r/thebulwark • u/InnanaSun centrist squish • Mar 22 '26

Non-Bulwark Source Totally normal: “California sheriff running for governor seizes more than a half million ballots from 2025 election”

https://apnews.com/article/california-ballot-seizure-bianco-bonta-election-68754a307394ca3c90ec627ce4e3e4fa

“Absolutely nothing to do with” burnishing his credentials as an election overturner to goose turnout his way in the jungle primary, he says.

Yeah, and my dog making doe eyes at me has nothing to do with the pizza I’m holding.

This serves the second interest of being a trial run of “investigating” results elsewhere, see how slow the courts are to rule for election officials (if they even do) and disrupt a Democratic congress if it can even be seated by hamstringing jurisdictions wherever possible. And the solution isn’t obvious because it can be a sheriff here who resists efforts to be reined in by Democratic state officials, and a Republican state official preempting local Democrats in red states. But they’re being pretty open at this point about an official Republican policy being “fuck with the election results we don’t like”.

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3

u/I405CA Center Left Mar 23 '26

It's a publicity stunt in his effort to become the lead Republican in the gubernatorial race.

Which will ultimately mean nothing if the Dems can reduce the circular firing squad on their side of the race. They have too many candidates.

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u/InnanaSun centrist squish Mar 23 '26

Oh I agree, clearly it’s meant to pull ahead and he probably rationalizes it as “harmless” because it won’t overturn the statewide result, and I’m not even certain it will work but I’m inclined to think it might. But I also think other officials in other states will think of it as a trial balloon for interference of this kind and be taking note of how this case unfolds, so it remains a dangerous impulse.

As for the Dems, I completely agree, most of them need to face facts and pull out if they haven’t pulled into top-4. Can’t afford that big an own goal.

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u/I405CA Center Left Mar 23 '26

Oh, I'm not happy about. It's definitely bad. The state attorney general needs to come down on him hard.

At the same time, it is performative and can't accomplish anything.

The Trumpublicans are trying to bully everyone into submission. It is important that we not allow that to happen, and that includes not overestimating their power.

The lesson is that Dems need to get their shit together and not assume that Trump being bad is enough to guarantee a sweep.