WATCH: Rep. Mark Takano, Assemblymember Marc Berman Lay Out How Trump and Republicans Are Coming After California Voters

WASHINGTON, DC — Today, Try And Stop Us convened a press call with U.S. Representative Mark Takano, California Assemblymember Marc Berman, American Federation of Teachers’ Randi Weingarten, Center for American Progress Action Fund’s Ben Hovland, and Democracy Defenders Action’s Sarah Jackel on how Trump and Republicans are coming after California voters ahead of November.

“California’s elections are safe, secure, and built on systems designed to protect every eligible voter’s right to participate in our democracy,” said U.S. Representative Mark Takano. “Yet the Department of Justice’s attempts to sue our state, based on hypotheticals and unsupported suspicions, threaten to undermine public confidence in our election system. Instead of strengthening trust, these actions risk eroding it. The DOJ is asking state election officials to do something deeply troubling and illegal: intentionally withhold ballots from being counted, potentially in violation of state and federal law.”

“What the DOJ, Donald Trump, and my former colleague Bill Essayli down in Los Angeles are doing is trying to create confusion and doubt about the accuracy of our elections. They’re trying to create fear in the minds of legitimate voters to try to stop them from participating in their democracy,” said California Assemblymember Marc Berman. “The reality is, this is the arsonist trying to play firefighter. These are people who have spent the past decade sowing doubt in Americans’ minds about the accuracy of our elections.”

“The right to vote is the most fundamental freedom that people have in America, and California has done everything in its power to actually make sure that elections are free and fair and votes are counted fairly,” said American Federation of Teachers’ Randi Weingarten. “That is why it takes a few days sometimes in California because people double check to make sure that every I is dotted and T is crossed. We should be making it as easy as California makes it to get out and vote.”

“What we’ve been seeing in California and around the country is an administration that is pushing absurd, bad list matching, and utilizing that to spread fear and chaos and try to make people think that there’s widespread fraud in our elections, which we know is not true,” said Center for American Progress Action Fund Senior Fellow Ben Hovland. “President Trump has been trying to sell this narrative for over a decade. After he was elected in 2016, he said he would have won the popular vote, except for alleged ‘non-citizens’ in California. He created a whole presidential commission that wasted taxpayer dollars and found nothing and disbanded as a debacle.”

“Election sabotage and interference are not new, but what we’re facing in these midterms is different in character and scope,” said Democracy Defenders Action COO and General Counsel Sarah Jackel. “Nothing we’re seeing right now in California is any different than what we predicted would happen. It’s the exact playbook that we anticipated, and just as they have lost in Fulton County and other places across the country, they will also lose in California. The story we’re seeing that has taken hold is not about ‘voter fraud.’ It’s about election interference on the part of Donald Trump and the Republican Party.”

A recording of the press call is available here. Try And Stop Us’ California report is available here.