Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 1418 by Senator Sabrina Cervantes (D-Riverside), a bill that directly improves defenses against election interference in California. He also signed her CA Voting Rights Act of 2026. SB 1418 builds on Senate Bill 73, which the Governor signed into law earlier this year, by extending many of the chain-of-custody protections for voted ballots in that bill to other forms of election records. To provide these protections for the November midterm elections, SB 1418 includes an urgency clause that allows its provisions to take effect immediately. California Attorney General Rob Bonta sponsored the bill.

CVRA 2026, which includes Senate Bills 1164 and 1360, provides stronger protections against vote dilution and voter suppression and expands language access assistance to more limited-English proficient (LEP) voters. CVRA 2026 also strengthens defenses against other forms of voter discrimination that Section 2 of the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibited before the unfortunate U.S. Supreme Court decision in Louisiana v. Callais.

“In California, we will not allow our democracy to be taken from us. SB 1418 is direly needed as we face an attack on democratic principles by both the federal administration and local elected officials,” said Senator Cervantes. “The enactment of Senate Bill 1418 further protects the integrity of California’s elections as we head into the midterm elections. Thank you to Governor Newsom for signing this vital bill into law to ensure that election records cannot be seized from the custody of county registrars.”

In March, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco seized and relocated more than 600,000 voted ballots from the November 2025 statewide special election on Proposition 50 from the Riverside County Registrar of Voters, an act driven by baseless conspiracy theories. At the time, state law was clear: after election results are certified, the chain of custody for voted ballots must remain intact. This statute maintains the evidentiary value of those ballots for future investigations or audits. If the chain of custody is broken, there is no guarantee that the ballots have not been tampered with or altered. For these reasons, the ballots the sheriff confiscated are tainted forever because his seizure broke that chain of custody. Unfortunately, at the time, state law did not impose penalties for seizing ballots from a county registrar. Although the California Supreme Court had halted his investigation, the only consequence the sheriff faced was the prospect of having to pay his own attorney’s fees after the Riverside County Board of Supervisors refused to do so.

The California Democracy Partnership, the sponsor of CVRA 2026, applauded the signing. “Two decades ago, California stepped up to protect voters, and today our state is stepping up again in the face of unprecedented federal attacks on our democracy. For years, the California Voting Rights Act has provided critical protections beyond those in the federal Voting Rights Act. But as we confront unrelenting efforts by the federal government and bad actors here at home to disenfranchise voters and undermine access to the ballot, the need for action is unmistakable. The CVRA 2026 sends a clear message: California will not stand by while the fundamental rights of its voters are threatened. The California Democracy Partnership is proud to help strengthen access to the ballot box and ensure that communities have the power to defend their votes for generations to come,” said Hector Villagra, Vice President for Policy Advocacy and Community Education at MALDEF.

The Partnership is a growing group of civil justice, voting rights, and labor organizations, which includes SEIU California, MALDEF, ACLU, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the League of Women Voters, and Asian Law Caucus.

The California Voting Rights Act of 2026 will:

• Prohibit Vote Dilution: Protect against electoral systems or district maps that weaken or silence the voting power of communities of voters.
• Prohibit Voter Suppression: Confront threats to voter participation and access to voting opportunities that occur through discriminatory barriers to the ballot.
• Stop Voting Discrimination Before It Occurs: Require jurisdictions with a recent history of engaging in voter discrimination to obtain approval from the California Attorney General before making certain changes to their voting policies or practices.
• Ensure Voters Can Directly Protect Their Rights: As voters’ ability to use the federal Voting Rights Act comes under attack, CVRA 2026 will ensure individual California voters can go to state court to enforce voting rights.
• Guarantee the Federal VRA’s Language Assistance Requirements Under State Law: Codify the language access assistance services currently required by Section 203 of the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965, which is set to expire in 2032, in state law.
• Expand Upon Existing Section 203 Language Coverage: Expand language assistance service coverage for LEP voters beyond what is currently required by Section 203 to include additional language groups.
• Streamline and Clarify the Steps for Language Groups to Receive Assistance in Voting: Give groups not adequately captured in the Census the opportunity to show, through other sources, that they should qualify for language access assistance.