Scott Buchanan

If the metric for success of all the current efforts to improve our systems - DOGE, etc. - is that those efforts make 0 mistakes then apply that same metric to the current systems and what do you get - EPIC FAILURE.

What choice do they have when faced with huge probable cause for investigation and the state government blocks any and all investigations. There is no evidence because those charged with finding it are blocked from doing so. Of all the screams of fascism this is the clearest example. Right at Newsoms feet. It is straight out of the authoritarians playbook. Prevent investigation so you can claim there is no crime due to lack of evidence.

It's good to want transparency and integrity in elections. But the people who have firmly decided—without any concrete evidence—that Democrats "stole" the LA mayoral election by giving Karen Bass a more competitive opponent look very silly. A lot of people need to log off.

Again, just pointing fingers. No reasoning. It’s not frustrating that Pratt doesn’t get to make his case in November. It’s frustrating that the Dems are playing the same old playbook. 1) Most secure elections ever. Oh that just failed let pivot 2) election processes is flawed but no fraud. Oops found out again (eg multiple ballots mailed to parking lot porta-potties) another pivot 3) election process flawed but no significant fraud …. If you have a process that is so flawed that fraud is easy to implement, where California is today, and you get highly improbable results, i.e.this election, and you won’t allow investigation, you are destroying trust. Combine this with the monolithic opposition to the Save America Act and you know there’s highly likely fraud, well beyond any threshold to implement a full investigation.

Yes - it is frustrating that Spencer Pratt was ahead on election night, and is now behind. Yes - California’s system gives Democrats a structural advantage by design. Yes - LA needs serious reform, starting with voter ID. No - fraud is not the most likely explanation.

@neoavatara Wow. What a rebuttal. Learned how to debate in kindergarten. No, you’re wrong, No you’re wrong. No you’re wrong…

Its not odd at all if you understand how voting works.

You have no idea why there has been surge in the count for Raman. That is the point. Your second paragraph negates the conclusion. All you know is that the law is LEGAL you have no idea of the execution of the count was legal. Why is that? Because the California government shield all election processes from investigation. You should be asking why the process is made to be so opaque!!!!

Right wing conspiracies every time the GOP loses an election are low IQ & tiresome. What happened in L.A. is not fraud. The CA election system is highly inefficient & disgusting but it is LEGAL. Codified into state law & affirmed by the courts. The Raman surge is due to the counting of late arriving mail ballots. In this election those votes were heavily tilted towards young progressives as they were late in deciding between Raman vs an even crazier leftist. Pratt voters made up their minds early & a lot voted in person. Contrary to popular belief, U.S. elections are very difficult to rig due to the decentralized nature of state election laws & local counting. Yes, Dems ballot harvested in CA. Yes, that benefits heavily Dem urban areas. It stinks but that’s the game. Either change the rules or learn how to navigate within it. The L.A. mayoral race is deeply disappointing. But let’s not be whiny losers who indulge in conspiracy theories.

Yet another misdirect. I audited businesses for years. What is being presented is what the process SHOULD be, not what it is. No one, no one, should believe that this process is being followed. Just look at the independent reports of: 1) 26 ballots sent to an address where there are ONLY sorta-potties, 2) interview with ballot counter that witnessed signatures are never questions, by direction (not policy). This is what was found out by < 1 hr of investigation.

