A federal prosecutor in California said Friday that authorities have opened multiple election fraud investigations tied to the state’s recent elections, putting a fresh federal spotlight on a system that is still counting ballots from Tuesday’s primary. Bill Essayli said on X that his office was pursuing the cases alongside the FBI and that he would follow the evidence wherever it led.
The announcement landed as Donald Trump escalated his attacks on California’s vote count, writing that there was “BIG cheating by the Dumocrats in California” and that the count was “under investigation” by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles. His fraud claims were unsubstantiated, but they fed into a familiar argument over a state where mail ballots can take days to process and competitive races often remain unsettled long after Election Day.
Essayli did not say what prompted the inquiries, and he gave no details about who or what was being examined. But the same morning, a federal prosecutor from the U.S. attorney’s office visited the Los Angeles County ballot processing center, after the county registrar’s office said late Thursday it had been told a government attorney would be sent to observe ballot processing activities. Officials said the visitor received an overview of the public observation program and joined a walkthrough of ballot processing operations.
The registrar’s office said ballot processing is open to public observation and that election officials routinely host observers representing a wide range of interests. That matters because California’s election machinery is built to run slowly but lawfully: ballots postmarked on or before Election Day and received within seven days can still be counted, and mail voting often favors Democratic candidates. Under the state’s top-two primary system, the two leading candidates move on to the November election regardless of party.
The gap between accusation and evidence is the part that still hangs over Friday’s developments. Trump said votes were tied up and might not be in for weeks, but California’s long count is not unusual. In 2022, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass was not announced as the winner until eight days after election day, a reminder that late results do not by themselves prove fraud. Bass is seeking another term and has advanced to the November election.
By Friday evening, NBC News projected that Xavier Becerra would advance to the general election, while Steve Hilton and Tom Steyer were competing for the second spot. For now, the clearest answer is that California now has multiple federal election fraud investigations and no public explanation for what evidence set them in motion.
