After President Trump’s unfounded claim that California’s slow vote count during the June primary indicated cheating by Democrats, state and local elections officials made changes to speed things up — in part to dispel any questions about this month’s crucial midterm elections.
The state of California allocated $29 million for new equipment, election staffing and voter awareness campaigns statewide, about $6 million of which went to Los Angeles County. The county, which opened a massive new ballot processing center in 2024, announced it would shift to around-the-clock ballot counting in the days after the Nov. 3 election and used some of its state funding to purchase a third mail ballot processing machine.
A full analysis of the impacts of those efforts statewide has not been completed, and ballot counting is still underway. But one week after the polls closed, officials in L.A. County and independent election observers say the efforts clearly paid off.
A statewide report on unprocessed ballots as of 5:41 p.m. Tuesday found that L.A. County had processed about 99% of nearly 3.2 million ballots cast in the county, with just 37,800 ballots still to process. That’s well ahead of where it was at the same point after other recent elections.
Kim Alexander, president of the nonprofit, nonpartisan California Voter Foundation, which has for years tracked ballot processing, said that compared to L.A. County having processed 96.9% of ballots a week after the 2024 general election and just 73.3% of ballots a week after the 2022 general election. She said a similar 99.3% of ballots had been counted by the county a week after the June primary — but nearly a million fewer people voted in that election.
Alexander said L.A. County was also well ahead of the state average for ballots processed seven days after an election, which stood at 92.8% processed a week after the June primary, 84.2% processed a week after the 2024 general election, and 71.6% processed a week after the 2022 general election.
On Tuesday, L.A. County, the most populous county in the state, was outpacing other big counties, such as San Diego and Orange counties, which had both processed over 1 million ballots but had 185,000 and 116,660 left to count late Tuesday, respectively. It was also outpacing some of state’s smaller counties, such as Humboldt, which had counted more than 25,000 ballots but had nearly the same amount left to process.
L.A. County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean Logan said the success of this election was a result of the state funding, which “came very late in the process,” but also years of support from the county — especially for the new $10 million, 144,000-square-feet processing facility.
Before the new facility was opened, the county processed ballots in multiple different locations. “And even on election day, we had to stop processing vote by mail ballots so that we could process the ballots coming in from the vote centers,” Logan said. “Now we have a space that is designed and — provided we have the resources to staff it — we can keep those operations going on simultaneously.”
The county’s purchase of a third mail sorting machine, Logan said, also helped workers to more quickly process the massive influx of ballot envelopes that voters drop off at vote centers or in drop boxes on election day.
Logan said the count this election also may have been quickened slightly by more voters returning their ballots earlier in the process and voting in person.
Alexander called the quickened count, during an election with high turnout and a long and complicated state ballot, “remarkable” — and all the more so given the tremendous amount of pressure the Trump administration was putting on L.A. County.
“I feel this vote count in L.A. and across the state is remarkable in that it appears to be going smoothly and in L.A. clearly very efficiently, but it’s also remarkable given all of the hurdles that we had to overcome to conduct this election,” Alexander said.
The day after California’s primary election in June, President Trump took to social media to allege — with zero evidence — that Democrats were “trying to STEAL THE GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA PRIMARY, AND THE MAYOR OF LOS ANGELES, PRIMARY, AWAY FROM TWO GREAT REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES.”
“Votes are all tied up. May not be in for weeks. Under investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles,” Trump wrote. “Why the vote counting DELAY???”
While dismissing such claims as baseless and a threat to democracy, Gov. Gavin Newsom in May acknowledged that the longer it takes to count votes, the “more mis- and disinformation spreads.” That’s why, he said, state lawmakers passed legislation in 2025 to speed up the process.
“We must do all that we can to tabulate votes quickly and accurately,” Newsom said in a letter to elections officials. “Time is of the essence in preventing election lies from taking hold.”
Other states do count votes and call elections faster than California, though California officials say that is for several reasons.
California counts far more ballots than any other state, provides voters with more options for voting than other states, provides a grace period for counting ballots postmarked by election day but received in the days that follow, and provides opportunities for voters whose ballots have an issue — such a signature discrepancy — to cure them in the days after an election.
None of those explanations have convinced Trump, however. And his comments criticizing California were not just bluster.
Instead, they were part of a much larger, highly-coordinated effort by his administration to wrest control over voting processes in the state to institute stricter rules and new federal oversight for mail ballots, stricter requirements around voter ID and proof of citizenship and stricter rules for when ballots must arrive to county officials in order to be counted, Alexander said.
Federal courts, including the Supreme Court, shot down all of those efforts. The Supreme Court also rejected federal demands that California and L.A. County halt the counting of 20,000 ballots the Trump administration alleged could be from noncitizens — but not before Justice Department officials sent letters to county elections officials across the state, threatening them with criminal prosecution if they counted those ballots. Litigation was playing out right up until election day.
Logan said the judicial branch played a pivotal role in defending California’s elections from the Trump administration, and prevented an election disaster. He and other county officials said in court filings that, had they been forced to begin segregating the 20,000 flagged ballots in the midst of the election, “chaos” would have ensued.
