Photo: Alamy
First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, Bill Essayli, announced on Friday that California’s chaotic election processes are top of mind for his office.
“California’s election system has serious structural vulnerabilities,” he said in a statement.
Essayli continued, “Universal vote-by-mail with no voter ID requirements creates conditions where fraud can go undetected and unpunished, eroding public confidence. Without commenting on any specific investigation, my office has multiple election fraud investigations underway in coordination with @FBILosAngeles.”
This newest development comes amid a slog of ongoing ballot counting in the state, days after the primary election in California ended. As of Friday afternoon, only 64 percent of the votes had been tallied for the Los Angeles mayoral primary race, and only 60 percent of the statewide ballots in California for the gubernatorial primary had been counted, according to a data tracker provided by The New York Times.
Why the ongoing delay? Mail-in ballots take time to count, officials have claimed.
“There is a lot of misinformation floating around about California’s election — including from the President,” California Governor Gavin Newsom’s (D) press office claimed on X. “…And yes, for the record: we wish the votes were counted faster, too.”
Gov. Newsom’s office was partly responding to fiery claims from President Trump that have highlighted the absurdly long amount of time it is taking to get a final tally for these important races.
“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[,]” the president said on Truth Social.
As reported by RSBN, mail-in ballots in the state of California are universally sent to every registered voter in the state. Voter ID is also banned in the state.
“We will follow the evidence wherever it leads and prosecute any violations of federal election law to the fullest extent,” Attorney Essayli said in his statement.
He said that his office was working with Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon to “conduct a comprehensive audit of California’s voter rolls.”
“The state has stonewalled every effort to verify that only eligible U.S. citizens are registered to vote,” he declared. “This case is now before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal. My 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.”
