As Costs Rise, Voters in 3 Bay Area Cities Could Cap One of Them: Rent
Here are the morning’s top stories on Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2026:
- Bay Area voters are hoping ballot measures will provide some relief on rising rents.
- The U.S. Department of Justice arrests more than two dozen Californian green card holders for alleged voter fraud.
Voters in San Pablo, Redwood City and Berkeley will weigh rent protections this November. For some mobile home owners, the outcome could determine whether they can afford to stay in their homes.
When Linda Jackson and her son moved into the Willow Mobile Home Park in the East Bay town of San Pablo five years ago, they paid roughly $900 to rent the space where they parked the home they own. The costs for their mortgage and rent felt manageable.
“We can be comfortable,” the 75-year-old recalled thinking. “We can do this.”
Since then, however, Jackson’s monthly rent has climbed to just over $1,200. And another increase scheduled for January will bring it to nearly $1,300.
“I’ve never been so distraught,” Jackson said, adding she’s living “day-to-day.”
Now, after organizing her neighbors and pressing city leaders for relief, Jackson wants voters to join the fight. She is supporting Measure S, a rent control proposal on San Pablo’s November ballot — one of three in Bay Area cities where voters are considering new rent limits or stronger protections under existing rent-control laws.
“My prayer is that Measure S provides some sort of relief for us,” Jackson said.
Twenty-eight immigrants from across California are facing federal charges alleging they illegally registered to vote or voted in California elections, federal prosecutors announced Monday in the Trump administration’s latest effort to imply California election rolls are riddled with fraudulent voters.
The charges come days after federal authorities filed a lawsuit against state and Los Angeles County election officials that seeks to force elections officials not to count up to 20,000 registered voters’ ballots because federal prosecutors suspect those voters could be non-citizens.
“Today’s charges demonstrate why that lawsuit is so important,” Acting U.S. Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter told reporters. “It’s about preventing voter fraud that cancels out the votes of U.S. citizens. Enforcing federal law increases the integrity of elections.”
McCotter said federal prosecutors filed a motion urging the judge overseeing the lawsuit in federal court in Los Angeles to order state officials to segregate the ballots that prosecutors suspect may have already been mailed to noncitizens.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta told reporters at an event Monday that voter fraud is wrong. If the suspects are guilty, they should be held accountable, he said.
But Bonta noted that the charges are hardly proof that California’s elections are filled with fraudulent voters as President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed.
“Twenty-eight out of 23 million registered voters in California is just … a drop in the bucket numerically,” Bonta said. “It’s 0.0001% of all the registered voters, and it makes the point that there is no widespread voter fraud.”