part of it. When you see what happened in what happened in Montana , where not Montana , but Minneapolis , where they say , well , if you give us this , then then , you know , if you give us all your data , we'll go away. I will go away. How crazy can that be ? Icing and the data have nothing to do with each other , other than they want the data to be able to use it as they choose to make decisions about what happens in local elections , what happens in local jurisdictions , what happens in universities and schools. We've seen this effort to try to take over everything , and so we're not likely to this is not a friendly conversation about , uh , give us your data. This is actually an attack on California and any other state. And most many states have rejected giving the data because they have no idea what this data would do. And they've seen some examples of it. And even walking in and taking data and material out of of Georgia again after 4 or 5 years. I mean , this is just , um , you know , this is an agitation , but it's a serious agitation and it's a serious attack on the various other states. And clearly it's an attack on California. Um , this president is is upset that California says no. It says no to ISIS coming in without certain kinds of without rules and regulations concerning it says no to host of things that have happened. And the retaliation is the the you know , the federal government says , well , if you don't give us this and we won't give you that. I mean , you know , that kind of a childish play on , on state and , and , and federal resources is , um , is is really undesirable and it's unprecedented.

S1: But but let me ask you about this , because the FBI searched and seized voter rolls from the election office in Fulton County , Georgia. Right. Of course , Trump alleges it's tied to voter fraud , despite no evidence of that. I mean , what do you make of that action ? And even though they're pursuing litigation to get those those voter rolls back , uh , there's no record of what exactly was taken.

S2: That's a that's a strategy that is being used and continues to be used. And that's why it's so important that states pay attention to where this material is , that they that they fight back on these things in up front because they don't know what to what what has been taken. Uh , the record is not clear. Uh , we're not sure exactly what it is , but a part of it , of course , is intimidation to reinforce to to Georgia as well as reinforce to , uh , others that , you know , if you don't pay attention or play ball with us , we can do things to you , you know , and , um , and that's unfortunate because , you know , I don't know how much more you need from Georgia. You've you've been to court. I don't know how many times we've seen the , the , the conservative information , the coming out of these study groups. And we've seen the more liberal data that comes out and the courts and everything else , and every last one says the same thing. There is no fraud , no , no stealing of of elections. Everyone says openly that 2020 was an election that was not stolen. And yet we still have these people who won't , who won't fight back , who basically , uh , uh , particularly in Congress , give things away that they shouldn't and and should respond to it. That's what the people send people to Congress for , to protect the Constitution , to protect them. And yet what they're doing is letting this person run everything. And as soon as something is said , people feel they have to adhere to it. That is not what this Constitution is about. That is not what this nation is about. You know , people often say to me , well , you know , I have to do this because the president said so. I said , the president is not God. He is one member of a of the branch of government. He is not in control of everybody. And because he says something , it doesn't make it law. Well , let me know. We've been fortunate that to have crazy presidents in the past. But , you know , we're in one of those eras.

S1: This is where we are now. Well , let me ask you this question here. Um , you mentioned intimidation. There's been talk of Ice being at at voter , uh , at polling places. Um , there's also like this growing concern that the Trump administration will interfere in upcoming state elections. Democrats , for example , are worried that the federal government will use the U.S. Postal Service to interfere with counting mail in ballots , or even postmarked them late after the after the voting date. Any advice on what people can do to ensure their ballot is counted ? As as the rules of the game seem to be fluid.

S2: Well , we've seen all of those efforts and all of those attempts at scaring people.

S3: At various things. Two things that California.

S2: Has in some of the other states are thinking about doing it. I tell everybody said , first of all , the one thing that we did in California without thinking of Trump , without thinking of any of these things , but really thinking about convenience , was to provide everyone with a mail in ballot. That is extremely important , because now you don't have to worry about meeting some ice at your polling place or , you know , having something taken out of your hand or whatever you think might happen in the process , or people looking at you funny when you go into the polling place and being snatched out of there. You can vote by mail. That's number one. The issue concerning the federal , the Postal service , the beauty is that California has these gigantic steel ballot boxes that you can put your mail in that is picked up by our folks , not the Postal Service , but it's a couple of those big boxes that are really. Most of you have seen them at the post office. We have them on every university campus. All those things , they're they're accessible. They're they're still they're picked up by people. You can put your ballot in there. And so you can either mail it off in the mail in the Postal Service early because you get 11 days to do it. And so this issue of will it will it get there on the , on the actual date that you do the thing that the mailing. You can do it in advance. Do it by mail. You can basically put it in a box of polling boxes of ballot boxes that are these steel things that are bigger than a post office box. You can put it in there. All of those things are possible. You can walk into the polling place the day of the election and hand it to them. Uh , you can also hand it in if you go to the post office. You can walk into the post office and ask them to postmark your your ballot right there. So you stand in line and get it postmarked by ballot. So we have a number of ways that protect people from from doing that. We've also , uh , doing an election. We have access. We have people who roam around that are that are trained by us to make sure that there's no intimidation , no attacks on individual at a polling place. We have laws that we pass to basically , uh , uh , creating felonies for folks who attack people at the polling places who try to deny them the right to vote. They will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. So we've done that years ago because they had people walking in and wanting to take over polling places , wanted to see what people were doing , all that kind of stuff. Once you fall into that trap , uh , of of that kind of activity , uh , you're going to basically destroy the system of voting. So I when I came in office , first thing we did was create some legislation that says if you do this stuff , you start intimidating people. You start making for us to get poll workers because they're scared to go and work at the polls. You're going to be prosecuted. So that put a clamp on some of those things. So we've been kind of doing this stuff up front. But the vote is is security for a whole lot of people.

S3: That's why they might be a victim.

S1: Doctor Weber , I hate to interrupt you. This is a this is a great conversation and a lot of good information for voters here in California. Reassuring information. But we'll pick up the conversation later. I've been speaking with California Secretary of State Shirley Weber. Secretary , thank you so much for your time.

S3: Thank you. You're welcome.

S1: That's our show for today. I'm your host , Jade Hindman. Thanks for tuning in to Midday Edition. Be sure to have a great day on purpose , everyone.