Campaigning in battleground North Carolina over the weekend, California Governor Gavin Newsom slammed President Donald Trump’s push to restrict mail-in voting ahead of the midterms as “rank corruption and election-rigging.”
Newsom, who has been stumping for down-ballot Democrats in several southern states, was in Charlotte on Saturday, just after North Carolina election officials began sending out ballots statewide and one day after a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction again blocking Trump’s new mail-in ballot requirements.
Trump issued an executive order in March calling for strict limits on how voters can mail their ballots. The U.S. Postal Service then created a new rule in August that would require states to submit voter information via a portal and add new requirements for mail ballot envelopes, including special barcodes, among other updates. The rule prompted a lawsuit brought by attorneys general from several Democratic-led states to halt the changes.
Since then, a flurry of legal activity has ensued over whether the rule can be enacted ahead of the midterm elections. On Sunday, the Trump administration again appealed to the Supreme Court after previously appealing the judge’s 14-day block.
“The absurdity of this, with these ballots already going out, that he is trying to put sand in the gears of that process to completely manipulate that process to self-select his voters,” Newsom said at the Charlotte event.
Newsom, who is considered a likely 2028 democratic presidential contender, has been vocal critic of Trump. In California, county election officials are set to begin mailing ballots to all active registered voters on or before Oct. 5.
“Can you [imagine] the U.S. Postal Service deciding who gets the ballots and when, when they’re sent back, whether or not they’re even counted because they’re sent back a day late. ‘Oh, too bad,’” Newsom said. “That’s happening in real time, trying to nationalize these elections, trying to take the voting rolls. It’s happening in real time. Donald Trump is ruthless.”
Jane Whitley, chair of the Mecklenburg County Democratic Party’s 44th precinct, echoed similar concerns about the changes possibly disenfranchising voters if they’re allowed to take effect.
“A lot of the people who vote by mail are some of our most vulnerable citizens, and it includes those people who are serving our country … overseas. It includes our military, for heaven’s sakes…But it also includes a lot of our seniors, people who cannot get out,” she said.
Sue Block, who moved to North Carolina from Georgia, said she used to vote by mail but no longer feels confident doing so.
“At this point, with what they’re trying to do, I wouldn’t chance it myself. I’m going to go vote early,” she said.
Block also worries that the rapidly developing legal saga could lead to confusion surrounding mail-in voting.
“I think that the more people that are out there confused, the fewer people that are going to come out and vote,” she said.
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