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On social media and on NBC\u2019s \u201cMeet the Press,\u201d President Donald Trump is claiming with no evidence that Democrats are cheating in California\u2019s primary election.<\/p>\n
Kevin Dietsch\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
On Sunday, during an interview on NBC\u2019s \u201cMeet the Press,\u201d President Donald Trump insisted<\/a> that the California primary elections were \u201crigged.\u201d In his view, the only reason \u201cthey have an election and five days later, they\u2019re nowhere close to picking a winner\u201d is because \u201cThey\u2019re crooked.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n This echoed the bogus claims he made last week on Truth Social.<\/a> \u201cThere is Big Cheating by Dumocrats in California\u2026.Dumocrats,\u201d he wrote. In another post, he said<\/a>, \u201cThe Dumocrats are at it again! They are trying to STEAL THE GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA PRIMARY, AND THE MAYOR OF LOS ANGELES, PRIMARY, AWAY FROM TWO GREAT REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES. Here we go with the very late and massive numbers of MAIL IN BALLOTS.\u201d<\/p>\n The number of mail-in ballots is \u201cmassive\u201d because California is one of eight states that automatically sends mail ballots to all registered voters, as does the District of Columbia.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n As the vote counting in the June 2 primary went on, the president observed<\/a>, \u201cYou see what\u2019s happening in California, they\u2019re rigging the election \u2026 They found a lot of mail-in ballots last night.\u201d<\/p>\n With the counting not yet complete, one of the two candidates Trump referenced, Steve Hilton,\u00a0appears likely to be on the November ballot for governor<\/a>. The other, Steve Pratt, is, as of Sunday, in third place<\/a> in the race for mayor of Los Angeles.<\/p>\n San Francisco Chronicle Logo<\/p>\n Make us a Preferred Source to get more of our news when you search.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Add Preferred Source<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n So why start denouncing the elections now?<\/p>\n There are two things in play. One is that the president wants a ready-made excuse if candidates he endorsed do not survive in the Golden State\u2019s open primary system. But the president is also using the California primary to ramp up his ongoing efforts to sow doubt<\/a> about election integrity in the minds of Americans everywhere.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Trump is rehearsing what he will say if the Republicans lose control of the House or the Senate in the November midterm elections.<\/p>\n No one should be fooled by the president\u2019s allegations about voter fraud in California. The state has lots of problems<\/a>, but fraudulent voting is not one of them.<\/p>\n Indeed, it takes longer to count ballots and certify elections<\/a> in California than elsewhere because, by law, election officials are required to count valid mail-in ballots that are postmarked before but arrive after Election Day, verify signatures and give voters time to fix ballot problems.\u00a0<\/p>\n That hasn\u2019t stopped the president\u2019s allies from launching investigations of voting irregularities in California. It was not surprising when, on June 4,<\/a> less than one day after Trump made his charges, that U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli, whom the president appointed to lead the Central District of California, announced<\/a> that his office was pursuing \u201cmultiple election fraud investigations\u201d in coordination with the FBI in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n Echoing the president, Essayli took to X to assert that<\/a> \u201cCalifornia\u2019s election system has serious structural vulnerabilities. Universal vote-by-mail with no voter ID requirements creates conditions where fraud can go undetected and unpunished, eroding public confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Essayli bemoaned the fact that the state did not roll over when the Department of Justice demanded a treasure trove of data on all California voters. \u201cThe state has stonewalled every effort to verify that only eligible U.S. citizens are registered to vote,\u201d he\u00a0wrote. \u201cMy office will not look the other way. We will investigate and prosecute. Every legal vote deserves to be counted. Every illegal vote cancels one out.\u201d<\/p>\n Fox News amplified<\/a> the MAGA message. In addition, a 2017 report of the California Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights singled out the state for what it called<\/a> \u201cIndiscriminate use of Permanent Absentee Voting.\u201d<\/p>\n And members of the president\u2019s army of election deniers\u00a0have targeted California<\/a>, even though it has been reliably blue for a long time. As a story in the Los Angeles Times observed<\/a>, one of them, Douglas Frank, \u201cexplains his California focus by saying that conservatives in the state already know something is off and are open to his message. \u2026 Also key, he said, is the sheer population of California counties. Swaying a single California county to stop using machines or to clean its voter rolls affects more people than implementing those changes in some states.\u201d<\/p>\n In one of those counties, Riverside County, Sheriff Chad Bianco, a gubernatorial candidate in fourth place so far, made a splash in 2025 when he seized 650,000 ballots<\/a> from a special election, citing fraud allegations. However, none of it seemed credible to the state Supreme Court, which blocked the effort.<\/p>\n Indeed, identifying voter fraud in the Golden State is like searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack. The\u00a0 Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, found only one case in 2025, one in 2024 and one in 2023<\/a>.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Guest opinions in Open Forum and Insight are produced by writers with expertise, personal experience or original insights on a subject of interest to our readers. Their views do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Chronicle editorial board, which is committed to providing a diversity of ideas to our readership.<\/p>\n