We’ve all seen this one before. The Republican is way ahead after polls close on election day in a blue state. But counting takes as long as it takes until there are enough votes to declare the Democrat the winner.
This has been going on a long time. It happened in the 2000 Washington Senate election where Democrat Maria Centrell came back to win many days later with late ballots. It happened in 2008, when Democrat Al Franken came with surprise ballots back to beat Norm Coleman weeks after election day for the Minnesota Senate seat. It happened in places like Atlanta, Detroit, Philadelphia in the 2020 election.
And it just happened again in ridiculously blue Los Angeles, where Republican Spencer Pratt came in an easy second on election day in the jungle primary and appeared headed to a run-off against incumbent Democrat Mayor Karen Bass.
But after 10 days of counting like it’s 1926 and a place called Silicon Valley doesn’t exist, distant third place finisher, Marxist Democrat Nithya Raman finally overtook Pratt for second. Only the top two “vote-getters” advance to the runoff.
Journos claim there is no evidence of corruption. Well no, because corruption is legally built in.
Consider how easy it is for anyone in the world to register to vote in L.A. The forms of ID include items easily forged such as prescription cards or gym cards. Try getting on a plane or buying alcohol with those.
Except people don’t even need to show ID to register as long as they show one when they vote for the first time…except even this is not typically enforced. Plus, people in California can “register” and vote on election day. The reality is that on registering and voting, it is hard to find an L.A. law broken because in practice anyone can vote by law.
Further, California sends mail-in ballots to all registered voters to infinity and beyond because they purposely resist cleaning up their voter roles. These ballots supposedly need to be postmarked by election day, meaning large numbers are not received until days after the election. But in law, ballots are counted even if they lack a postmark as long as the date is handwritten — handwritten!
Ballot harvesting is a major component of California balloting, as it lets third parties, such as campaigns, political parties and unions run around collecting ballots. This invites enormous amounts of cheating — late ballot dumps skew Democratic at a 20 percent higher clip than early and election day voting.
On the opposite side of the nation, Florida election laws result in fast results the same night and virtually no controversies on outcomes. Remember, Florida is the third largest state, with giant metro areas such as Miami, Tampa and Orlando, agrarian areas and a Panhandle more like the Deep South, all spread over two time zones.
Here’s how Florida election laws compare to California’s:
Voter ID requirements: Photo ID with signature is required for registering to vote and in-person voting. These include Florida driver’s license, U.S. passport or military ID, which were further tightened with the Florida SAVE Act passed this year.
Signature verification: Strict matching against registration records. Mismatches or missing signatures trigger cure affidavits requiring an ID. The onus is on the voter.
Ballot harvesting: No third-party organizations. Generally family members or similar relationships are allowed.
Drop boxes: Used for early voting, these are secured, monitored 24/7, and are limited in locations and hours.
No internet: Voting machines are offline the entire time and there is pre- and post-election testing, plus mandatory post-election public audits.
Voter roll maintenance: This is rigorous, where databases from the DMV, USPS, death records, felony convictions and more are done regularly during a year.
There is also a case for hand counting all ballots to further ensure no cheating. But Florida elections officials, even the most starch election integrity ones, say the trade-off for doing hand counts of 15 million ballots in two time zones is that results will not be known for many days or even longer, inviting controversy
Florida’s election system is built to stop cheating and corruption from any party. California’s is built to throw open the door to cheating and corruption. Sometimes it just takes a few weeks to get just the right amount of cheating.
Rod Thomson is a former daily newspaper reporter and columnist, Salem radio host and ABC TV commentator, and current Founder of The Thomson Group, a Florida-based political consulting firm. He has eight children and seven grandchildren and a rapacious hunger to fight for America for them. Follow him on Twitter at @Rod_Thomson. Email him at [email protected].
