United States Attorney sent to observe Los Angeles ballot count

The Justice Department sent a federal prosecutor to observe the ballot-counting process in Los Angeles this week as Donald Trump accused Democrats of trying to steal California elections. The move put a united states attorney presence near a count that routinely takes longer because California uses mail ballots, verification checks and a cure process for errors.

Trump’s California accusations

Within a day of the polls closing in California's primary election this week, Trump accused Democrats of trying to steal the elections for governor and mayor of Los Angeles. He used the phrase “trying to steal” as the tally continued, turning the pace of counting itself into part of the dispute.

The Republican criticism has long centered on changing results and the delay in reporting them. California’s system, though, reflects a set of steps built into the process: every voter receives a mail-in ballot, the vast majority vote by mail, and signatures are checked electronically and by human observers.

California vote count pace

Paul Mitchell, vice-president of the voter data firm Political Data Inc., described the tradeoff in blunt terms. “Nah, I would rather have known who won the race faster than have my vote count,” he said. “So what’s the rush? The focus should be making voting as easy as possible.”

He also pushed back on the criticism itself. “The only people who complain about it are the people who lose,” Mitchell said. “The conspiracy around it is really a conservative thing.” His comments reflected the view that the slower count comes from procedure, not from manipulation.

Ballot cures and delays

Last year, the California state assembly reduced the number of days a voter has to cure ballot errors from 26 to 22. Even with that shorter window, the state still gives voters time to fix problems, and ballots with errors can stay in limbo while those corrections are made.

Lisa Bryant, a political scientist at California State University, Fresno, said the cure deadline is part of the state’s approach. “California is very liberal on how much time they give people to cure those ballots,” she said. “I think California could tighten up those timelines. That could help speed up the timelines without losing a lot.”

Election day bottleneck

The biggest delay comes on election day itself. Voters have until that day to post mail ballots, and a large segment walks ballots in instead of mailing them. Those ballots cannot be counted until after election day, and this year the bottleneck was made worse by a uniquely tight gubernatorial race.

For readers following California’s count, the practical takeaway is that the pace is tied to how ballots are cast, checked and cured, not just to how close the race is. The federal prosecutor’s presence in Los Angeles adds another layer of scrutiny while the state’s remaining ballots continue through the same process that has drawn criticism and defense in equal measure.