So Geoffrey mentioned “ballot harvesting” in his post, and I wanted to flag that this is a relatively new issue for California. Until 2016, the state didn’t allow people other than a voter’s family member to return a vote-by-mail ballot. But the law changed in the 2018 midterms to allow any person to return a vote-by-mail ballot, provided they don’t get paid for it, which did not go well for the California GOP … and Republicans blamed unlimited “ballot harvesting” for the defeat of seven Republican House candidates, so there’s that at play here, too.
DAVID HUANG