California’s Republican Party has acknowledged that it owns unauthorized ballot drop boxes that state election officials have deemed illegal, AP first reported.
Driving the news: California’s secretary of state was forced to issue a memo on Sunday telling county registrars that the unofficial drop boxes were illegal after there were several reports of unauthorized boxes in Fresno, Los Angeles and Orange counties, AP reported.
- Jordan Tygh, a regional field director for the California Republican Party, tweeted a photo of himself next to an unauthorized drop box last week, raising concerns about the use of the boxes, the Orange County Register reported.
- Freedom’s Way Baptist Church in the Los Angeles area also incorrectly labeled a drop box as “official,” per KCAL 9.
What they’re saying: California GOP spokesperson Hector Barajas told AP on Monday the party owns the boxes.
- He declined to say how many there are and their locations, the news agency added.
- In an emailed statement to Axios, Barajas claimed that the state’s law governing so-called ballot harvesting allows a group to collect and return ballots. “The Democrat anger is overblown when state law allows organizations, volunteers or campaign workers to collect completed ballots and drop them off at polling places or election offices,” Barajas said.
- “If Democrats are so concerned with ballot harvesting, they are the ones who wrote the legislation, voted for it, and [former] Gov. Jerry Brown signed it into law. California Republicans would be happy to do away with ballot harvesting,” he added.
The bottom line: “Unofficial ballot drop boxes are prohibited — third party ballot collections are allowed, but a voter must designate someone to return their ballot on their behalf,” the Orange County Registrar of Voters said in a press release on Monday.