Newsom Defends Extremely Slow Vote Counting In California
Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom is defending the insanely slow pace of counting ballots from
California’s primary elections on Tuesday as critics claim the process reeks of corruption.
He claimed that California leaders, including Newsom, wanted to make it easier for people to cast “
last-minute ballots” by mail rather than focus more on counting ballots quickly.
In making that point, Michaelson’s video appeared critical of Govs. Ron DeSantis of Florida and
Greg Abbott of Texas—two states that have been recipients of California residents and companies.
He said those leaders are “focused more on counting ballots quickly” than on giving residents “more time to decide” who they wanted to vote for at the last minute
Newsom wrote in an X post featuring the video: “There is a lot of misinformation floating around
about California’s election — including from the President. This explainer is worth a watch.
And yes, for the record: we wish the votes were counted faster, too.”
Newsom didn’t mention any ways he, as governor, and the state Assembly, which has a Democrat
supermajority, could implement fixes to speed up the vote count process.
The outgoing California governor’s video and statement were blasted online, with many social media users claiming California Dems have created a system that makes it much easier to cheat to their advantage
“Americans should expect, at a minimum, to have elections that are free and fair, and results that are delivered promptly.
But California is taking its laid-back reputation too far, failing to deliver its election results in a
timely manner and creating the perception that they are neither free nor fair,” writes Jarrett Stepman for The Daily Signal on Thursday.
“Slothful election results have plagued California for years since it made wholesale changes to its election system in 2016.
It has mass mail-in ballots that can be counted post-election and allows for an extremely slow pace of counting,” he continued.
Proponents of the system say this makes their elections more ‘secure’ and accessible,” Stepman added
While elections in California certainly are “accessible,” as the above video from a California resident demonstrated,
claiming they are secure is more than a stretch, per Stepman:
As of now, the Los Angeles mayoral runoff would seem to be down to incumbent Democrat
Karen Bass and the surging upstart Republican Spencer Pratt, with leftist candidate Nithya Raman taking the third spot.
That would cut Raman out of the general election.
Raman cried on election night and certainly seemed convinced that she’d lost
But since election day, new batches of mail-in votes have continued to trickle in for Raman.
Even more curiously, electoral prediction markets have swung strongly in her favor.
“Why would it be a surprise that many are calling foul? ” Stepman asked, noting it’s been “days” since the primary election and only Raman is surging.
