Voting Will End Soon—but Legal Battles Are Just Beginning; Polymarket Has a Problem–Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: Oct. 29, 2026

Indy Digest: Oct. 29, 2026

In five days and change, the election will finally be over!

But there’s one problem: It actually won’t be over. Voting will be complete—but the legal challenges are just beginning.

If you follow the news at all, you know the Trump administration has been doing everything it can to sow distrust in this year’s elections—and they’re getting increasingly desperate since the polls aren’t looking great for Republicans.

Here in California, the Trump administration has been demanding that counties set aside ballots that supposedly may have been cast by non-citizens—yet the feds have refused to provide any evidence regarding those claims. Judges have NOT been impressed by these demands. CalMatters yesterday reported:

Saying the Trump administration had embarked on “a broad, ongoing pattern of attempted election interference,” a federal judge on Wednesday refused to order California election officials to set aside 20,000 ballots over claims those voters might not be citizens.

“Never before in American history has the federal government, on the eve of an election, sought to coerce a state and local government to abandon their own Constitutional elections procedures and bend to the will of the Executive Branch,” wrote U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, an appointee of President Bill Clinton.

“This request violates longstanding constitutional principles mandating that states have control over their elections,” the judge wrote, saying if he granted the Trump administration’s last-minute request “either party could create chaos for their own political purposes to disrupt the election process. Over 20,000 registered Californians would potentially lose the right that generations of Americans have fought to preserve.”

According to the office Rep. Raul Ruiz, 1,355 of those 20,000 ballots are here in Riverside County. This afternoon, Ruiz joined two other members of Congress to tour the Riverside County Registrar of Voters and the ballot processing center.

“Our elections are safe, fair and secure,” Ruiz said, according to a news release. “We strengthen our democracy by building confidence in our elections. Today, I visited the ballot processing center and saw firsthand the care and professionalism that go into protecting every ballot and ensuring that every voter has an equal opportunity to participate in our democracy. My message to every voter is very simple: know your rights, have a plan, and vote early.”

The California shenanigans are just part of a nationwide effort to draw attention to supposed illegal voting—and that effort was dealt a blow today by more unimpressed judges.

Politico reports:

A federal appeals court panel signaled Thursday that it is unlikely to let the Department of Homeland Security resume a crackdown on alleged illegal voting—a campaign civic groups say is a thinly veiled strategy to intimidate naturalized citizens.

A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals questioned the Trump administration’s emergency demand to resume its enforcement surge, known as the Unlawful Voter Initiative. A federal judge in California blocked the initiative last week.

DHS agents in nine states have conducted street-level operations targeting people who they say have either voted or registered to vote illegally. Officials have paired those operations with a made-for-social-media PR campaign featuring armed, masked agents pulling people out of their homes and placing them in handcuffs.

“Isn’t part of this that the … surge has an aspect of it that seemingly actually wants to intentionally—is making an effort to instill fear?” Judge Kim Wardlaw, a Clinton appointee, said during Thursday’s hearing.

Meanwhile, in Alaska, Republicans are setting the stage for a big legal battle should the Democrat win the seat next week.

The Conversation explained how this is just the latest attempt by the Trump administration to wrest control of elections from the states:

The Trump administration’s lawsuit against Alaska, which seeks to block certification of the U.S. Senate results there if the GOP candidate does not win, is the latest in a long series of actions throughout 2026 in which the administration has attempted to wrest control of federal elections from states.

In the Alaska case, the U.S. Department of Justice, directed by President Donald Trump, claims that it aims to “protect the integrity of the 2026 Senate election in Alaska.” If incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan does not win re-election in a close vote, the DOJ asserts, it’s likely the result of voter confusion because another candidate with a very similar name—Daniel J. Sullivan, with no party affiliation—is on the ballot, too. So in the event that Sen. Sullivan fails to win re-election, the DOJ demands that Alaska not certify the election and instead should conduct an inquest into who voters thought they were voting for. …

There’s lots of other heated language in the case’s legal filings. But colorful language and legal citations are a much longer way of articulating a simple fact: The U.S. Constitution gives the president no authority over federal elections. That authority rests with the states and, to a limited degree, with Congress.

If there were any actual evidence or legal heft behind these claims by the Trump administration, that would be one thing—but there is no actual evidence or legal heft.

We saw on Jan. 6, 2001, the lengths that Donald Trump and his allies will go to in order to keep their power—so it’s likely that these aforementioned efforts are just the tip of an election-obstruction iceberg.

In five days, voting will be over—but Election 2026 will very much continue within the legal system.

