Make Universal Vote by Mail ‘Permanent,’ Says California Secretary of State Nominee Shirley Weber

My mother used to be the poll supervisor in our home, in our living room. So that's always been part of my culture and part of who I am. And then you had part of the culture that was afraid to vote by mail because they figured in the South they would throw their ballots away. And so we're still confronted with some of that.

But it's interesting that I think more and more of that will go away, as I deal with individuals and communities that sometimes cannot get to the polls or have various challenges in getting there, they are much more willing to take that ballot and to mark it in advance.

There was some confusion and controversy this year over California's ballot collection law, labeled by some as “ballot harvesting.” The Republican party even set up their own private collection boxes in some counties. Does the state’s ballot collection law need any changes in your mind?

I think at some point there will be a discussion about it — there should be — in the Legislature as to whether or not this is something we want to either put more regulations and restrictions on, or basically leave it as it is. There may be a need for greater restrictions or at least a definition of what a ballot box has to look like and maybe you have to get permission to have one.

It's a good challenge to say, 'OK, if we're going to have various places that people can drop them off, do we need to define where those places are? Do we need to make sure that the collection is occurring, that there's someone responsible for it?'

People were shocked when they saw the [GOP] ballot boxes and were like, 'There's a flaw in this somehow and there needs to be some clear restrictions and definitions.' And I think that should happen, and we may be requesting that.

You led the effort in 2016 to ensure the right to vote for Californians in county jail. Now voters have re-enfranchised tens of thousands of parolees with the passage of Proposition 17. What does your office plan to do to spread info about this right to vote to Californians on parole?

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