A screenshot shows a side-by-side comparison of the latest tallies in the race for California governor and L.A. mayor, with viewers playing spot-the-similarity with the two.
In the first, with 39.3% of the expected vote in, Karen Bass leads with 117,579 votes, followed by Spencer Pratt with 86,323 and Nithya Raman with 61,949.
In the second, with 42.4% of the expected vote in, Bass’ total jumped to 130,429 and Raman’s increased to 71,470. Pratt’s total vote, however, stayed put at 86,323.
That side-by-side comparison has gone viral on social media, fueling conspiracy theories of election fraud that is skewing the race against Pratt, a reality television personality who President Donald Trump has supported in the mayoral contest.
But in actuality, Pratt did receive more votes to his total then — 21,870 more.
But there was a “lag” in how the vote data was relayed to media outlets. Enough of one that observant election tally watchers caught and captured what appeared to be no ballots for Pratt.
And the conspiracy theory took off.
“PROOF OF CHEATING IN CALIFORNIA,” said one post on X, formerly Twitter, from an account with 559,000 followers. As of Friday evening, that post had more than 437,000 views.
Elon Musk responded to another post insinuating some scam was underfoot in the election, saying, “They’re not even trying hard to hide the fraud anymore.”
But the real reason was technological in nature, according to the AP.
“The AP vote count receives updates as provided by election officials and adds them to our total,” a spokesperson for the news agency said in a statement Friday.
“What happened in this case is that there was a lag in an automated update such that some candidates’ votes were added in one update and the other candidates followed about a minute later.”
“Specifically, an electronic update from the Los Angeles County website pulled in votes for only one group of candidates, including Karen Bass and Nithya Raman. Exactly one minute later, the electronic update picked up the votes for another group of candidates including Spencer Pratt.”
Trump has alleged there has been widespread cheating in California’s elections this week, without citing specific evidence. Long a critic of California’s elections and mail-in ballots, the president accused Democrats of “trying to steal” gubernatorial and L.A. mayoral elections.
Republican and Trump-endorsed Steve Hilton held a lead in the race for governor for most of the week, for example, but on Friday, former Biden Cabinet Secretary Xavier Becerra leapfrogged him for the top spot. The Associated Press called the race Friday evening, saying Becerra would advance to the general election, although it is still unclear if Hilton or billionaire progressive Tom Steyer, who is in third place, would join him.
Even if both Hilton and Pratt advance to the November general election, their chances of winning then are slim. Nearly 45% of the 23.2 million registered voters in California are Democrats, and only 25% are Republicans.
Still, Trump alleged that cheating was occurring. A White House spokesperson did not respond to requests for examples.
“Here we go with the very late and massive numbers of MAIL IN BALLOTS,” Trump posted to Truth Social late Wednesday, June 3.
And later Thursday morning, the president said: “Look what’s happening in California, the Dumocrats, right before our very eyes, are stealing the Vote.”