Logan also said that the success of this election “is not guaranteed going forward,” and should be understood by state and county officials as further proof that investments in elections in L.A. County and across the state are not only beneficial but critical moving forward — particularly ahead of 2028, when the Trump administration can be expected to target California once more.
“We will continue to be a target of the administration,” he said.
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Two California governors faced recall in the last 30 years.
In 2021, Gavin Newsom survived an effort to recall him amid the COVID-19 pandemic. But in 2003, Gray Davis was ousted from office and replaced by Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Now, voters will consider significant changes to recall rules for elected state officials.
Under current law, when an elected official is recalled in California, the election for their replacement occurs at the same time. Proposition 5 breaks up that process into two parts, prioritizing the voters’ right to oust an official before selecting a replacement.
This ballot measure would amend the state constitution to change the current recall system. Under the proposed changes, voters would first be asked to choose whether or not to oust an official. Then, in the event of a recall, the official would be replaced by appointment, succession or special election at a later date. In the case of a special election, the former officeholder could run again.
The measure also would designate California’s lieutenant governor as the de facto replacement for a recalled governor until the next term.
California’s rules for recalling politicians date to the Progressive era and were seen at the time as a way to give more power to voters.
But there have been concerns in recent years that the process needs reform, especially after the 2021 recall that Newsom overwhelmingly beat back; it cost local and state governments more than $200 million.
After the Newsom recall failed, the Legislature began a bipartisan task force to suggest changes.
California’s costly, confusing recall sparks an effort to rethink the rules (L.A. Times, 2021)
The history of recalls in California (L.A. Times)
The Little Hoover Commission on recall reform (State of California)
By Mark Vancleave and Rebecca Boone
MINNEAPOLIS — Conservative activists James O’Keefe and Cam Higby were charged Wednesday with unlawful voting and identity theft after a Minnesota prosecutor said they gave false names to poll workers during the state’s primary election. The men recorded the exchanges for a video to expose what they say are vulnerabilities in the state’s voting laws.
Hennepin County Atty. Mary Moriarty announced the felony charges at a news conference. She said O’Keefe, 42, of West Palm Beach, Fla., and Higby, 26, of Covington, Wash., wore costumes and used the names of registered state voters while starting the “vouching” process in the Aug. 11 primary. The process provides a way for unregistered voters who lack proof of their current address to register and vote after signing an oath of eligibility.
Poll workers were suspicious and reported their behavior. Moriarty said the situation shows that “the system for identifying misconduct and responding to it functioned well during the primary.”
O’Keefe, who founded and later was ousted as leader of Project Veritas, gained notoriety by publishing undercover sting-style videos such as the one made at the Minnesota polling places. He was not immediately available for comment, and court records do not name an attorney to comment on his behalf.
Higby did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment and did not have an attorney in court records. Neither of them has had an opportunity to enter a plea.
Minnesota allows registered voters to “vouch” for another voter in the same precinct by signing an oath attesting to the second person’s identity and that they live in the precinct. The person being vouched for also must sign an oath attesting to their identity and eligibility to vote, and must also provide their Minnesota driver’s license or identification card number or the last four digits of their Social Security number.
The process is rarely used but is most commonly done by older adults who have not updated their address on a driver’s license because they no longer drive. In the November 2024 election, fewer than 0.6% of votes cast used the process, according to the Minnesota secretary of state’s office website.
In their video that was posted to YouTube on Aug. 13, O’Keefe, Higby and others dressed in costumes similar to attire worn by some Muslims and used fake accents while asking about the vouching process at multiple Minneapolis voting sites. Higby’s face was covered, and when talking to poll workers, O’Keefe referred to him as his wife.
Moriarty said both men “identified themselves using names of registered voters in the precinct without those voters’ knowledge or permission.”
The poll workers noticed the “strange behavior” and flagged it to election officials, who asked police to investigate, Moriarty said. The men stopped short of signing the oath required for vouching, but Moriarty said that giving false names and starting the process was enough to justify the felony charges.
“Free and fair elections are the bedrock of democracy, and their protection is one of our highest priorities,” Moriarty said.
O’Keefe’s organization, O’Keefe Media Group, posted a statement and the video on its website and said the men presented “an intentionally extreme scenario to expose what they see as the lunacy of the state’s ‘vouching’ system.”
“The team wanted to determine how election workers would respond, what safeguards they would describe, and how far they would allow the vouching process to proceed,” the statement said. “Not every election worker reacted the same way. While several workers explained how the undercover team could proceed under the vouching rules, others became suspicious of the group and took issue with the investigation. Some workers communicated concerns about the team over their radios.”
David Becker, a former Justice Department official and the executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, said he wasn’t aware of any examples of vouching leading to organized or widespread fraud. But he said there have been more efforts recently by those pushing voter fraud claims to commit questionable acts themselves.
“Impersonating another voter is a very serious crime,” Becker said.
Voter identification laws vary from state to state. Thirty-six states have laws requesting or requiring voters to show some form of identification at the polls, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, but that identification can range from a photo ID to documents such as a utility bill or bank statement.
