The loudest complaints tend to focus on fraud. Slow ballot counts that ultimately favor Democratic candidates strike some critics as proof that something shady is going on. But that suspicion isn’t backed by evidence — it’s driven by disappointment with the outcome, not by any documented wrongdoing.

The more legitimate concern is apathy. In the 2024 presidential race, which featured Californian Kamala Harris facing off against Donald Trump, fewer than 60% of eligible voters in the state bothered to cast a ballot, according to the Secretary of State’s office. That kind of disengagement chips away at the legitimacy of election outcomes, since so many residents simply opt out.

The pattern held true again this year. Turnout figures are still being finalized for June’s gubernatorial primary and the Los Angeles mayoral race, but early numbers suggest both contests struggled to draw voters, particularly younger residents of color. Preliminary data show barely 38% of registered voters in Los Angeles County cast a ballot last month.

This year has given Californians several chances to wrestle with a bigger question: Should the state be working to expand who can vote, or tighten the rules around it?

Those pushing for stricter rules have already gotten a measure onto the November ballot. It would require voters to show a government-issued ID at the polls, or provide the last four digits of an ID number when submitting a mail ballot. Supporters of Proposition 39 argue this protects election integrity, though opponents say it would likely suppress turnout — a outcome that could favor more conservative candidates.

On the opposite side of the debate are advocates working to widen access to the ballot box. San Francisco has already taken that step, allowing certain noncitizen residents to vote in school board elections. Approved by voters in 2016 and later upheld through legal challenges, the policy rests on the idea that a stake in the community — not citizenship status — should determine who gets a say in decisions that affect daily life.

A similar effort recently stalled in Los Angeles, though it’s likely to resurface. The debate underscores a deeper divide in California over who should have a voice in elections, and in which ones.

Long ballot counts, for instance, are simply the byproduct of a system designed to make voting more accessible. California’s election rules — allowing ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted even if they arrive up to a week later — were recently upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. Notably, the ruling also validated a nearly identical system in deeply conservative Mississippi, a reminder that flexible voting timelines aren’t inherently a partisan issue.

Noncitizen voting, meanwhile, represents a different kind of expansion. It remains illegal in federal elections and banned in nearly 20 states, but historically many local governments have allowed it, and today Vermont, Maryland, Washington D.C. and parts of California permit noncitizens to vote in certain local races when local officials approve it.

When Los Angeles considered a similar proposal this year, critics reacted with alarm, falsely suggesting the city was preparing to let people without legal status flood the voter rolls. In reality, the measure would have applied only to legal noncitizen residents — green card holders, for instance — and only for city council and school board elections.

City Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez championed the proposal, arguing that legal immigrants who pay taxes and raise children in Los Angeles schools have a genuine stake in decisions made by local government. It’s a reasonable argument: A longtime green card holder with kids enrolled in LAUSD arguably has more invested in school board outcomes than a newly arrived resident without children. If the guiding principle behind voting rights is that those affected by government decisions deserve a voice, then extending the franchise to noncitizen residents in local races isn’t unreasonable.

Despite building momentum toward a spot on the November ballot, Soto-Martinez ultimately withdrew the proposal after it drew pushback from some Black community leaders concerned about how it might affect political representation. The idea is expected to return in some form.

It’s a reminder that questions about expanding access to the ballot are rarely simple, and can carry consequences that aren’t immediately obvious.

Just as important: losing an election is not, by itself, evidence of foul play.

Consider a baseball analogy. On June 10, the Dodgers led the Pittsburgh Pirates 6-1 in the seventh inning, only to collapse and lose 9-8. Nobody seriously suggested the game was rigged just because the better team blew a lead — that’s simply how nine innings of baseball can go.

The same logic applies to elections. Candidates who lose sometimes cry foul, and that happened repeatedly this summer in both statewide and Los Angeles races. President Trump, reacting to Spencer Pratt’s loss in the L.A. mayoral race, predictably claimed the election was “rigged.” But no evidence has surfaced to support that claim. Ballots were processed as they arrived and counted under established procedures — they just took time.

As is typical in California, ballots that arrived later in the count skewed more Democratic than those cast in person, since younger and working voters tend to rely more heavily on mail voting. That trend was even more noticeable this cycle, as many Democratic voters waited until the final days to decide between Tom Steyer and Xavier Becerra in the governor’s race.

In the end, the top two finishers in the gubernatorial primary were Becerra and Republican Steve Hilton — hardly the result one would expect if the system were being manipulated to favor Democrats. In the Los Angeles mayoral race, incumbent Karen Bass finished on top, with Councilmember Nithya Raman edging out second place — not the runoff matchup Bass had hoped for, since she had been counting on facing the far weaker Pratt.

Those outcomes aren’t proof of a rigged system. They’re simply how the numbers fell. Becerra’s finish is no more suspicious than Wyoming’s long track record of electing Republicans.

The nation does have a real problem with its elections, but it isn’t the one frequently invoked by Trump and his allies. There’s no credible evidence of widespread fraud in federal, state or local races, and no sign that people without legal status are casting ballots. The actual crisis is one of participation — too many eligible voters are staying home, not too many people illegally showing up to vote.

Original source: CalMatters

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