California governor Gavin Newsom has signed off on a package of bills aimed at bolstering election security, including measures to thwart federal political interference, his office announced on Sunday. The pieces of legislation appear to address hot button national and state electoral issues, including an extension to the hours for mail-in voting drop off locations. Newsom singled out the vote-by-mail measure, framing it as a safeguard against the Trump administration’s efforts to restrict the practice it claims is rife with fraud.
The US supreme court recently blocked the administration’s proposed changes to vote-by-mail, including an unwieldy mandate for states to submit lists of approved voters for mail ballots to the US postal service. California will stop him at every opportunity,” he said in a statement. The package also puts forth parameters around how political campaigns interact with social media influencers with a bill to impose penalties against individuals who do not disclose paid political content.
In the recent gubernatorial race for Newsom’s successor, contender and billionaire philanthropist Tom Steyer faced criticism for paying thousands of dollars to content creators, who promoted him without proper disclosure. He was accused of trying to buy the race. At the time, a spokesperson for his campaign said Steyer believed in fair compensation for the content creators’s work.
Newsom’s package comes after Trump repeatedly cast doubt on the veracity of the state’s 2026 primaries, saying without evidence that its slow counting process was an attempt to rig the outcome.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
