Feds pursuing 'multiple' election fraud investigations, top prosecutor says

[Dulcinea]

(LA Times) First Assistant U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli on Friday morning said his office "has multiple election fraud investigations underway," in coordination with the FBI in Los Angeles.

Essayli's remarks, posted to X, seemed to be in response to President Trump alleging in his own social media post late Wednesday that Democrats in California were "cheating" in the state's primary election, and that there was an investigation underway in Essayli's office.

Essayli's office also confirmed that one of its prosecutors — Assistant U.S. Atty. Robert Renner — was at a Los Angeles County ballot processing center Friday "to observe the vote counting process."

A spokesperson for Dean Logan, head of the L.A. County registrar-recorder/county clerk's office, described the visit as in line with other routine observations of the counting process, which is open to public observation by appointment.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/feds-pursuing-multiple-election-fraud-173609723.html

[RandySF]

1. They must want to install Pratt as LA mayor.

[buzzycrumbhunger]

2. As my gran used to say...

Smeller’s the feller.

These people whining about “cheaters” are not only trying to fuck the elections again, but doing so to distract from the fact they’re the ones always trying to cheat.

Can we bring back the death penalty for this level of shitfuckery?

[Walleye]

3. We don't need Republicans sticking their nose in our primaries

I trust my fellow Democrats. I trust all of my fellow Americans for the most part. we are basically honest people. I’m really really sick of everyone taking us for crooks. Most of us do our best to tell the truth fill out our forms correctly and so forth and we’re supposed to be all innocent until proven guilty. They just want to believe their own lies and punish the whole party for some they’re still stupid. Don’t they know that Republicans live in these “blue states“

[LetMyPeopleVote]

4. MaddowBlog-Republicans' California election conspiracy theories suffer from one fatal flaw

If nefarious Democratic schemers existed and were secretly orchestrating the results, these are not the outcomes they would have picked.

Aside from the obvious, Republican conspiracy theories about the California elections seem to suffer from one fatal flaw:

If nefarious Democratic schemers existed and were secretly orchestrating the results from the shadows, they wouldn’t have picked these outcomes.
www.ms.now/rachel-maddo...

— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2026-06-09T21:16:15.573Z

https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/republicans-california-election-conspiracy-theories-suffer-from-one-fatal-flaw

This week, the answer came into focus. MS NOW reported:

Los Angeles Council member Nithya Raman will advance to the November general election in the mayoral race to face the incumbent, Karen Bass, after overtaking ex-reality TV star Spencer Pratt in the primary, The Associated Press projects.

Raman has steadily trended upward in the vote count since Election Day, and she overtook Pratt on Sunday. Monday’s vote update gives Raman a cushion of more than 20,000 votes, making her position in the top two safe, with an estimated 93% of the vote counted.

.....In recent days, a great many GOP leaders, including Donald Trump and Republicans on Capitol Hill, have invested an enormous amount of time and energy trying to convince the public the state’s elections process is “rigged” by nefarious Democratic schemers who’ve secretly orchestrated the results to ensure their preferred outcome.

When pressed for evidence, GOP officials tend to embarrass themselves, but that’s not the only — or even the central — problem. On the contrary, the Republican conspiracy theory suffers from an obvious fatal flaw: If nefarious Democratic schemers existed and were secretly orchestrating the results, they wouldn’t have picked these outcomes.

In Los Angeles’ mayoral race, it’s no secret that the Democratic incumbent, running in a city with an enormous progressive voter base, welcomed the opportunity to run against a conservative television personality with an embarrassingly thin professional resume. Instead, Bass will face Raman, a Harvard- and MIT-educated City Council member who’s already demonstrated an ability to win local elections.

If powerful Democratic operatives were pulling the strings from the shadows, they would’ve gladly pitted Bass against Pratt, if only to watch him lose in November.

Similarly, Democrats would’ve loved to see two Democratic candidates emerge from the state’s gubernatorial primary, thus ensuring party control. Instead, it appears increasingly likely that a GOP candidate backed by the Republican president will advance to the general election — which, again, is not the outcome these ostensible powerful Democratic operatives pulling the strings from the shadows would’ve deliberately orchestrated.