U.S. attorney’s office in California announces probe into elections

State's slow vote-counting has long been target of reform efforts and Republican attacks

Author of the article:

Washington Post

Jeremy Roebuck, Arelis R. Hernández

Published Jun 06, 2026  •  4 minute read

Election workers process ballots for the California state primary election at the Los Angeles County Ballot Processing Center in Industry, Calif., Friday, June 5, 2026. Photo by Justin Sullivan /Getty Images

The Los Angeles U.S. attorney’s office said it has opened “multiple election fraud investigations,” claiming the California election system has “serious structural vulnerabilities.”

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli, whose office is also attempting to audit the state voter rolls, confirmed the investigation late Friday and vowed to follow the evidence where it leads.

Article content

Article content

The nature and status of the probes federal prosecutors might be pursuing in California was not immediately clear. Essayli did not elaborate on the nature of the investigations he said he’d launched and did not refer to any evidence suggesting that fraud had occurred.

“My office will not look the other way. We will investigate and prosecute,” Essayli wrote on X late Friday. “Every legal vote deserves to be counted. Every illegal vote cancels one out.”

Article content

President Donald Trump on Thursday had criticized the state’s notoriously lengthy ballot-counting system and said in a social media post that it was under investigation.

California held primary elections on June 2 for a number of competitive races, including contests for gubernatorial candidates, congressional seats and the mayoral contest in Los Angeles.

It is typical under both Republican and Democratic administrations for the nation’s 93 U.S. attorneys’ offices to designate at least one lawyer to field and review tips of alleged wrongdoing during elections, though rarer for those tips to yield sufficient evidence of wrongdoing to result in criminal prosecutions.

A spokesperson for Essayli’s office did not immediately return requests for comment on whether what the first assistant U.S. attorney was describing in his social media post was routine work or more advanced inquiries.

A Justice Department spokesperson also did not return requests for comment.

Article content

Article content

California’s slow vote-counting has long been the target of reform efforts and Republican attacks, particularly from candidates who lose early gains as the days go on. State leaders and supporters said the count is part of a system that protects against fraud. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed reform bills last year and urged officials to speed up the process.

But Californians have continued to wait to learn who will be competing for votes in November. The Associated Press has projected Democrat Xavier Becerra will advance to the general election for governor, but it’s unclear whom he will face.

The president suggested, without evidence, that his preferred candidates for California governor and Los Angeles mayor race will somehow be cheated.

“There’s BIG cheating by the Dumocrats in California. Votes are all tied up. May not be in for weeks,” Trump posted early Thursday.

Essayli’s public messaging around his office’s efforts was quickly picked up on social media by right-wing influencers and Trump allies, who have spent much of the past year seeking to cast doubt on the security of elections.

Article content

Essayli tried to debunk one claim alleging Los Angeles mayoral candidate and former reality TV star Spencer Pratt obtained zero votes. After sending a member of his office to review records at the Los Angeles Registrar of Voters, Essayli wrote: “The claim is false.”

A representative from Essayli’s office participated in a walkthrough and observed ballot processing but no documents were taken or workers interviewed. The centre routinely welcomes observers.

“We also believe transparency is critical to public confidence,” Mike Sanchez, a spokesperson for the L.A. County Registrar-Recorder, said in a statement. “Ultimately, our responsibility is to ensure that every eligible voter has their ballot counted accurately and that the public can see and understand how that work is being done.”

Jesse Salinas, president of the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials, said officials do not know what basis the U.S. attorney’s office had for opening investigations, but said that they are confident the state’s rigorous vote verification system is secure.

Article content

“We’ve heard these claims before and there’s been no evidence found,” said Salinas, who is also the chief election official in Yolo County, California. “From everything we’ve seen, there’s no broad-based voter fraud that exists in California. If there are issues, they are one-offs and are usually caught.”

Under Trump, the Justice Department has aggressively pursued election-related investigations, including several in which outside monitors and even department officials in the president’s first administration have already concluded that no widespread fraud occurred.

Trump, meanwhile, has continued to demand Republican lawmakers “nationalize” elections, impose voter ID requirements, ban voting machines and eliminate mail-in voting in states across the country.

So far, though, the Justice Department’s election integrity efforts have not delivered the type of prosecutions that would back up the president’s claims of widespread voting conspiracies to steal elections.

Article content

Most of the illegal voting cases filed since Trump’s return to the White House involve isolated incidents of people voting twice — sometimes in favour of Republican candidates — or voting when they were not legally registered. Those cases have involved allegations of only a handful of votes in elections where thousands were typically cast.

Essayli responded to skepticism Friday about the investigations he said his office had launched into the vote by pointing to a case his office filed last month against a Los Angeles-area organizer accused of illegally paying homeless people to register to vote.

His office has not said whether any of those people were ineligible to register or whether they actually voted.

“Yes,” Essayli said of the case in a social media post, “there is evidence of election fraud in California.”

California Secretary of State Shirley N. Weber has defended the state’s system, saying in a statement that “accuracy comes before speed.”

Article content