L.A. mayoral race voter fraud claim gets debunked – by Trump’s Justice Department

By Brentin Mock

Acting U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli, foreground, speaks during a news conference announcing an arrest made in the Palisades Fire, Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

According to election conspiracists, the Los Angeles mayoral primary vote count currently underway is compromised because they say one batch of votes mysteriously recorded no ballots cast for the Republican frontrunner Spencer Pratt. 

This, in their minds, was a statistical impossibility, even in one of the bluest cities of perhaps the bluest state in the U.S. But what they were referring to was one online update of a vote count based off data fed from the Associated Press’s (AP) election tracker. What many of them didn’t report is that an update one minute later recorded thousands of votes for Pratt, but zero votes for the Democrat frontrunners Mayor Karen Bass and councilmember Nithya Raman.

The AP explained the situation as a “lag” in its updates. Voter fraud enthusiasts misread that lag as evidence of an election steal – a baseless allegation that is currently getting pushed by President Donald Trump as part of his broader agenda to undermine voter confidence and take control of elections.

But several Republicans have disputed that the lag error is evidence of cheating, including Trump’s own handpicked U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli, who posted late Friday night that the fraud claims are false. 

“There was a claim circulating on social media about an election night ballot update at the Los Angeles Registrar of Voters where one candidate received zero votes,” wrote Essayli on X. “We reviewed official county records. The claim is false. Each candidate received votes in every update.”

Essayli concluded the post by telling people to contact his office if they find any “credible information” on fraud. 

Meanwhile, the AP explained what happened with the misread batch count in a statement to the L.A. Times.

“What happened in this case is that there was a lag in an automated update such that some candidates’ votes were added in one update and the other candidates followed about a minute later,” reads the AP statement. “Specifically, an electronic update from the Los Angeles County website pulled in votes for only one group of candidates, including Karen Bass and Nithya Raman. Exactly one minute later, the electronic update picked up the votes for another group of candidates including Spencer Pratt. Taken together, the updates included 21,870 votes for Pratt, 12,850 votes for Bass and 9,521 votes for Raman, along with votes for other candidates.”

The Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s office confirmed to L.A. Times that there have been no batch updates that recorded zero votes for any of the leading candidates. 

Pratt – the Republican who voter fraud truthers say is getting cheated by Democrats – was in second place in votes behind Bass as of Sunday afternoon, according to L.A. county’s election tracker. 

None of these explanations, or even Essayli’s dispute of the allegations, seems to have been enough to persuade Trump, who stormed out of a Meet the Press interview when asked to present evidence that the California elections were being rigged as he claimed.

While Essayli did his part in attempting to dispel rumors about the mayoral election, he’s still pursuing investigations of other alleged voter fraud claims, though without sharing what evidence these are based upon or who he’s targeting. 

Fraud myths in general for the California primary elections seem to be based on the fact that election officials employ a meticulous vote-counting process that takes longer than other less-populous states. Votes are also still coming in from mail-in and absentee ballots, which constitute a large percentage of how Californians vote.

But this vote tabulation process is heavily supervised to safeguard against fraud. There are even live feeds of the ballot receiving and counting rooms that the general public may view.