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Notes -
Pratt has run an impressive campaign and will probably make it to the runoff given the current margin with the DSA candidate, Raman.
He probably won’t win in the actual election, though. LA’s demographics would make it very hard.
Accounting for demographics, California's heavy Democratic tilt is entirely unsurprising. There's no need to postulate vote fraud (against Republicans, at least), because they're going to lose anyway because of demographic headwinds. You need some other hypothesis to create space for vote fraud, e.g.:
Each of California's demographics are more conservative than the country as a whole, and to get observed California results you need vote fraud to counteract California's demographics' conservative lean.
The country as a whole has levels of vote fraud similar to California, across demographics.
I don't know of anyone who'd argue 1. As for 2, you'd get people arguing for it, but it doesn't make sense then to focus on California; Republicans should instead focus first on states they have any actual power in.
What’s your explanation for why it takes California a month to count votes and later-arriving votes always favor Democrats? Do you think it’s suspicious that late-arriving votes are favoring neither Bass nor Pratt but Raman, the exact outcome needed to knock Pratt out? And do what do you think is a better explanation than fraud for a system that combines no Voter ID with a willingness to mail out millions of unverified ballots?
It's pretty unsurprising if mail voters vote Democrat.
Why? In this case late-arriving ballots aren’t just favoring Democrats but Raman specifically, which is very convenient!
Edit: and it’s the same for the governor’s race! Results have been called for Becerra at 26.72%. Hilton at 26.38% is uncalled although the next trailer Tom Steyer is at 21.03%. Apparently it’s possible that Tom Steyer will overcome the 300,000 ballot deficit he needs to claim 2nd place, but not the additional 20,000 he would need to claim 1st.
Perhaps because Republicans think that their votes won't count if they mail them in. Perhaps because Democrats put off voting more often in lots of different races.
Do I really need to explain to you that LA is full of pinkos who want to elect a socialist? Do you think it's sus that Mamdani won in NYC? Where did the phantasm of the Based Angeleno come from? I can assure you that Angelenos are not Based.
This is not an explanation. Late-leaning ballots lean Democratic because Democrats vote late — therefore it can’t be because of fraud. But that’s indistinguishable from election fraud! That’s exactly what it would look like if it were fraud. Fraudsters would harvest late ballots that lean Democratic because that’s how they’re cheating.
Is there any reason for California to accept ballots weeks after the election?
Is there any other state on earth that conducts their elections this way?
Look, they’ve created a system where:
All it would take to steal an election is a political machine to harvest ballots, fill them out, and send them in the mail.it would take a few dozen people. This is literally legal in California because ballot harvesting is explicitly legal and there are rules about it. Ballot harvesters exist. They even have rules about “curing” ballots where you can chase down invalid ballots and have them fixed Ie the organization you would need to commit fraud already exists. This isn’t a conspiracy, it’s the literal law. We simply trust, without evidence, that every ballot filled out actually touched the hand of a unique voter.
Come on! This doesn’t bother you at all? You don’t have any explanation at all, except that Democrats happen to prefer voting by mail? Which is exactly how it would look if democrats are using mail to commit fraud.
Ballots break for Karen Bass, right up until the day after Election Day, when they start breaking for Raman. I guess the more left-wing you are the more likely you are to fill in a ballot late. It simply cannot be the case that when millions of ballots are floating around without any security at all that someone is stuffing a few ten thousand into mail boxes. That the results benefit one party the same way every time is a statistical artifact. That no other country on earth conducts elections this way is just a stylistic choice. That the same people who would benefit are the same people responsible is a coincidence. There is no evidence of fraud. Is that really what you believe?
Okay, but it's also indistinguishable from Democrats voting late.
Let me ask you a question. Do you live in a state with vote by mail? Do you vote by mail? Do your Republican friends?
"Harvesting" is a specific thing where people collect mail in ballots and turn them in. I don't like it, but it has to be done, or postmarked, by election day. You seem to be using "harvesting" in a different way that's unclear to me.
Well, no. Fortunately, they don't.
I agree this is bad.
Not really true, the signatures have to match.
This appears to be made up.
I'm not sure what this means.
Curing doesn't allow changing the actual contents of the ballot. Fairly few ballots even go through curing at all. In 2024, 120k ballots were rejected.
This would be pointless since ballots must be postmarked by election day. Or do you believe that USPS is in on this too?
This isn't really true. The proportion of votes in each batch going to Bass is pretty stable. Most batches after the first favor Raman more than Pratt, but not all the time.
You mean, the Democrats? You think it's weird that Californians elect Democrats? Pal, have you been to California?
This is naked special pleading. You seem to be confused about several things about how elections work in California (what harvesting is, how late ballots can arrive, whether they can just be shoved into mailboxes days after election day) - which is understandable since, as far as I know, you don't live here. However, that doesn't prevent you from being sure that the guy you like ought to win the race, and if he doesn't, it's because of FRAUD. If later arriving ballots don't look like the first batch of ballots counted, it's FRAUD. If later ballots should look the same as earlier ones, why even bother counting them? Either they look the same as the earlier ones, and it's a pointless exercise, or it's fraud and they shouldn't be counted.
There were two Democratic candidates. Why do the mail-ins support one particular Democratic candidate to a far greater extent than the in-person ballots?
It's fraud. It's obviously fraud.
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