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California election limbo fueled by 4 pressure points dragging out vote count, expert says
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California’s still-unsettled election results are the consequence of the state’s vote-by-mail system, according to election law expert Hans von Spakovsky, who said the process can keep ballots moving through verification and counting for days and even weeks after Election Day.
The Golden State is continuing to count ballots cast in its June 2 primary elections, a process that has extended beyond Election Day due to the state’s election laws, administrative procedures, and vote-counting policies, said von Spakovsky. The delay is not the result of an isolated incident or unexpected complication but stems from the structure of its electoral system before final results can be certified.
«There are four reasons why California takes so long,» von Spakovsky, senior legal fellow at Advancing American Freedom, told Fox News Digital on Friday. «First of all, it’s almost entirely a mail election now.»
The Los Angeles mayoral race has captured the nation’s attention as Republican-aligned candidate Spencer Pratt awaits a tally determining if he or Democrat-aligned Nithya Raman will advance to the runoff election in November against incumbent Democrat Karen Bass. While former Health and Human Services secretary under the Biden administration, Xavier Becerra, Republican Steve Hilton and Democrat Tom Steyer are still duking it out for the top two spots in the state’s jungle primary process ahead of the general election in November.
LA TIMES EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBER DEFENDS CALIFORNIA’S SLOW VOTING PROCESS AS ‘ELECTION INTEGRITY’ IN ACTION
A ballot box sits outside Contra Costa County’s elections office in Martinez, Calif., on May 27, 2026. June 2 is the last day to vote in person or return a ballot before California’s statewide primary election. (Benjamin Fanjoy/Getty Images)
Von Spakovsky identified what he said are the four causes for the delay in final tallies: mass mail voting, a seven-day post-Election Day ballot receipt window, a 22-day cure period for signature issues, and high volumes of provisional ballots that must be individually investigated.
Of the four causes of the delay, von Spakovsky said California’s mail-ballot rules cause the greatest concern because it dramatically slows the counting process. With the vast majority of ballots cast by mail, election officials must spend additional time verifying and processing those ballots before they can be counted, extending the timeline for final results.
«You can go vote in person, but like in the 2024 election, out of 16 million votes that were cast in the presidential election, 13 million were by mail. It takes much longer to process a mail-in ballot than a ballot that’s cast at a polling place,» he said.
Mail-in ballots allow voters to cast their ballots from home, avoid long lines and grew in popularity during the pandemic.
Ballot drops are still rolling in and once they do, counties then have additional time to process, verify and tabulate those ballots, with counting expected to continue through June 15.
CALIFORNIA REPUBLICANS LAUNCH VOTER ID BALLOT PUSH, NEED 875K SIGNATURES BY DEADLINE
Vote by mail ballots are inspected at the Los Angeles County Ballot Processing Center in City of Industry, Calif., on Nov. 4, 2025. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
Von Spakovsky pointed to postmarks on ballots as a key vulnerability in counting ballots.
«California law says, ‘We’ll count absentee ballots or mail-in ballots received up to seven days after Election Day if they’re postmarked by Election Day. But if the postmark’s missing, or it’s blurry, and we can’t read it, we will just go by whatever date the voter wrote inside the envelope,’» he said.
He said the state’s election rules are too permissive, pointing to policies such as not requiring voter ID, automatic voter registration, and lengthy post-election ballot processing periods, which he argued invite fraud or irregularities.
California is one of eight states, along with Washington, D.C., that automatically sends mail ballots in to all active registered voters in their universal vote-by-mail policy.
President Donald Trump singled out the state’s election process this week, announcing that U.S. attorneys are looking into Los Angeles as the mayoral race remains pending.
«Without commenting on any specific investigation, my office has multiple election fraud investigations underway in coordination with @FBILosAngeles,» First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California Bill Essayli wrote on X Thursday. «We will follow the evidence wherever it leads and prosecute any violations of federal election law to the fullest extent.»