Sigh. Why won't anyone do research before posting? Responding to your six points. 1. Yes. It is legal. States have different laws. Still has to come from a registered voter, has to be returned in the return envelope assigned to that voter, there is no evidence of mass mail theft, and it has to have the voter's signature, which is checked (part of why it takes a long time). 2. California verifies identity through return envelope barcode and signature verification -- as is done for many financial and legal instruments. This is the same way it's done in Utah, Colorado, Arizona, Oregon, Washington, etc. 3. Unattended drop boxes. You do realize that every USPS box is an "unattended drop box," right? That's why it's nice that all Californians can track their mail ballots. And so too can the election officials. 4. Homeless regularly paid to vote. I'll settle for 5 proven examples in recent elections. Also, homeless are allowed to register and vote. 5. You're just pointing out that California is an "all mail" state and that almost everyone votes by mail as a result. Yes. And that's part of why it takes so long. California does voter list maintenance. Otherwise it would have a laundry list of lawsuits under the NVRA. And, for better or worse, you can't remove somebody from voter rolls just because he doesn't vote. So if you, e.g., move out of an apartment, but don't tell the registrar, and don't fill out change of address with USPS, then a mail ballot is still showing up to your address. And if the new resident simply throws it in the trash, then you're not taken off the voter rolls just because you didn't return a ballot. Now, if you're suggesting that states should share information with each other, such that they know when somebody registers in a different state, then I agree with you. That's why California should join ERIC. And it's why it's a shame that some states have left ERIC in recent years. That's bad for voter list maintenance. 6. This is just comparing apples to oranges. And you can easily Google the differences in the two systems. But first, as a factual predicate, you might want to be more careful. I'd suggest you start with this New York Times article: "Why Do Elections in India Take So Long?" nytimes.com/2024/04/17/wor…

@brianeskow It makes it much more likely and the other issue make California result in-auditable.

Is an election rigged just because it counts mailed-in ballots after Election Day?

@Scott_Wiener Let’s be clear what has been revealed here. California Dems have designed and implemented a fully insecure voting system that is simple to manipulate and impossible , impossible to audit.

Let’s be very clear what’s happening: MAGA operatives are working overtime to cast doubt on the LA Mayor’s race to justify passing their atrocious proposals to make it much harder or impossible for people to vote. They’re laying groundwork for straight up voter suppression.

@TheLawyerCraig Given your (1) you can’t assert your (2).

My thoughts on the LA mayoral election are: 1. CA’s election processes are not good 2. The LA mayoral election wasn’t “rigged” 3. The subsets of people who vote in person early, in person on election day, by mail early, by mail in the last couple days, and via harvesting operations are quite different (age, demographics, partisan lean, etc.). Even within Dems (and Reps), there are stark differences. 4. Like previous elections (including LA Mayor), later-arriving mail ballots were always going to be much bluer. 5. Accepting mail ballots postmarked by Election Day but received days later creates unnecessary delays and uncertainty. 6. We should be able to know the winner (or top two) on election night, not days or weeks later. 7. Bass would have preferred to run against Pratt. The “machine” knows a Dem is winning, but there are “sub-machines” with varied stakeholders and supporters. A more progressive (and anti-establishment) faction who wants Raman doesn’t sound conspiratorial. It’s expected. 8. Ballot harvesting and drop boxes make it harder to verify voter intent and participation. I honestly wonder if asking 1,000 harvested voters *today* about their mayoral choice just last week would yield more than a couple hundred who could name their selection (or even any of the candidates). King for a day? I’d love to see something like the following everywhere: mail only for true absentees, 2 weeks early in-person max, huge EDay with sufficient logistical support at all precincts (holiday for general), voter ID (free to get, with safeguards for the rare occasion of a lost ID late game, which should go to provisional with cure by new ID within a week, and unlikely to change any outcome).

@JamesSurowiecki Simple answer. If it’s Pratt - 0%, Bass 51%, Raman 49% the fraud is obvious. They have to keep it plausible and to do that they need to have the data from the initial vote to calibrate the result to be arguably reasonable.

What's the actual argument here? If the supposed fraudsters can use mail-in ballots to control election results, why would they not have just rigged it from the start so that Bass and Raman each ended up with 35-37% of the vote, ensuring they'd finish in the top two? Why only rig mail-in ballots that were cast late?

@stevemur You already know the answer to question (2). There have been several reports on X of interviews with poll workers who say procedure is to NOT question witnessed signatures.

If the Secretary of State of CA is truly interested in diminishing speculation about fraud, there are a couple pieces of information they could release, right now, to reduce it. These data can be shared without compromising personal information in any way. 1) With each ballot drop, what total number of ballots were returned with “witnessed” status? 2) How many “witnesses” have been credibly identified as real people? How many unique people witnessed ballot signatures? Are signatures by witnesses validated in any way?

