{"id":352072,"date":"2026-06-08T20:52:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T20:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/352072\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T20:52:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T20:52:08","slug":"californias-slow-primary-vote-count-draws-fraud-claims-from-trump-republicans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/352072\/","title":{"rendered":"California’s slow primary vote count draws fraud claims from Trump, Republicans"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (TNND) \u2014 California\u2019s slow vote count after the June 2 primary is drawing renewed scrutiny and fueling fraud claims from prominent Republicans, including President Donald Trump<\/a>, even as election experts say delays are not evidence of wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

As of Monday, California still had nearly 3 million votes left to count from the June 2 primary. The state\u2019s pace of tallying ballots has left the outcomes of closely watched races uncertain.<\/p>\n

California’s slow primary vote count draws fraud claims from Trump, Republicans (TNND)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

One of those races includes former reality TV star Spencer Pratt\u2019s bid to become the next mayor of Los Angeles. Pratt had been in second place and positioned for a runoff against incumbent Karen Bass, but was recently bumped to third<\/a> as votes continued to be counted. Late-arriving mail-in ballots were breaking for Democratic candidates in the left-leaning city. A third-place finish would end Pratt\u2019s campaign. Pratt also appeared to suggest on social media that homeless people in Los Angeles were driving vote counts for his opponents.<\/a><\/p>\n

Stephen Richer, a Harvard Kennedy School Senior Practice Fellow in American Democracy and the former top elections administrator for Maricopa County, Arizona, said the pace of counting should not be conflated with fraud.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe slowness itself is no indicator of fraud,\u201d Richer said.<\/p>\n

Richer said California\u2019s process<\/a> can be painfully slow while also not being riddled with fraud, and argued the state should consider changes.<\/p>\n

\u201cCalifornia can maybe look at changing some of the laws And I think they need to do that, because they need to have an appreciation for what voters are expecting, and that this is opening the door to some really unhealthy conversations about election fraud that’s unfortunately having an impact on people’s confidence in the election process,\u201d Richer said.<\/p>\n

Election analyst Nate Silver also criticized the pace<\/a>, writing, \u201cSlow counting fuels conspiracy theories.\u201d Silver argued California cannot blame its size or the number of mail-in ballots, noting other states with larger percentages of mail voting and even bigger countries produce results faster.<\/p>\n

Trump, pressed on his claims during an interview on \u201cMeet the Press,\u201d alleged wrongdoing without providing evidence and ended the interview early.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a dirty election and it’s happening again right now in California,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s a rigged election. Let me tell you, it’s four days and they aren’t even close to coming up with you know why they’re doing that because they’re cheating on the election,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

When asked by host Kristen Welker, \u201cDo you have evidence to support that?\u201d Trump replied, \u201cAll I have to do is look.” <\/p>\n

The President abruptly ended the interview<\/a> shortly after. <\/p>\n

There has been bipartisan acknowledgement in California that vote counting takes too long. Meanwhile, the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles announced multiple election fraud investigations, saying the system has serious structural vulnerabilities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (TNND) \u2014 California\u2019s slow vote count after the June 2 primary is drawing renewed scrutiny and fueling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":352073,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8],"class_list":["post-352072","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\/352072","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=352072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}