Newsom signs Cervantes ballot-security bill last week

The Riverside Record: Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 73 last week, a ballot-security measure authored by Sen. Sabrina Cervantes (D-Riverside) and Sen. Tom Umberg (D-Santa Ana). It took effect immediately. The law bars unauthorized access to voting systems or voter data without a court order, makes it a felony to take ballots from a county registrar, and restricts peace officers from interfering with election administration.

The Riverside County backdrop is direct. Earlier this year Sheriff Chad Bianco — now running for governor as a Republican — seized more than 600,000 voted ballots from the county Registrar of Voters as part of an alleged-fraud investigation that's now paused pending a California Supreme Court decision. Cervantes told the Record she wanted the protections in place before the primary.

Both Newsom and Cervantes said it's hard to say whether SB 73 would have stopped Bianco outright, but agreed it would have made the seizure harder to pull off. Cervantes called the separate suit against Bianco — filed on behalf of four county residents including her sister, Riverside Councilmember Clarissa Cervantes — a different matter from the bill.