Trump again alleges fraud in California election
US President Donald Trump on Monday repeated allegations that California's elections are rigged, disputing without evidence the voting results that showed the Republican candidate he supported in the Los Angeles mayoral race apparently headed for defeat.
Trump's attack on California's election system and what he called the excessive time it takes the Democratic-controlled state to count votes was the latest twist in his long-standing narrative that elections are rigged against him and other Republicans.
Appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday, Trump abandoned the interview after host Kristen Welker questioned his unproven claims that California election officials were rigging the process because, after several days, they were "still no closer" to finalizing the results.
On Monday, Trump questioned results that showed Republican Spencer Pratt, a former reality TV star he supported in the Los Angeles mayoral race, falling to third place behind two Democrats - current Mayor Karen Bass and Councilwoman Nithya Raman - six days after polls closed.
"It is not possible that Spencer Pratt lost the runoff in Los Angeles after the huge lead he had," Trump wrote. "Rigged elections!"
California officials responded that the state's election system is subject to rigorous security measures, including testing of voting equipment, strict controls on the chain of custody of ballots and verification of all signatures.
Trump also mentioned the California governor's race, in which the Republican he supported, TV commentator Steve Hilton, trailed two Democrats in the primary, former Cabinet Secretary Xavier Becerra and billionaire environmental activist Tom Steyer.
"Now they're going to work on good guy Steve Hilton," Trump wrote, suggesting that Democrats were manipulating the count to exclude Hilton from the final race.
Under California's "open primary" system, all candidates compete on a single ballot, rather than separate ballots for Democrats and Republicans, and the top two vote-getters advance to the general election in a runoff in November.
Bass has emerged as the clear lead candidate among the 14 running for mayor, winning nearly 35% of the votes counted as of Monday. Raman, who started in third place, surpassed Pratt for the number 2 position on Sunday and remained ahead of him on Monday, with 27.12% of the votes counted.
Pratt, still in third place with 26.69% of the vote, insisted on social media on Monday that he still had a chance of securing a place in the November runoff.
"Guys, we're dealing with a difference of a fraction of a percentage point," he wrote on X. "There are still hundreds of thousands of votes left, and LA officials have given three more weeks to count!"
On Sunday, Pratt suggested that a "net swing of more than 43,000 votes since Tuesday" had come from ballots from people experiencing homelessness. Referencing a recent annual count of the city's homeless population, which recorded more than 43,000 people experiencing homelessness on any given night in Los Angeles, Pratt wrote: "43,000, huh? Where have I seen that number before...? Probably nothing."
"Counting votes for weeks"
The speaker of the US House of Representatives, Republican Mike Johnson, also spoke out, raising doubts about the integrity of the elections in California.
"They keep counting votes for weeks after the election," he said. Asked about evidence of voter fraud, Johnson responded: "Some of these practices are so diabolical and so far removed from the origin that it is impossible to prove."
Republican criticism of California's election system is based on Trump's persistent repetition of false claims that his 2020 White House bid was stolen.
White House aides and others familiar with the matter said the insistence on these allegations of fraud in 2020 indicates a strategy by Trump to justify new voting restrictions and energize his base ahead of the November elections that will decide control of Congress.
By classifying the 2020 election as illegitimate, Trump would also be setting the stage to challenge Republican defeats and weaken Democrats if they regain power, according to several election experts.
California's protracted vote-counting process stems largely from a mail-in voting system designed to increase voter turnout that Trump has long said is susceptible to fraud.
The majority of votes in California in recent elections are sent by mail, with ballots postmarked up to a week after Election Day being accepted, which increases the time needed for validation, processing and counting. States where voting mostly takes place in person are therefore able to finalize the results more quickly.
Source: CNN