In the remaining 14 states and Washington, D.C., voters can cast a ballot without showing ID. They must verify their identity in various other ways, such as signing an affidavit or providing personal information such as birth date, name or address.
Some states, such as Minnesota, allow election officials or other registered voters to vouch for people without a current ID. Alaska and New Hampshire, for instance, allow officials including a clerk or a supervisor to verify a voter’s identity if they know the voter personally. North Dakota allows people who lack ID cards because of a disability to have an attester certify that they are a qualified voter. West Virginia allows an adult who has known a voter for at least six months to sign a sworn statement verifying the voter’s identity.
Vancleave and Boone write for the Associated Press. Boone reported from Boise, Idaho. AP writer Ali Swenson contributed to this report.
The UCLA women’s basketball team isn’t concerned about being hunted as the reigning national champions, coach Cori Close said. That’s up to somebody else.
“Having a target on your back means that you’re worried about what someone else is going to do,” she added. “That’s an outcome-based [way of] thinking, and we have to be obsessed with our process, obsessed with our standards.”
As the Bruins prepare to open the season at Pauley Pavilion against Lehigh on Monday, they are focused on getting better every day and following the championship-level process the program established. It’s not their job to worry about what others think about them, forward Sienna Betts said.
“I don’t really care what the media has to say or whatever,” Betts said. “It really is just a matter of what is in these four walls and what we know we’re putting into practice every day.”
UCLA forward Sienna Betts shoots under pressure from Texas’ Breya Cunningham at H-E-B Center in Cedar Park, Texas, on Sunday.
(Scott Wachter / Getty Images)
While the Bruins are maintaining the same championship standards as last year, the group tasked with meeting them looks considerably different than last season.
UCLA will begin the 2026-27 season with five players returning from the championship team, Betts being one of them. None of the returning players were starters, with the top six performers getting selected in the 2026 WNBA draft. The rest of this season’s Bruins consists of seven newcomers, including two freshmen and five transfers.
“We’re not trying to repeat an outcome, we’re repeating a process,” Betts said. “We’re our own group and I don’t think it’s fair to put the weight of last year on this group.”
Close’s roster includes the No. 5 transfer portal class in the nation, according to ESPN. The group includes Donovyn Hunter, who transferred from TCU and described the process of transferring as uncomfortable. She also said adjusting to a new system is difficult.
“We’re going to mess up, we’re going to make mistakes, we’re not going to get it on the first try, but knowing that there’s a coach that’s behind you, that knows you’re going to get to that level has been the most important thing for all of those transfers and the freshmen,” Hunter said.
Three of the five transfers are international players learning English, including Elina Aarnisalo, who returned to Westwood after spending a season at North Carolina.
UCLA guard Donovyn Hunter drives to the basket in front of Texas’ Breya Cunningham in Cedar Park, Texas, on Sunday.
(Scott Wachter / Getty Images)
“We spent a lot of time together … so that’s helped us on court and obviously practicing every day,” Aarnisalo said. “… Even though there might be a language barrier, sometimes we’re just spending time together and learning [from] each other so that relationship part comes pretty naturally for all of us.”
Regardless of the language barriers, Betts said building the team’s chemistry is a good start and a work in progress as they enter the start of the season.
“I think our connection on the court, it’s really showing and we’re still just learning how to play with each other. … It takes time,” she said. “The team last year, they were playing with each other for four years and over.”
Even with the added pressure that comes with last year’s championship run, Aarnisalo isn’t worried about the expectations. She’s enjoying the kind of media attention the Bruins are getting.
She’s happy the returning players were able to lift the trophy last year and says the exposure that goes with it is an opportunity to show off the newly reloaded UCLA team.
“We’re making our own process out of this,” she said. “Obviously, the standards are the same, like it’s championship standards, but it’s completely new people, new personalities. [We’re] just trying to create our own storyline for this year.”
Breeze coach Noelle Quinn directs players during an Unrivaled game against the Laces on Feb. 27 in Medley, Fla.
(Leonardo Fernandez / Getty Images)
After spending 12 years as a professional player and six years coaching in the WNBA, Noelle Quinn has returned to Westwood. She is a two-time WNBA champion, winning a title as a player and a coach.
“I have not been able to find anyone else that has won a conference championship in college, a WNBA championship as a player and as a coach,” Close said. “You don’t think when she talks, they listen?”
The fourth overall pick in the 2007 WNBA draft has had an influence among the UCLA coaches, with Close noting associate head coach Tony Newnan told Quinn during a staff meeting that she was making him a better coach.
On the court, Quinn’s defensive expertise is creating an environment that has helped Bonnie Deas get excited about playing defense.
“I love defense and she brings so much energy to our defensive side of the game,” Deas said. “She’s so switched on with our scout and film, she makes defense really, really exciting.”
Betts describes her defensive presence as calming.
“I love the way she just talks and the way she talks about defense and just the game,” she said. “She brings such warmth to this gym.”
typhoonski/iStock Editorial via Getty Images
One of the two bidding consortia for GFL Environmental (GFL) has moved ahead in the waste-management company’s sales process.
Both of the consortia are still in the process, according to traders, citing a CTFN report that was circulating on Tuesday. Some shareholders are