{"id":349558,"date":"2026-06-06T14:24:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T14:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/349558\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T14:24:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T14:24:07","slug":"trump-cries-steal-over-slow-california-vote-count-but-anti-fraud-system-works-say-experts-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/349558\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump cries \u2018steal\u2019 over slow California vote count, but anti-fraud system works, say experts | California"},"content":{"rendered":"

California\u2019s slow vote counting has frustrated political observers eagerly awaiting results, and handed Donald Trump<\/a> and others an opportunity to claim \u201celection rigging\u201d. But experts say the system is working as designed: to protect against fraud and assure every vote is counted.<\/p>\n

Within a day of the polls closing in California\u2019s primary election this week, Trump started accusing Democrats of \u201ctrying to steal<\/a>\u201d the elections for the state\u2019s governor and the mayor of Los Angeles. The justice department sent a federal prosecutor<\/a> to observe the ballot-counting process in Los Angeles this week.<\/p>\n

Republicans have lobbed such allegations against California<\/a> for years, pointing to the state\u2019s slowness in tallying ballots and the shifting results over the course of the counting as evidence of vote manipulation.<\/p>\n

Prominent Democrats, including outgoing governor Gavin Newsom<\/a>, are increasingly fretting that the state\u2019s tortoise-like pace is becoming a liability for public confidence in elections in an era where conspiracy theories spread quickly through social media and can emanate straight from the White House.<\/p>\n

But California\u2019s vote-counting pace is actually a byproduct of a system of redundant verifications and opportunities for voters to fix errors. Every voter in California receives a mail-in ballot, and a vast majority of voters vote via mail. The signatures on those ballots are verified electronically and by human observers. When a ballot contains errors, the state gives voters 22 days to \u201ccure\u201d it.<\/p>\n

The result is a system that is both highly accurate and resistant to letting small oversights devolve into trashed ballots. But in the state with the most registered voters by far, it comes at the cost of speed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s not a lot of people I know who would say: \u2018Nah, I would rather have known who won the race faster than have my vote count,\u2019\u201d said Paul Mitchell, vice-president of the voter data firm Political Data Inc. \u201cSo what\u2019s the rush? The focus should be making voting as easy as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only people who complain about it are the people who lose,\u201d Mitchell added. \u201cThe conspiracy around it is really a conservative thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, experts see obvious ways the system could improve. The legislature could invest the money that counties need to pay for staff, equipment and space to process ballots faster. The state assembly reduced the number of days a voter has to \u201ccure\u201d ballot errors from 26 to 22 last year. Cutting it further could substantially shorten wait times without severely inconveniencing voters, said Lisa Bryant, a political scientist at California State University, Fresno.<\/p>\n

\u201cCalifornia is very liberal on how much time they give people to cure those ballots,\u201d Bryant said. \u201cI think California could tighten up those timelines. That could help speed up the timelines without losing a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Election day itself creates the biggest bottleneck. A majority of the state\u2019s voters use mail-in ballots for convenience, and voters have until election day itself to post them. Because many people still feel more secure depositing ballots at a polling site, a large segment of voters walk them in on election day instead of mailing them. But those votes can\u2019t be counted until after election day, and they\u2019re routed through a more time-consuming process.<\/p>\n

The election day bottleneck was exacerbated this year by a uniquely tight gubernatorial race, in which many voters waited as long as possible to vote.<\/p>\n

Some political observers hope that voters themselves can alleviate the problem by developing a culture of not waiting until the last minute to mail or walk in their ballots.<\/p>\n

But dozens of counties have implemented a system in which voters open their walked-in ballots and cast them at the site, speeding up the process.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a great benefit for voters because they know their ballot has been counted,\u201d said Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation. \u201cThey can walk away with confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

California should pursue changes like those to preserve voter confidence, Alexander said. Waiting around for weeks to find out who won an election can erode trust in government, even if the delays have a clear explanation.<\/p>\n

Regardless of whether or how California\u2019s voting system changes, the state is likely to remain a target of specious allegations of fraud for the simple reason that it\u2019s the site of competitive elections with national impact in a polarized era where a vocal minority has the capacity to spread disinformation quickly.<\/p>\n

\u201cCorrective messages don\u2019t tend to go viral,\u201d Bryant said. \u201cIt\u2019s like hiking the Grand Canyon. They tell you to account for twice as much time going up as going down. It\u2019s at least that much time trying to combat misinformation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"California\u2019s slow vote counting has frustrated political observers eagerly awaiting results, and handed Donald Trump and others an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":349559,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8],"class_list":["post-349558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/349559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}