Conversation With Rep. McCarthy and Brulte Office About Ballot Harvesting

By Greg Aprahamian

After many calls and emails to Kevin McCarthy’s office to speak with them about ballot harvesting in California, I finally received a phone call from his Bakersfield office and I talked to a female staff member named Chris on Wednesday Dec. 5th.

Chris’s response to my inquiries about  ballot harvesting was that:  “This is a state issue and I need to call my state representatives”,  and that there is nothing that Kevin McCarthy could do.

I replied that :  “Congress regulates and federal elections and has supervisory powers over federal elections and they could outlaw it in federal elections if they chose to.  I added, Republicans control the House for one more month and we have the power to do this if they act quickly”.

McCarthy’s staff member replied: “It’s a state law, and therefore it’s a state issue, you need to call your state Rep. Scott Wilk”.

My reply: “Republicans have no power in Sacramento,  we had no power to stop it when it passed two years ago, and we have even less power now.  That’s why we’ve got to ban it at the federal level”.

Her reply:  “It’s a state issue,  call your state rep.”

I then asked:  “Did Kevin McCarthy know about the ballot harvesting, or did he do his own ballot harvesting?”

Chris replied:  “I don’t know”.

She then mentioned that I could call Jim Brulte (Chairman of the CA GOP),  and she gave me his office number.

I then added we:  We still want to meet someone at the Bakersfield office, we’ve got important information about ballot harvesting that we want to give to Kevin McCarthy.

Chris (McCarthy’s rep.):  “Don’t come, everyone will be out, just mail the info if you want”.

On Thursday I called Jim Brulte’s office, and left a message that I wanted to talk to someone about ballot harvesting, and on Friday I got a call back from a California Gop media staff person named Matt.

I initiated the conversation with Matt with the statement:  “I wanted to talk to someone about ballot harvesting in California,  it seems it played a role in defeating a lot of Republicans in this last election.”

Matt’s reply:  “You prove it”.

Me:  “How about all these Republican candidates that lost weeks after election day, through provisional ballots. “

Matt:  It might be strange but that doesn’t mean there is fraud.

Me:  There is an Arizona case against ballot harvesting, and the court said that a state doesn’t even need to show fraud exists, they can just ban it if they believe banning it will protect voter integrity.  

I then added, have you ever heard of the Election Integrity Project?  

They’ve been documenting problems in California elections for a decade.

Matt:  I’ve heard of them, but I don’t know if they’ve ever proven voter fraud exists in California.

Me:   I did poll watching for them in 2014.   I was stationed at a local community college for three hours.  I counted around sixty individuals, college age, mostly (Hispanic) females come into the polling place to vote, Their names weren’t on the voter rolls but all wanted to vote.  They couldn’t say where they were registered, weren’t sure where they lived, but all insisted that they wanted to vote, and then they were all given provisional ballots.

Matt:  It’s suspicious, but that doesn’t mean it’s illegal,  It could be from same day registration, or the Sec. of State could screen the ballots.  

Me:  “They didn’t have same day registration in 2014 and how do you know Alex Padilla is really screening the provisional ballots?”

The conversation went back and forth like this for awhile.  My purpose for the calls were really to find out how Kevin McCarthy and Jim Brulte viewed ballot harvesting and any action that they might take to stop it, I was not really there to argue with them.

The conclusion I made from speaking with Jim Brulte’s media rep. Was that Jim Brulte isn’t going to take any action on ballot harvesting or voter integrity in California until a court has ruled that voter fraud exists in California, and they are not going to initiate any of the law suits.

I believe Congress does have the power to ban ballot harvesting in Federal elections, but according to his office, Kevin McCarthy will not use the Republican controlled Congress to stop it, and we have a very limited time to do anything about it.

Basically, I believe California Republican voters are on their own on this issue.

Greg Aprahamian is a Santa Clarita activist.

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