Tipsheet

Gavin Newsom Threatens to Arrest Anyone Who Tries to Clean Up California's Disastrous Election System

Amy Curtis
Amy Curtis  |  July 07, 2026 9:30 AM

There's a clear and disturbing pattern emerging in the waning days of California Governor Gavin Newsom's administration. It's also a good indicator of how he'd rule this country if he were ever elected President, so voters should pay attention.

When independent journalist Nick Shirley exposed the massive amounts of Medicare/Medicaid fraud in the state, Newsom and California Democrats responded by pushing legislation to criminalize that type of investigative journalism. The 'Stop Nick Shirley Act' as the legislation is colloquially known, would fine journalists and force them to remove videos of their reporting.

It's more than likely that this legislation is unconstitutional and will get thrown out in the courts. But that's not the point. The point is that the Democrats have decided that protecting fraudsters and fraud is more important than the First Amendment.

In that same vein, Gavin Newsom is also going to criminalize looking into California's broken, dysfunctional election system. He's vowing to jail anyone who tries to expose the problems and fix them.

"Let me speak directly to anyone considering helping President Trump interfere with our election or our count," Newsom said. "If you violate California's laws, if you interfere with our voters, tamper with our ballots, or meddle in our elections, you will be prosecuted. Doesn't matter who gave the order. That is why I am moving forward with new legislation that would make it a felony to seize ballots before the vote has been certified by state and county officials. We will be the wall he cannot get past, because we believe that once an election is decided, the winner governs for everyone. That's the architecture of American liberty. Donald Trump doesn't believe in that architecture."

Really? Who won the 2024 election, Gavin?

Democrats have made it their goal to stop President Trump from governing, despite him winning the Electoral College (the only vote that matters) and the popular vote, which Democrats love when they win.

He is.

We can only hope.

The federal government has a say over federal elections.

Because he doesn't want to stop law enforcement.

It's also rich that Democrats, who haven't met a violent criminal they didn't want to release from prison, are turning anyone who tries to clean up our elections into felons.

That's exactly what he's doing.

Democrats never wanted democracy because there was a chance they'd lose. They want power and control.

It took Los Angeles 28 days to count ballots in the Mayoral primary. The election was June 2, and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors declared the election concluded on June 30. To put that into perspective, this writer flew to Egypt on June 3, traveled the entire country, came home on June 25, and Los Angeles STILL hadn't counted all the ballots. Meanwhile, Colombia was able to count an entire nation's worth of ballots in a few hours.