Suppose you just bought a new car. Everyone told you it was a great car, but there were a few problems.

A wheel was missing — but that can be fixed, you’re told.

The transmission didn’t work, either. Again, you’re assured that it can be fixed.

Oh, and the engine didn’t start. Not to worry, just add it to the fix-it list.

As it turns out, the only ones who benefited from selling you this junker were — you guessed it — the people who got the money.

The only thing you got out of the deal was the bill.

Now you know how farmers in California feel about the law Gov. Gavin Newsom just signed that turns farmworker union elections into shams.

The law was so bad that even Newsom said it needed work, but after President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi joined the United Farm Workers in steamrolling it through the California Capitol, he relented.

It is ironic that UFW founder Cesar Chavez worked so hard in 1975 to secure the the right to secret-ballot elections for farmworkers in the Agricultural Labor Relations Act, yet this law compromised that right by instituting a deeply flawed mail-in vote and a “card check” provision that allows workers to simply submit a card to the state Agricultural Labor Relations Board signifying union support. There are no true secret-ballot elections in sight.

And this isn’t a legitimate mail-in vote. The law, AB 2183, says, “A labor organization representative may fill out all of the information contained in a mail ballot, except for the employee’s signature.”

Say what? That’s like going to vote and getting a ballot that has already been filled out. It is the kind of vote only a Putin or a Kim Jung-un could love.

If the integrity of union votes under this law can’t be guaranteed, what good is it?

Newsom said the law needs to be “clarified” regarding its implementation and voting integrity.

Even the UFW agreed to try to fix it by getting rid of the sham mail-in vote. But the card-check provision remains, putting every farmer at a disadvantage on a playing field tilted in the favor of the UFW.

The California Farm Bureau and Western Growers, which represent most of the state’s farmers, have grave concerns about this law, and rightly so.

“…The governor’s unfortunate decision to sign this bill will create a mail-in balloting system that threatens the integrity of secret ballot elections and leaves farm employees vulnerable to intimidation by union organizers with an obvious interest in the outcome,” California Farm Bureau President Jamie Johansson said in a statement.

“AB 2183 will unleash a relentless campaign of union pressure and harassment targeting California farmworkers, less than 2 percent of whom have voted in state-supervised secret ballot elections to pay the UFW 3 percent of their wages” in dues, Western Growers President and CEO Dave Puglia said in another statement.

They are correct. If this law does not guarantee fair secret-ballot union elections, it needs to be repealed. It is beyond repair.

Newsom bought a junker of a unionization law, and wants California farmworkers and farmers to pay for it.