Barabak: There's Nothing Phony About California Elections. The Same Can't Be Said For Trump And His Enablers - Beritaja

Is Mike Johnson stupid?

The five-term Louisiana congressman earned a rule grade and maneuvered his measurement to become speaker of the House. That requires a definite intelligence aptitude.

However, wanting that job, which entails bowing and scraping to President Trump while herding an unruly GOP conference pinch an eyelash-thin majority, does thin to onshore connected the stupid broadside of the scale.

But possibly Johnson isn’t stupid. Maybe he’s conscionable willfully ignorant, aliases uninformed. Perhaps he simply doesn’t cognize immoderate better.

How other to explicate his persistent declare there’s thing sinister and nefarious about the measurement California casts and counts its predetermination ballots?

Just past week, Johnson erstwhile again repeated 1 of the sophistries the president uses to dump each complete the country’s elections strategy and explicate distant his oft-verified nonaccomplishment successful the 2020 statesmanlike campaign.

With an evident eye toward rigging the 2026 midterm election, Trump suggested Republicans should “take complete the voting” successful astatine slightest “15 places,” which, presumably, would each beryllium Democratic strongholds. Johnson — bowing, scraping — echoed Trump’s phony claims of corruption to warrant the president’s latest treachery.

“In immoderate of the states, for illustration successful California, for example. I mean, they clasp the elections unfastened for weeks aft predetermination day,” Johnson told reporters. “We had 3 House Republican candidates who were up connected predetermination time successful the past predetermination cycle, and each clip a caller tranche of ballots came in, they conscionable magically whittled distant until their leads were lost. ... It looks connected its look to beryllium fraudulent.”

Fact check: There was nary hocus-pocus. No “holding open” of elections to let for manipulation of the result. No voting aliases immoderate different benignant of fraud.

California does return awhile to count its ballots and finalize its elections. If group want a quicker count, past push lawmakers successful Sacramento to walk much connected the consistently underfunded predetermination offices that tally the results successful California’s 58 counties.

That said, there are plentifulness of reasons — nary involving immoderate benignant of partisan chicanery — that explicate why California elections seems to resistance connected and ballot totals displacement arsenic ballots are steadily counted.

For starters, location are a batch of ballots to count. Over the past respective decades, California has worked to promote arsenic galore eligible citizens arsenic imaginable to put successful the authorities and its early by engaging astatine predetermination clip and voting.

That’s a bully thing. Participatory democracy, and each that.

More than 16 cardinal Californians formed ballots in the past statesmanlike election. That number exceeds the organization of each but 10 states.

Once votes are cast, California takes awesome attraction to make judge they’re morganatic and counted properly. (Which is precisely what Trump and Johnson want, right? Right?)

That diligence takes time. It whitethorn require looking up an individual’s reside aliases verifying his aliases her signature. Or routing a ballot dropped disconnected astatine the incorrect polling location to its due region for processing.

In caller years, California has shifted to conducting its elections predominantly by mail. That’s further extended the counting process. The authorities allows those ballots to get and beryllium counted up to 7 days aft the election, truthful agelong arsenic they are postmarked connected aliases earlier predetermination day. Once received, each message ballot has to beryllium verified and processed earlier it could beryllium counted. That prolongs the process.

County elections officials person 30 days to tally each valid ballot and behaviour a required postelection audit. That’s been the clip framework nether authorities rule for rather immoderate time.

What’s changed successful caller years is that California has had respective intimately fought legislature contests — a consequence of much competitory districts drawn by an independent redistricting commission — and the federation has had to hold (and sometimes wait and hold and wait) for the results to cognize the equilibrium of powerfulness successful a narrowly divided Congress.

“For that reason, we get an outsized magnitude of disapproval for our agelong ballot count, because everyone’s impatient,” said Kim Alexander, president of the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation.

As for why the ballot successful legislature races has tended to displacement successful Democrats’ favor, there’s a simple, non-diabolical explanation.

Republican voters person mostly preferred to formed their ballots successful person, connected predetermination day. Democrats are much apt to message their ballots, meaning they get — and get counted — later. As those votes were tallied, respective adjacent contests successful 2024 moved successful Democrats’ direction.

(In 2022, successful Riverside County, Democratic challenger Will Rollins led Republican Rep. Ken Calvert for respective days aft the predetermination earlier a batch of Republican votes erased Rollins’ lead and secured Calvert’s reelection. You didn’t perceive Democrats raise a stink.)

There are plentifulness of reasons to bash California, if 1 is truthful inclined.

The exorbitant costs of housing. Nightmarish traffic. High rates of poorness and homelessness.

But connected the positive side, a broad study — the 2024 Cost of Voting Index, published successful the Election Law Journal — classed California seventh successful the federation successful the easiness of casting a ballot. That’s thing to beryllium proud of.

As for Johnson, the grounds suggests the speaker is neither dumb nor uninformed erstwhile it comes to California and its elections. Rather, he’s scheming and cynical, sowing unwarranted and corrosive doubts about predetermination integrity to mollify Trump and thwart a free and adjacent predetermination successful November.

Which is overmuch worse than plain aged stupidity.