They’re just laughing in your faces now
Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 29 into law over the weekend, formally extending the state requirement for counties to send absentee ballots to all voters until January 2022 – including his own potential recall election.
SB 29, authored by Senator Tom Umberg (D-Santa Ana), acts as an extension to AB 860, a bill that required all counties to mail out absentee ballots to all registered voters due to COVID-19 concerns in the months before the November 2020 election. AB 860 was only set to last until November 2020 due to no more major federal or state elections until 2022. However, due to COVID-19 still being a major hindrance on in-person voting and a 2021 recall election of Governor Gavin Newsom becoming more and more likely, SB 29 was written to extend county-sent ballots for all registered voters by mail this year.
The voting over SB 29 was largely split along party lines in the Assembly and Senate, with all Republicans either voting against the bill or not voting and most Democrats voting in favor. Many who voted against the bill or abstained from voting fear that ballot harvesting similar to the 2018 ballot harvesting incidents could make a return and sway the votes in favor of keeping Newsom in office, or if he should be voted out, have another candidate similar to Newsom take his place.
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h/t Craiglang