«The state has stonewalled every effort to verify that only eligible U.S. citizens are registered to vote. 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,» he added.
A sign points to a vote center during the in-person early voting period for California’s Proposition 50 special election in West Hollywood, Calif., on Oct. 27, 2025. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
Democrats have played down concern over the process to count the ballots, including Becerra saying those who bemoan the amount of time it takes are working «to undermine confidence in our elections.»
«We count every ballot. Thank you for your patience as we give democracy time to work,» Steyer wrote on X, citing Trump’s recent comments on the election.
HILTON SAYS SPENCER PRATT CAMPAIGN REFLECTS GROWING REVOLT AGAINST CALIFORNIA’S ‘ONE-PARTY RULE’
Viral rumors have spread across social media since June 2, including claims that Pratt did not receive a single vote out of about 24,000 Los Angeles ballots that rolled in.
«That’s a lie,» the California Attorney General’s Office told Fox News Digital, pointing to an X statement from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s press office debunking the claims as «disinformation» and a «lie.»
FILE – Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks at a news conference in Oakland, Calif (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)
The California governor sent a letter to state election officials in May calling on them to swiftly tabulate the upcoming elections, while focusing the letter on building and maintaining confidence in voting.
«We must continue building confidence in our elections and ensure not only that every vote is counted, but that every vote is trusted. We must acknowledge that the longer the voting count takes, the more mis- and disinformation spreads. That means we must do all that we can to tabulate votes quickly and accurately. Time is of the essence in preventing election lies from taking hold,» he wrote.
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Fox News Digital reached out to Newsom’s office for additional comment.
investigations, california, voting, elections state and local, voter fraud concerns
INTERNACIONAL
New audio undercuts Dems who defended Biden, slammed Hur after classified docs report revealed memory loss
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After special counsel Robert Hur’s 2023 investigation and the subsequent report into former President Joe Biden’s retention of classified documents, Democrats rushed to defend the 46th president from his characterization that Biden was an «elderly man with a poor memory.»
The left-wing’s narrative surrounding Biden’s mental cognition — especially as he was running for re-election against President Donald Trump — is now crumbling after audio tapes from the investigation were revealed Monday night.
Prominent Democrats lined up to defend Biden when the initial report was released in 2024, many using the same line that Hur’s report was «gratuitous.» Then-Vice President Kamala Harris was chief among the chorus of defenders, saying that the report was «inaccurate and inappropriate.»
«The way that the president’s demeanor in that report was characterized could not be more wrong on the facts,» she told reporters at an event in Washington at the time. She also said the report was «clearly politically motivated, gratuitous.» Months later, Biden dropped out of the presidential race and was replaced on the ticket by his No. 2 without a primary election to decide his replacement.
President Joe Biden pauses as he concludes his address to the nation from the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, about his decision to drop his Democratic presidential re-election bid. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, Pool)
BIDEN’S HUR INTERVIEW TAPES COULD NOW GO PUBLIC AFTER HIS ATTORNEYS WAVE WHITE FLAG
«What everyone will soon realize is that this is a Republican special counsel who completely went out of his way to editorialize, to include material in his report that is unnecessary and irrelevant to what he was tasked with doing,» Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., piled on in comments to ABC at the time.
Hur’s appointment was nonpartisan.
In 2023, Hur was investigating Biden for retaining classified information. At the center of the investigation were audio tapes of Biden from interviews with his «Promise Me, Dad» memoir ghostwriter, Mark Zwonitzer, from 2016 and 2017.
Hur’s report concluded that Biden did, in fact, retain classified documents, but that prosecuting him might not lead to a conviction, because he could be viewed «as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.»
«Mr. Biden’s memory was significantly limited, both during his recorded interviews with the ghostwriter in 2017 and in his interview with our office in 2023,» the report said.
