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.
“Donald Trump won’t stop until he can exert dictatorial control over your free vote and disenfranchise millions of people this November. California will stop him at every opportunity,” he said in a statement. “We have no bigger task than fighting to protect the right to vote from interference and meddling – the future of democracy is on the line.”
Another bill makes it a felony to seize ballots or election records, an apparent reference to Riverside county sheriff Chad Bianco, who earlier this year took possession of over ۶۵۰,۰۰۰ ballots from a ۲۰۲۵ redistricting special election.
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 ۲۰۲۶ primaries, saying without evidence that its slow counting process was an attempt to rig the outcome.
“California is meeting the moment,” said secretary of state Shirley Weber in a statement. “No one should doubt the degree of our resolve in protecting our democracy.”