@BrentHBaker @LuluGNavarro @nytimes Wow, a full admission that Pelly is ideologically driven, not fact based.

Scott Pelley says Bari Weiss needs to be removed from CBS News because she, not he and CBS News, are biased: “She brings an ideology into CBS News where that is just anathema.” And he equates running CBS News to flying a 747. @LuluGNavarro, @NYTimes The Interview podcast host: “Do you think Barry Weiss needs to be removed?” Pelley: “Oh, gosh, yes. She’s a lovely person. And her Free Press organization that she founded has been very successful. She’s proven that, great for her. But television’s not her thing. She brings an ideology into CBS News where that is just anathema. And so it’s a terrible fit. It’s probably not her fault. But it’s just a terrible fit. She doesn’t know television. She doesn’t understand how it works. She doesn’t have management experience for a large organization like CBS News. So yes, I do think that we would be far better off without her. Maybe she goes back to the Free Press and has a sterling career. But this is like somebody walking up to me and saying, there’s a 747. There are 400 people on it. We need you to fly it to Paris. I’m going to decline because I don’t have a clue.”

Then explain what that didn't show up on the voting pattern until now. Are you now going to claim that the Dems that voted early are more honest in voting for whom they think is the best candidate??? Since we're talking about only Dems voting patterns your assertion doesn't hold water.

LA is where I live too and at least 50% of everyone I know was voting for Raman. Many were doing it just to make sure Pratt didn't make the runoff. And it worked. Just because the 60 people you know out of 9 million didn't vote 1 way, doesnt mean it isnt legit.

@mitchellvii The right question is how is the 3rd place candidate beating the 1st place candidate, both Dems, both with the same base, in all the late counting. That has no support from any polling, statistics, etc. Pratt has done so well they can't hide what they're doing any more.

I mean you have to admit that it's odd that the distant third-place finisher in Los Angeles is far and away getting the most late mail-in ballots. I don't know what the statistical probabilities of that are but I'm guessing unbelievably low.

It does seem possible, maybe likely, that this California election might be the equivalent of the 2024 Biden debate. The moment the coverup falls apart and the lies can no longer be sustained.

You’re missing the point. The unexplainable oddity is not that Dems are out pacing GOP but that Raman is outpacing Bass by a significant amount. Neither the polls or the votes tabulated till now support that. This is now, finally falling apart, just like the Biden cognitive issue. Coverups can only sustain for so long.

City of LA is prob ~75%/80% Dem leaning. Most engaged voters held ballots back because of CA gov race uncertainty. I live 400 yards from LA but can’t vote in LA city elections. But I did the same thing. I have little doubt a majority of city of LA dems want mayoral change, but vast majority of them would never ever go Pratt. That’s why we are seeing late votes drops leaning Raman. It’s not that complicated. But I do love all the LA election experts living across the country. Please come visit and enjoy the reality vs. the ridiculousness you care to believe.

@johnkonrad @AdamKinzinger What an asinine statement. At least give some supporting examples.

@AdamKinzinger Ratio

Pete is basically a bad actor playing secretary of defense in a cheap movie, straight to video

@DeanBaker13 Yet another fact/argument free post from a Democrat. Also, another Senocrat that doesn’t know what fascism is.

The merits are that Platner is infinitely better than Susan Collins, who supports fascism. Is that too simple for you to understand?

@LeeKuanYimby Count till you win, then stop.

I do not ever want to become an election truther but how on earth does Raman completely annihilate Bass in these drops while her election day support was a very solid third place well behind both of them.

@funder Gavin will do everything and anything to protect his regime. He won’t let anyone interfere with his regime power.

California just made it a literal felony for federal agents or law enforcement to touch ballots or tamper with voting machines without a warrant. Gov. Newsom just drew a massive line in the sand against regime interference: 👇 dworkinsubstack.com/p/8-resistance…

@timkaine Why does no Democrat ever argue policy. All they can do is name call.

“Today, different European beaches are stormed by different dangerous ideologies.” Apparently our nitwit Secretary of War(drobe) thinks a D-Day commemoration is an appropriate time to push his far right ideology in Europe. thehill.com/policy/interna…