Former special counsel Robert Hur returns from a short break to resume his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill on March 12, 2024, in Washington, D.C. Hur investigated President Joe Biden’s mishandling of classified documents and published a final report with contentious conclusions about Biden’s memory. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
BIDEN’S FIGHT TO KEEP HUR INTERVIEW TAPES UNDER WRAPS SUFFERS FRESH COURT BLOW
After a prolonged legal battle during which Biden sought to keep the audio tapes private, a nonprofit called the Oversight Project obtained them via public records requests. The damning tapes reveal Biden’s inability to remember basic names and dates.
In one instance, on April 24, 2017, Biden struggled to recall the names of two economic advisers.
«I’ll think of his name,» said Biden, who at the time was a private citizen and former vice president. «I should write the names down because I keep forgetting them.»
There was then a long pause before Zwonitzer prompted Biden by saying Alan Krueger’s name.
Vice President Kamala Harris spoke at the American Federation of Teachers’ 88th National Convention on July 25, 2024, in Houston, Texas. (Montinique Monroe/Getty Images)
BIDEN SCORES TEMPORARY COURT VICTORY AS TRUMP-APPOINTED JUDGE DELAYS RELEASE OF HUR INVESTIGATION MATERIALS
In another instance, when trying to recall a memorial he attended for a fallen service member, Biden forgot the date of the service and name of the deceased.
«I think I went to that memorial service in Wilmington. It says [REDACTED] December the 4th, but I don’t — I know what this means. Memorial service — [REDACTED] gets names really f—ed up,» said Biden.
«So it says memorial service for [REDACTED]. I don’t think her name was [REDACTED]. Or I forget [REDACTED].»
The interviews were marked by consistent lapses in memory.
But in 2024, that didn’t stop Democrats from accusing Hur of being a partisan activist who intentionally tried to tarnish Biden and his chances in a rematch against Trump.
Andrew Weissman, a former general counsel to the FBI, cried foul on MSNBC.
«That is not the role of the Department of Justice … to talk about your memory today — irrelevant, it is gratuitous,» he reportedly said. «And it is also exactly what you’re not supposed to do, which is putting your thumb on the scale that could have political repercussions.»
Andrew Weissman, the top prosecutor from the Russia investigation, confessed he has a «man crush» on the judge overseeing Trump’s hush money trial. (MSNBC)
Ian Sams, a spokesperson for Biden’s general counsel, said at the time that the report was «gratuitous.»
«When you are the first special counsel in history not to indict anybody, there is pressure to criticize and to make, you know, statements that maybe in otherwise you wouldn’t make,» Sams reportedly said.
«I think this issue of age is already out there, and when November comes, it’s going to be a choice between two people,» said Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., told POLITICO. «I was with a congressional leadership about two weeks ago, and no one walked out of that meeting, saying, ‘Oh, my God, it was like he wasn’t in charge.’»
Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., who at the time had just spent a day traveling with Biden, insisted that he was, «at the very top of his game, all the way through it, both in private and in person.»
Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) listens as U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell testifies at a Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee hearing on the Fed’s «Semiannual Monetary Policy Report to the Congress,» on Capitol Hill on March 3, 2022, in Washington, D.C. (Tom Williams-Pool/Getty Images)
Later in 2024, Biden was yanked from the top of the presidential ticket after an embarrassing debate performance against then-candidate Donald Trump, which showcased his apparent mental decline.
Harris, serving as vice president at the time, was then coronated as the party’s presidential nominee despite never winning a primary. When she ran in 2020, Harris never made it to the primaries, dropping out on December 3, 2019, months before the first elections took place.
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A Biden spokesperson ducked the former president’s memory in a statement to CBS.
«President Biden’s conversations for a book a decade ago that discussed his late son are private, and were provided to the Department of Justice on the express condition they stay that way,» TJ Ducklo told the outlet. «Reversing course and making them public is just the latest example of this Administration weaponizing the DOJ for political retribution.»
