There were a great many closely watched races in California this week, but those looking for the final results will have to remain patient: As has been true in every recent election cycle in the Golden State, it takes a while under California’s system to get a complete tally of the ballots.
A variety of Republicans are scrambling to fill the vacuum with predictable but baseless conspiracy theories.
On Wednesday night, for example, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, apparently annoyed that newly counted mail-in ballots offered good news to Democratic candidates, wrote via social media, “California keeps dumping votes. Odds are shifting because the vote dumps always seem to go one way. Count until you get the result you want?”
Shortly before 1 a.m. ET, Donald Trump — by some measures, the nation’s pre-eminent election denier and electoral conspiracy theorist — published a related missive to his own platform. “The Dumocrats are at it again!” the president wrote, demonstrating his trademark wit. “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.”
Shortly after 1 a.m. ET, he published a follow-up item, not only falsely claiming that there’s “BIG cheating” underway, but also adding that the matter is “under investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles.” (Whether federal investigators have, in fact, launched a probe is unclear, and it’s entirely possible that Trump simply made this up.)
Hours earlier, Fox News’ Laura Ingraham told viewers that “many of us believe” that California has “potentially the most corrupt voting system in the western world.” The conservative host went on to call for federal officials to “step in” as the state continues to tally ballots.
Broadly speaking, there are a couple of key elements to this.