Alex Padilla: “This work is now being chilled, and the researchers are being silenced.”

My office is in touch with the FBI, U.S. Postal Service and Senate security officials following a suspicious package the U.S. Postal Service intercepted before reaching our office. Thankfully, no threat was posed to my staff or our office.

Their only hope for trying to maintain any sense of power is to interfere. It’s to change the rules. It’s to rig the elections.

I know how California elections work very, very well. They’re safe, they’re secure. They’re fair, they’re free, and they’re going to stay that way.

We’ve seen this coming: Donald Trump’s Department of Justice with no authority is now actively trying to interfere in the 2026 elections and strong-arm California into purging names from our voter rolls and blocking mail ballots based…