LOS ANGELES — California Democrats’ rush to schedule an emergency election to remake U.S. House districts and counter rival moves by Texas Republicans has created a dilemma for county officials who are being urged to plan for an election that hasn’t been scheduled and might never happen.
Orchestrating an election in a state of nearly 23 million registered voters across 58 counties is a time-consuming and costly endeavor under any circumstances, but Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Democratic-dominated Legislature already have blown past deadlines intended to give local officials adequate time for organizing everything from printing mail ballots in multiple languages to lining up staff and securing locations for in-person voting.
Democrats are considering new political maps that could slash five Republican-held House seats in the liberal-leaning state while bolstering Democratic incumbents in other battleground districts. If Democrats succeed, that could leave Republicans with four House seats in the state among 52 overall.
Those revised maps could be formally unveiled as soon as next week, in advance of a Nov. 4 election.
The office of the state’s chief elections overseer, Secretary of State Shirley Weber, met Monday with local election officials to discuss planning for the pending election. Though an election has not been called, “staff around the state need to begin preparing for the possibility of a special election,” Weber spokesperson Jim Patrick said in an email.
Meanwhile, it’s not known if the state will cover the cost of the potential November election or if counties — many cash-strapped — will be saddled with the bill. A 2021 special election in which Newsom beat back a recall attempt cost over $200 million to conduct.
“We are going to be under some tight time pressures,” said Orange County Registrar of Voters Bob Page, whose office is rapidly planning for the proposed election.
“We really can’t lose all or most of August by waiting” for the Legislature and the governor to act, Page added. “It’s a risk I have to take.”
Los Angeles County Clerk Dean Logan, who oversees elections in the county of nearly 10 million people, warned that “without upfront state funding and a clearly defined calendar, counties can face challenges meeting the demands of an election.”
“Ensuring voters are served accurately, securely, and equitably must remain the top priority, and that takes preparation,” Logan added in a statement.
Texas and California — the two most populous U.S. states — are the leading actors in a back-and-forth push to remake the balance of power in the U.S. House, kicked off when President Donald Trump called for Texas to redraw district lines with the GOP’s fragile House majority imperiled in the upcoming 2026 midterm elections.
The party that controls the White House is typically punished by voters in midterm elections.
“We are entitled to five more seats” in Texas, Trump insisted Tuesday in a CNBC interview. He pointed to California’s existing maps, which are drawn by an independent commission unlike the Texas maps crafted by a partisan legislature: “They did it to us.”
Other states — including New York, Florida and Indiana — could get into the power struggle that’s emerging as a national proxy war for control of Congress.
Newsom has said he would only move forward with the election if Texas succeeds in recasting its own House maps. The Texas push is on hold, after Democrats fled the state to prevent a legislative vote on the Republican redistricting plan.
In an online post, Page wrote that state rules require the governor to issue a proclamation calling a statewide election at least 148 days before the date of the election — that would have been June 9. As part of any action, the Legislature would have to waive that requirement this year.
He warned of a possible enforcement action by the U.S. Justice Department if ballots for members of the U.S. Military and overseas voters are not issued by Sept. 20.
Page said if he waited for the Legislature and the governor to formally call the election, “it would be too late for me to actually conduct the election.”
If it goes through, “We are going to make this work,” Page added.