—Jimmy Boegle

More News

• Hackers drained the accounts of some Polymarket users today; Polymarket blamed the mess on a third-party vendor. The Washington Post says: “Prediction market Polymarket halted trading on its international platform for roughly an hour Thursday after a third-party software vendor was compromised. Users in the prediction market’s official Discord, an online chat forum, began panicking after reports around 1:30 p.m. that some wallets had been drained of funds. Polymarket said in a statement that any users who had been impacted ‘will be made whole.’ … It said around 2 p.m. that it had moved into cancel-only mode, which allows users to cancel transactions but prevents them from making new trade orders. The issue concerned a third-party performance and debugging platform called DebugBear, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share sensitive details. Polymarket has reported the incident to authorities in the United Kingdom, where DebugBear is based.”

• Our partners at CalMatters broke the news that the CEO of the state’s high-speed rail authority has resigned to focus on “important personal and family priorities.” However, there’s more to the matter than that: “‘This has not been an easy decision, as leading the Authority has been one of the most meaningful and rewarding chapters of my professional life,’ wrote Chief Executive Ian Choudri. He will be replaced by Joe Stephenshaw, who has led the state Department of Finance since July 2022 after working as a policy analyst in the state Legislature for more than a decade, the board announced Thursday morning following a closed session. The abrupt announcement comes in the midst of a two-day meeting of the board that oversees the project, which continues Thursday. It follows Choudri’s tumultuous two-year tenure, which has been troubled by budget woes, project delays, transparency concerns and various scandals including the misuse of nearly $600,000 in taxpayer money for questionable trips by rail authority consultants. Under Choudri, the authority also lost $4 billion in federal funding under President Donald Trump’s administration, after the agency repeatedly missed deadlines required by the funding agreement to buy trains.”

• Can a pumpkin patch be recalled? I ask because of this SFGate report: “At least five people, including three children, have been sickened with a dangerous type of E. coli bacteria after visiting Brookshire Farms, a popular pumpkin patch, according to the San Luis Obsipo County Public Health Department. ‘We are working diligently to identify the source of these infections to protect the health of our community,’ county Health Officer Dr. Christy Mulkerin said in a statement. ‘We encourage anyone who may have been exposed and is experiencing symptoms consistent with E. coli infection to seek immediate medical attention.’ The health department is investigating the possible link between the infections and Brookshire Farms, with the estimated exposures occurring between Oct. 16 and 26. The farm is currently closed and working with public health officials to determine the exact source.” Eek!

• Today’s recall news involves … French-press coffee makers! CBS News reports: “Coffee appliance company Bodum USA is recalling 5.9 million French press makers, warning that the glass carafe can break and cause burn injuries. Bodum USA is the American subsidiary of a Danish-Swiss company that specializes in coffee hardware. So far, the company has received 70 reports of glass carafes breaking, 48 of which resulted in burns, according to a notice posted by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. The French press coffee makers were sold on Amazon.com, in retailers including Target and Walmart, and other stores between 1974 and October 2026. The agency said the glass carafes can unexpectedly break if they are damaged or cracked, which can happen when customers use metal spoons to stir coffee.” If you’ve had your coffeemaker since 1974, however, you’re probably due for a new one anyway.

• And other piece of burn-related recall news involves … space heaters! Scripps News says: “More than 300,000 DREO space heaters have been recalled due to fire and burn hazards. According to safety officials, the space heaters can overheat and ignite. There have been 17 reports of the space heaters igniting, including three that resulted in property damage and one that resulted in a burn injury to a person’s hand. The heaters are black and measure about 11.5 inches wide and 13 inches tall. They also include a remote control. The model number, which is printed on the heater’s underside, is DR-HSH015. Only those manufactured from April 2025 to January 2026 are included in the recall.”

• And finally … Dolores Huerta, the iconic civil rights activist with myriad ties to the Coachella Valley, died yesterday at the age of 96. The New York Times did a great piece reflecting upon her legacy, which was complicated somewhat earlier this year by her sexual-abuse revelations about her United Farm Workers co-founder Cesar Chavez. A snippet: “Robert Rivas, the speaker of the California State Assembly, said that his career and that of other Latino leaders was made possible by Ms. Huerta. Latinos went from almost nonexistent in the Legislature to becoming ‘a force to be reckoned with,’ he said. ‘She was proof that our voices matter, that our work matters, that we belong in the rooms where these decisions are made. … She didn’t just say, “Sí se puede.” She spent her life showing us how to do that.’”

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