More than a week after polls closed in Los Angeles’ mayoral primary, the race for second place has taken a sharp, suspicious turn. Socialist City Councilmember Nithya Raman overtook reality television personality Spencer Pratt for the chance to face incumbent Mayor Karen Bass in November. The shift came not on election night, when Raman tearfully conceded, but with the continued secretive counting of mail ballots in a centralized facility over the subsequent days.
With only about 83 percent of expected votes reported by Sunday evening, nearly one week after election day, Raman held 27.1 percent to Pratt’s 26.7 percent — a lead of roughly 3,000 votes. Bass remained well ahead. Pratt had led in early returns. Raman gained as additional mail ballots were processed and verified, a process that stretches days or weeks in California’s system for ballots postmarked by Election Day.
This late movement highlights long-standing concerns about centralized counting far from precinct-level observers, variable signature verification standards, and the extended window for mail ballots to arrive and be tallied. In close contests, such mechanics can shift outcomes long after voters have cast ballots, raising questions about finality, the chain of custody, and vote security. With the slow, almost third-world-esque ballot-counting process, where drops just happen to help the socialist Raman at Pratt’s expense, it is easy for outside observers to question the election results and suspect something nefarious is taking place.
Those same transparency questions surface in Wisconsin’s handling of the 2020 election — and in the current resistance to federal review. On election night 2020 in Milwaukee County, the central count facility drew intense scrutiny. Ballots arrived in batches through the night and into the early morning hours. Observers reported restricted access and limited ability to monitor the full process, while leftist organizations were getting emails from Milwaukee Election Commission Director Claire Woodall-Vogg praising her for “…delivering just the margin needed at 3:00 am.” Police officers were present at the central count location and polling places. The FBI’s ongoing investigation now includes plans to interview multiple Milwaukee Police Department officers who worked those sites that night, focusing on what they observed regarding ballot handling and absentee processing.
Milwaukee and Dane Counties saw a massive surge in voters claiming “indefinitely confined” status — rising from roughly 60,000 in 2016 to over 240,000 in 2020. Clerks in those counties publicly advised residents via social media that the COVID-19 emergency and Governor Evers’ stay-at-home order justified the designation for virtually anyone. A subsequent court ruling clarified that the order did not automatically qualify all voters. Nearly half of Milwaukee’s mail ballots that year came through drop boxes, which officials had promised would operate under 24-hour video surveillance. Open records requests for that footage have not produced the promised recordings.
The FBI’s current actions, including an agent’s visit to the home of Milwaukee County Elections Director Michelle Hawley, reflect these lingering questions. The probe also reached Wisconsin Elections Commission Deputy Administrator Robert Kehoe. Agents have pursued similar reviews in other battleground states, including seizing ballots in Georgia’s Fulton County.
Milwaukee County’s response has been to lawyer up rather than open the books further. County Executive David Crowley announced a partnership with Democracy Defenders Action, a left-wing legal advocacy group organized to counter Republican-led election oversight efforts. The stated purpose is to protect county employees and “fight back” against any attempt to access or seize 2020 ballots. Progressive legal organizations, including Law Forward, have simultaneously litigated in federal court to block DOJ requests for unredacted voter data.
Governor Tony Evers has taken a parallel stance on voter roll transparency. He has opposed turning over Wisconsin voter data to federal authorities, arguing the Trump administration has “no business” in state elections. Evers vetoed GOP legislation that would have required the Legislative Audit Bureau to examine rolls for potential noncitizen registrations and other irregularities. He celebrated a federal judge’s dismissal of a related DOJ lawsuit, framing scrutiny as an effort to “sow doubt.”
These developments form a consistent pattern. In Los Angeles, late mail-ballot counting shifted the outcome of a mayoral primary days after the polls closed. In Milwaukee, questions about 2020 election night’s central count procedures, surges in indefinitely confined voters, drop box chain of custody, and observer access remain subjects of federal inquiry. Rather than welcoming audits or interviews as opportunities to demonstrate security, Democrat-led institutions in both places have responded with centralized control, delayed transparency, and partisan legal resistance.
Voters have reasonable grounds for concern. How were ballots secured and verified during the extended counting windows in 2020 and in LA last week? Why do officials block routine audits of voter rolls while hiring advocacy groups to fight federal review? When institutions choose lawyers and lawsuits over maximum transparency, public confidence suffers, not because skepticism is unfounded, but because the response itself fuels doubt.
Wisconsin does not need California-style counting delays or Blue State-style resistance to oversight. It needs clean voter rolls, observable ballot processes, and cooperation with legitimate inquiries rather than reflexive pushback. This is what gives voters confidence in their election process. The LA mayor’s race flip via late mail ballots and Milwaukee’s hiring of Democracy Defenders Action to block the FBI do nothing to quiet those concerns.
If every legal ballot arrived on time, was filled out correctly, and was counted once and only once in 2020, and in the LA mayor’s race, then officials should have no objection to verification. Continued stonewalling suggests the opposite priority: protecting narratives over proving integrity. Wisconsin voters deserve confidence in their elections, not the third-world process going on in LA, raising serious concerns about who actually wins.