«It’s wrong, and while President Biden disagrees with today’s decision, he also respects the courts and the vital role an independent judiciary plays in a healthy democracy.»
joe biden, politics, kamala harris, white house, biden pushed out
INTERNACIONAL
“La vida no es un juego”, autoridades de El Salvador intensificarán la seguridad vial en las fiestas agostinas
Durante las Fiestas Agostinas de 2025, El Salvador registró 358 accidentes de tránsito, con un saldo de 215 personas lesionadas y 19 fallecidas entre el 1 y el 6 de agosto. De acuerdo con datos oficiales, este periodo representa uno de los picos más altos de movilidad y turismo en el país, lo que incrementa los riesgos en las carreteras y exige una respuesta integral de las autoridades.
La meta para la actual temporada es clara: reducir los accidentes y proteger la vida de los salvadoreños. La estrategia fue expuesta por el viceministro de Transporte, Nelson Reyes, durante una entrevista en el espacio de Diálogo 21, donde describió el despliegue de un plan coordinado entre el Viceministerio, el Ministerio de Obras Públicas (MOP), Fovial y el sistema de Protección Civil.
“El inicio de las vacaciones agostinas representa uno de los periodos de mayor movilidad vehicular, y eso pone una presión tanto al flujo vehicular como a la capacidad de las diferentes zonas turísticas”, explicó Reyes en el programa.
Según el viceministro, el plan incluye controles viales reforzados, asistencia en carretera y campañas de concientización. Para la temporada, se desplegarán más de quince mil elementos, incluyendo gestores, inspectores, agentes de la Policía Nacional Civil y personal del Ejército en los principales puntos turísticos del país. El objetivo es garantizar la fluidez vehicular y disuadir conductas de riesgo.
“La presencia de estos elementos disuade de que las personas cometan infracciones, disuade de que las personas estén realizando actos que los pueden llevar a tener un accidente”, señaló Reyes.
Además, se suman operativos especiales como controles antidoping en terminales de transporte colectivo, revisiones técnicas y la exigencia de desinstalación de equipos de audio no autorizados en autobuses, para ofrecer mayor seguridad a los usuarios. Las autoridades también han puesto en marcha el servicio gratuito de grúas del MOPT.
Durante la entrevista el funcionario enfatizó que la principal causa de siniestros en vacaciones está relacionada con conductas prevenibles por parte de los conductores. “Ir utilizando el celular sigue siendo el enemigo público número uno de la seguridad vial. Ir a excesiva velocidad es la segunda causa de muertes. El no respetar las señales, no respetar los peatones, la gran mayoría de casos se pueden prevenir”, afirmó el funcionario.
El plan de prevención se apoya en una campaña nacional bajo el lema “La vida no es un juego”, lanzada para sensibilizar sobre los riesgos de manejar de forma irresponsable. La iniciativa incluye actividades pedagógicas para niños, como simuladores y licencia infantil, con el fin de fomentar una cultura de respeto a la normativa desde edades tempranas.
«Solo me tomé una» es una excusa que puede tener consecuencias fatales. Mira cómo la irresponsabilidad de beber y conducir puede llevar a un desastre. La seguridad vial es responsabilidad de todos.
Por lo que, el titular abogó que el enfoque principal durante las Fiestas Agostinas será la prevención, aunque las autoridades no descartan sanciones estrictas cuando se detecten infracciones graves. Reyes precisó que las conductas más vigiladas serán la conducción temeraria, el uso del celular, el exceso de velocidad y el consumo de alcohol al volante.
“El objetivo real es reducir los índices de siniestralidad y para eso también está la prevención”, sostuvo el viceministro. Parte de los recursos provenientes de multas se destinan a insumos de seguridad vial, como extintores, conos, cascos y guantes para motociclistas, que se entregarán a conductores sorprendidos sin estos elementos durante los controles.
Además, el funcionario instó a la población a verificar la vigencia de la licencia y la tarjeta de circulación antes de viajar, ya que son requisitos para acceder a servicios de auxilio vial.
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