OAKLAND, Calif. — Leaders of the embattled California Republican Party are changing track during the Covid-1 9 pandemic to requirement Gov. Gavin Newsom ban a voting practice they until very recently endorsed.

The Republican leaders dedicated to boost their “ballot harvesting” struggles — to allow people to pick up and give absentee ballots that others have given — after a Democratic thrash in the 2018 midterms. But they’re now arguing that it’s “an intolerable likelihood to public health and safety.”

The rapid turnaround comes weeks before a special election for a crucial House seat in Los Angeles County to replenish the vacancy left by Democrat Katie Hill’s resignation. California Republican Party chair Jessica Millan Patterson and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy are among those requesting Newsom to end “ballot harvesting’’ in the solidly-blue state.

The practice admits defendant volunteers to obtain mail-in ballots and submit them in groups to polling place or election offices. Republicans blame the Democrats’ ballot collecting as one factor for their 2018 midterm woes, which accompanied them lose seven seats.

Patterson acknowledged in an interview that ballot harvesting “is something that we did across our nation to get our endorsed applicant across the finish line’’ in some races for the March 3 primary. Still, Patterson noted that “January was a very different time than we’re living in now … in a situation we’ve never been in before.”

She announced vote harvesting “a threat to the health and well-being of Californians” in a letter to Newsom last week . She argued that “it immediately contravenes social distancing measures and causes the exchange of a physical piece that has been in a person’s household and likely contains saliva which is known to spread COVID-1 9. ’’

Samantha Zager, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, too necessitated Newsom taking any decision , was indicated that the bos “had already issued an Executive Order that the special ballot would be conducted as an all-mail election to avoid the risks of in-person voting in the interests of COVID-1 9. ” She argued that “ballot harvesting — which involves operatives going to strangers’ doors to collect votes — presents California voters with the exact same health risks( or worse) as in-person voting, ’’ while contravening the governor’s stay-at-home order.

And McCarthy tweeted a send last week to California Secretary of State Alex Padilla: “Now is not the time for gamesmanship. You owe it to the voters of Los Angeles, Ventura, and Riverside to announce no referendum gleaning for the upcoming special elections in those areas. #PeopleOverPolitics #InItTogether. ”

Newsom’s office pertained questions to Padilla. The country referendums foreman, a onetime Democratic regime senator, said that the practice presents no danger to voters — and may actually be a boon for many voters during the current pandemic, even in an election that will be all vote-by-mail.

“While traditional polling places are harder to come by during the Covid-1 9 pandemic, voters must increasingly rely upon vote-by-mail votes. California law grants citizens a variety of options for giving their vote-by-mail ballots — including the freedom to designate someone they trust to return their ballot, ’’ Padilla spokesperson Sam Mahood told POLITICO. “A pandemic is no time to make it harder for citizens to cast their vote-by-mail ballots.”

The ballots collected by party volunteers are first ratified and sealed by voters themselves to prevent fraud and to protect their privacy, said Democratic strategist Roger Salazar. While voters often passed ballots face to face in the past, Salazar said volunteers will now pick up votes at a figurehead door or in a mailbox to protect the lives of voters — much like a grocery delivery.

“It’s not differently constituted driving someone to the voting booth — it precisely allows people who can’t get out and poll to assign their ballots, ’’ he said.

California Democrat are calling Patterson’s brand-new concerns peculiarly sanctimonious — coming in the weeks before voters in the C-A2 5 neighborhood will vote to crowd Hill’s seat. The contest in the sway neighborhood, which threw Democratic in 2018, is considered a tossup between Democratic Asssemblywoman Christy Smith and Republican Mike Garcia.

The “ballot harvesting” rehearse was used by California Democrat in the 2018 referendum, and defendant officials said it not only abetted older and disabled voters, but proved an effective ground game in increasing turnout.

California Republicans cried foul-smelling. But Patterson affirmed Democrats had out-organized her party on “ballot harvesting, ” and announced that the GOP would ramp up its own efforts in 2020. She told the Los Angeles Times in February that state party officials had lined up 17,000 volunteers for a twilight gathering drive.

“We certainly need to do better, ” Patterson told a neighbourhood radio terminal, as RealClearPolitics reported. “We’re getting beat at[ vote harvesting ], so the dispute that we did it well, I mean, we just can’t utter that argument.’SSSS

At a campaign event in January at a Simi Valley cafe, Garcia, the C-A2 5 campaigner, addres solely about “ballot harvesting.” He told supporters his expedition was exploring the method used, according to a video of the phenomenon obtained by POLITICO.

He said “it phones soiled, feels soiled, seems illegal, but it’s perfectly law, of course, in California.” But he also said Hill prevailed because “shes had” 200 to 300 voluntaries smacking on doors in the month leading up to the 2018 referendum who built affairs before obtaining ballots.

“So then how do you combat that? You do it yourself, right? It’s legal, ” he said. He explained how he had 200 voluntaries on wall street comes into contact with voters but that “Republicans probably aren’t going to hand over their votes. So we’re going to get people to vote.”

Garcia’s campaign pertained questions about whether he would still use referendum gleaning to the National Republican Congressional Committee. NRCC spokesperson Torunn Sinclair did not address Garcia’s current post on vote harvesting and said Newsom should be asked to clarify whether his stay-at-home prescribe applies to the practice.

Patterson said the state party’s position is that no safarus should muster ballots, regardless of the party.

Veteran Democratic strategist Garry South said “the GOP caterwauling about ‘ballot harvesting’ is utterly disingenuous.’SSSS

“They deliberately use calls to make it seem like a practice that is illegal or shady, when it is in fact a perfectly law and common procedure to muster absentee ballots, ” South said. He notes that “it’s sarcastic that the highest-profile recent bag of illegally obtaining absentee ballots was actually a Republican in North Carolina, ’’ where the effort “invalidated a Congressional election.”

In that case, counsels in 2019 filed transgression charges against an operative who worked for GOP candidate Mark Harris, to suggest that L. McCrae Dowless Jr. committed voter fraud in matters related to illegal possession of absentee ballots. Harris’ election in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District was eventually overturned.

Republican strategist Mike Madrid says the California GOP may be trying to set the stage for arguing in advance that “this is an illegitimate election.’ But that, he advocates, that would be another head-scratching strategy, which has already drooped to third party status in California — now representing scarcely 24 percent of the electorate, compared to 45 percentage for Democrats and 25 percent for No Party Preference voters.

Madrid says that in the Covid-1 9 pandemic, “the best way, the healthiest, safest and securest way to maintain integrity and elections is to do an all-mail referendum election.’’

“You can’t ask parties to go stand and wait in line to vote, ’’ a move that impelled hundreds in Los Angeles to do just that in the March primary, he said. California can’t afford a repeat of that situation, which is “far more dangerous than referendum harvesting, ’’ he said.

Read more: politico.com