I am a native Angeleno. I have lived here my entire life. It truly is the city of make-believe.
Los Angeles is, of course, home to Hollywood, Tinseltown, the storied entertainment capital of the world, where we make up all sorts of fake stories that entertain the world.
But now a new story of apparent make-believe has emerged from Los Angeles — that of voter fraud. And this story is unlikely to win any awards.
President Donald Trump has made unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud related to California’s June 2 primary elections. This is nothing new and follows years of baseless claims of voter fraud by Trump, which ultimately culminated in the events of Jan. 6, 2021.
What has changed is the Justice Department’s enthusiasm for jumping into the thicket of elections. Recently, the Department of Justice has brought suits, unsuccessfully asked for data regarding voter rolls and even sought to inspect ballots. Taken together, this is a rare demonstration of the DOJ’s desire to get involved with elections and, frankly, to use that agency’s levers of power to back up the president’s attempts at undermining the credibility of elections.
Los Angeles’ top federal prosecutor recently assured listeners of a radio program that charges for election fraud will be forthcoming. This is happening despite DOJ regulations indicating that the department should stay out of criminal investigations until elections are certified, as well as the apparent lack of specific evidence of election fraud.
It is worth noting here that it does, in fact, take a long time to count ballots in California. But that’s actually evidence of the integrity of the process. The majority of us vote by mail; it takes longer to count and verify those ballots. Given the state’s current system, calling elections on or shortly after election night could be actual evidence of possible fraud.
Have the shapes of the races in Los Angeles and California changed since election night, during the long process of counting ballots? Absolutely. That’s what happens when you count votes.
Did things look better for Republican and conservative candidates on election night than they do now? Again, absolutely. But that’s a result of a predicted phenomenon — younger, more progressive and more liberal voters returned their ballots later in the process. Counting those ballots will, of course, affect the results of the races.
The irony that the administration has called into question the veracity of elections, while simultaneously undermining the public integrity division of the DOJ that focused on elections, should not be lost. This division is a post-Watergate creation designed to root out corruption. It now stands as a shell of its former self thanks to the Trump administration.
Given the state’s current system, calling elections on or shortly after election night could be actual evidence of possible fraud.
Some states have and will use the ever-increasing accusations of voter fraud to pass more restrictive voting rules. Clamping down on when and how people can vote makes all the sense in the world if that actually solved a problem. The issue is there’s little to indicate that it does. For instance, one form of these laws is to require photo identification at the polls. This intuitively makes sense, but voter impersonation, which photo IDs guard against, is extremely rare. Laws requiring proof of citizenship also make intuitive sense. Cases of noncitizen voting are, also, exceedingly rare.
Where does this all leave us? The nonfiction version of this story is that fraud in America is very rare. Unfortunately, the fictionalized version of events is becoming more common and popular.
Few things about elections in America in 2026 should be beyond dispute, but here are a few — every valid vote should be counted, any credible allegation of voter fraud should be investigated, one instance of voter fraud is one too many and the DOJ should use its investigatory and prosecutorial power to serve the American public, not a president’s personal preferences. False narratives originating might entertain Trump’s MAGA base, but they shouldn’t be allowed to eviscerate voters’ confidence in our nation’s election.
Jessica Levinson is a Loyola Law School professor and MS NOW columnist.