Reporting on the race for Los Angeles Mayor

[Bob78164]

This is how Faux News lies without lying.

In the linked story, from the morning after Election Day, Faux News (in an article that is supposed to be factual, not opinion) repeatedly characterizes Spencer Pratt as likely to advance and probably having shut Nithya Raman out of the runoff. As we all know now, it took only five days of counting for Raman to overtake Pratt and surge into second, and votes will continue to arrive in the mail until tomorrow.

Given the numbers reported on Election Day, no one with any familiarity with Los Angeles electoral politics would have expressed anything close to this level of confidence that Pratt would advance. The votes counted after Election Day ALWAYS break bright blue and progressive. In 2022, the difference between Karen Bass's vote share after the Election Day count and her final vote share was a full 8 percentage points. Here, Nithya ended the Election Day count only 10 points behind Pratt.

And there was ample reason to think that this year's count would break even bluer and more progressive than the count 4 years ago. Due to the risk of a lockout in the race for Governor, an awful lot of Democrats held their votes this year until close to the last minute. Those are the votes that don't get counted on Election Day, often because they're still in the mail.

I was not prepared immediately after Election Day to say that Nithya was a favorite to advance. But I knew for damn sure that at a minimum she'd make it close, and I'm certainly not shocked that the turnaround was big enough to ensconce her in the runoff. --Bob

[BackInTex]

The real story here is the abysmal electoral process there. Is this all of California, or just LA?

No one with any intelligence would say this process is solid. No one.

[silverscreenselect]

This is how Faux News lies without lying.

You just had to do. Put in your two cents and ruin the perfect topic count for this forum we had taken months to achieve.

I would have expected this from Flock but not from you.

Sigh.

[Beebs52]

[Bob78164]

The real story here is the abysmal electoral process there. Is this all of California, or just LA?

No one with any intelligence would say this process is solid. No one.

Trump's hand-picked Acting U.S. Attorney here, Bill Essayli, has said there's no evidence of voter fraud. Most of the people who have a problem with California's process are just disappointed that their favored candidates had Election Night leads that proved illusory as more votes were counted. That's like complaining about unfairness because a team that was leading at halftime ended up losing the game.

The process is completely transparent and is observed by (among others) any interested campaign. We take our time because we offer ballot curing (if you forgot to sign your ballot, you travel to the counting location and fix the problem), because we accept ballots that are postmarked by Election Day but arrive within the next week, and because we take the time to make sure that the signature on the ballot matches the signature on the voter's record. That's probably why my ballot wasn't counted until Thursday even though I deposited it at a Vote Center on Sunday.

Which of these things do you think California should stop doing? --Bob

[elwoodblues]

Bass may still win, but she actually would have had a better chance against Pratt than she will against the more progressive Raman.

[jarnon]

Which of these things do you think California should stop doing? --Bob

California’s system, not used anywhere else, allows two candidates from the minority party to advance to the November election while the majority party is shut out. A nonpartisan primary should used ranked choice or a similar method to avoid this possibility. That said, California rightly prioritises security over speed.

[Bob78164]

Which of these things do you think California should stop doing? --Bob

California’s system, not used anywhere else, allows two candidates from the minority party to advance to the November election while the majority party is shut out. A nonpartisan primary should used ranked choice or a similar method to avoid this possibility. That said, California rightly prioritises security over speed.

Washington, like California, uses a top-two jungle primary. We're not the only state that does it. In fact, Washington adopted it before we did.

I agree that I'd prefer Alaska's system (top-four jungle primary followed by a ranked-choice general) to what we have now, and you're right about the potential flaws (although in high-profile races the voters apparently pay enough attention to sort things out), but I continue to believe our current system is better and leads to more moderate outcomes than partisan primaries. For example, in the system that prevails in most other states, David Valadao (the only remaining Republican to vote to impeach Donald Trump) would never have survived a Republican primary. In California, though, he doesn't have to. --Bob

[Weyoun]

It is interesting the number of Texans who are VERY WORRIED about LA elections or Mamdani becoming mayor of New York. It’s almost like they have no stake in these outcomes and don’t know what’s going on, but Fox News told them to piss on a hydrant so they did so.

[Beebs52]

It is interesting the number of Texans who are VERY WORRIED about LA elections or Mamdani becoming mayor of New York. It’s almost like they have no stake in these outcomes and don’t know what’s going on, but Fox News told them to piss on a hydrant so they did so.

And you are directed by whom? Obviously not anyone normal.

[Beebs52]

It is interesting the number of Texans who are VERY WORRIED about LA elections or Mamdani becoming mayor of New York. It’s almost like they have no stake in these outcomes and don’t know what’s going on, but Fox News told them to piss on a hydrant so they did so.

It's interesting how you think you know what the fuck the rest of the world believes.
Blow your nose. It's stuffed like your brain.

[Weyoun]

It is interesting the number of Texans who are VERY WORRIED about LA elections or Mamdani becoming mayor of New York. It’s almost like they have no stake in these outcomes and don’t know what’s going on, but Fox News told them to piss on a hydrant so they did so.

It's interesting how you think you know what the fuck the rest of the world believes.
Blow your nose. It's stuffed like your brain.

One other thing I know is come while I don’t have a detailed knowledge of California election protocols, you don’t either - but useful idiots like yourself still will not and think that we need to federalize elections because of made up stories.

So stuff like this concern concerns me in that regard. I rather like the Department of Homeland Security away from my elections.

I suppose the one upside is this: these cretin fucktards don’t know how to fight a war, or implement a tariff, or change a name on a building without screwing something up. Indeed, Obama managed to deport more people than Trump. These asskissers are so fucking stupid they’ll mess up their mini-coup, too.