LA County Registrar responds to Trump's claims on California elections: 'No backing behind them' – ABC7 Los Angeles
LOS ANGELES (KABC) — President Donald Trump last Thursday claimed without evidence that Democrats are cheating when counting votes in California's elections.
Eyewitness News asked Los Angeles County Registrar Dean Logan about Trump's claims.
"Those are things that are part of a narrative based on the outcome of the elections," Logan said. "We as election administrators cannot be distracted by that. We have to do the process as prescribed by law. I would say the fact that we have voters who waited and returned their ballots at drop boxes late in the day on Election Day is an indication that they have confidence that those ballots are going to be counted, and they are going to be counted.
"This is the way the elections process is designed in California. That's frustrating for some people. I understand that, but frustrating is different than leveling allegations that have no backing behind them, so we're not going to be distracted by that."
Trump has continued leveling allegations without evidence. In an interview over the weekend with NBC's Meet the Press, Trump was asked if he had evidence to support his claims, but he didn't provide evidence.
"All I have to do is look," Trump said.
Shortly after the exchange and other tense moments in the interview, Trump removed his microphone and ended it.
Over the weekend, Democrat Nithya Raman overtook Republican Spencer Pratt for second place in the L.A. mayor's race. The Associated Press projects Raman will be the second candidate to advance to the November L.A. mayoral runoff election, overtaking Pratt. Mayor Karen Bass has already advanced.
Trump on Monday morning posted on Truth Social that it's "Not possible for Spencer Pratt to have lost the L.A. runoffs after the big lead he had."
"I think the policy decision that's been made in California, and that's not a recent policy decision, it's been this way for decades, is to allow voters the greatest options and the greatest access to participate in their elections," Logan said. "The trade-off of that is if you have a quarter million ballots turned into drop boxes on Election Day and you retrieve those after the polls close at eight o'clock, is it's gonna take some time to process those accurately and securely.
"Not a long time. It's happening fast. Again, if people who are here watching the process, you can see that that's ongoing. But that is the case, and that is by design in California, and when I say by design, design for participation, not for any other purpose. And by the way, it's not only California that does this. If you think back to the 2020 presidential election, where it was weeks after the election, where people were waiting to see the outcome of the presidential election, California wasn't in play in that election. That was a handful of other states that have similar policies that allow voters that opportunity to have their ballot cast up until Election Day but also make sure that those ballots are being treated with security, transparency and care."
Political experts believe Pratt's numbers were elevated on Election Night because Republicans dominated the early vote, but only 15% of registered voters in the city of Los Angeles are registered Republicans.
Democrats have done well in the mail-in ballots that were returned on Election Day and that's boosted not just Bass, but Raman.
"There is a lot of noise, and it's part of a national narrative," Logan said. "It's unfortunate that we've seen that kind of over the past eight to 10 years, that creating a narrative that puts doubt into the process so if the outcome doesn't turn out the way you want it to is sort of the playbook now… but the political playbook is different than the law on how we administer elections, and we're independent from that political narrative."
