Rigged

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California Secretary of State Shirley Weber on Monday pushed back against a torrent of misinformation on social media sites claiming that mail-in ballots for the state’s Nov. 4 special election are purposefully designed to disclose how people voted.

Weber, the state’s top elections official, refuted claims by some Republicans and far-right partisans that holes on ballot envelopes allow election officials to see how Californians voted on Proposition 50, the ballot measure about redistricting that will be decided in a special election in a little over three weeks.

“The small holes on ballot envelopes are an accessibility feature to allow sight-impaired voters to orient themselves to where they are required to sign the envelope,” Weber said in a statement released Monday.

Weber said voters can insert ballots in return envelopes in a manner that doesn’t reveal how they voted, or could cast ballots at early voting stations that will open soon or in person on Nov. 4.

Weber’s decision to “set the record straight” was prompted by conspiracy theories exploding online alleging that mail ballots received by 23 million Californians in recent days are purposefully designed to reveal the votes of people who opposed the measure.

“If California voters vote ‘NO’ on Gavin Newscum’s redistricting plan, it will show their answer through a hole in the envelope,” Libs of TikTok posted on the social media platform X on Sunday, in a post that has 4.8 million views. “All Democrats do is cheat.”

GOP Texas Sen. Ted Cruz earlier retweeted a similar post that has been viewed more than 840,000 times, and Republican California gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton, a conservative commentator, called for the November special election to be suspended because of the alleged ballot irregularities.

The allegation about the ballots, which has been raised by Republicans during prior California elections, stems from the holes in mail ballot envelopes that were created to help visually impaired voters and allow election workers to make sure ballots have been removed from envelopes.

The special election was called for by Gov. Gavin Newsom and other Democrats in an effort to counter President Trump urging GOP-led states, notably Texas, to redraw their congressional districts before next year’s midterm election to boost GOP ranks in the House and buttress his ability to enact his agenda during his final two years in office.

California Democrats responded by proposing a rare mid-decade redrawing of California’s 52 congressional boundaries to increase Democratic representation in Congress. Congressional districts are typically drawn once a decade by an independent state commission created by voters in 2010.

Nearly 600,000 Californians have already returned mail ballots as of Monday evening, according to a ballot tracker created by Political Data, a voter data firm that is led by Democratic strategist Paul Mitchell, who drew the proposed congressional boundaries on the November ballot.

Republican leaders in California who oppose the ballot measure have expressed concern about the ballot conspiracy theories, fearing the claims may suppress Republicans and others from voting against Proposition 50.

“Please don’t panic people about something that is easily addressed by turning their ballot around,” Roxanne Hoge, the chair of the Los Angeles County Republican Party, posted on X. “We need every no vote and we need them now.”

Jessica Millan Patterson, the former chair of the state GOP who is leading one of the two main committees opposing Proposition 50, compared not voting early to sitting on the sidelines of a football game until the third quarter.

“I understand why voters would be concerned when they see holes in their envelopes … because your vote is your business. It’s the bedrock of our system, being able to [vote by] secret ballot,” she said in an interview. “That being said, the worst thing that you could do if you are unhappy with the way things are here in California is not vote, and so I will continue to promote early voting and voting by mail. It’s always been a core principle for me.”

I stepped on my bathroom scale the other morning and could not believe the three digits staring up at me.

And I mean that literally — the scale was rigged.

I know this because I’ve been dieting my butt off, and I swear I’ve dropped 20 pounds. So the first thing I did was ask my wife whether she messed with the scale as some kind of prank.

She said no, adding, “Maybe you’re retaining liquids.”

Steve Lopez

Steve Lopez is a California native who has been a Los Angeles Times columnist since 2001. He has won more than a dozen national journalism awards and is a four-time Pulitzer finalist.

I threw the scale out immediately. Then I went back into the bathroom, took one look in the mirror, and got another shock.

That couldn’t be me in the reflection. No way.

I’ve got more hair than that. Everybody knows it, and people comment on it. I go onto social media and people are asking one another, almost every day: “How does he maintain such a full mane and youthful glow?”

I called my barber and fired him.

It’s not the barber, my wife said. You should take another look in the mirror.

Our columnist was dismayed when he discovered the Bible ranks higher in book sales than his own works. “That should be on the list of fake miracles, right up there with the loaves and fishes,” he writes.

(Marta Lavandier / Associated Press)

She’s been somewhat out of sorts lately, ever since I went on Nextdoor to wish all my neighbors a happy Independence Day, including “all you scum I wouldn’t speak to IF YOU WERE THE LAST ONES at the picnic.”

Half the time, my wife doesn’t even live with me, and I don’t know where she is. It’s odd, because the marriage is perfect. People ask us what the secret is, and I say it’s hospitality. We open our hearts and our home to others, and we were planning on building a backyard ballroom until our financial advisor told us we were already running up massive debt.

I sued him for negligence and financial fraud.

My wife brought home a couple of refugees sponsored by her church, and I went along with it, even though I think it’s wrong to blame coyotes every time a neighborhood pet disappears. We were having a cup of coffee and a few pastries, and one of them took a second almond croissant. And then, even before he finished it, he reached out and grabbed a bear claw.

There I am, watching it disappear, and between bites, this freeloader starts telling us our country has to offer more help to his country.

I couldn’t take it anymore.

“I wanted the bear claw!” I said. “You didn’t even say thanks for the croissant, and now you want a third pastry? Get out of my house!”

To calm myself, I slipped into the living room to relax with a book. I picked one that was on a shelf next to three books I’ve written, which made me curious about how sales have been going lately.

So I went to Amazon to check the rankings.

The first book I checked was ranked 3,907,369. I swear on the Bible, which, by the way, was ranked 206 on the bestsellers list.

Really?

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John have been in the ground for what, a couple of thousand years? Nobody can tell you whether any of them knew a Magi from a Musketeer, not to mention that the Roman Empire they worked under was a failed administration. And their book is selling better than mine by a mile?

That should be on the list of fake miracles, right up there with the loaves and fishes.

A dispute with a neighbor over a property line ? “The boundaries are rigged.”

(A dispute with a neighbor over a property line ? “The boundaries are rigged.”)

My book is a great book. It’s already listed up there with the all-time classics, and it got starred reviews everywhere. At Barnes & Noble, they keep it in the Beautiful Books section. When I was on a book tour, I had the biggest crowds ever. Way bigger than Hemingway. People are still talking about it.

So to cut to the chase, I gave my sales rank a Triple F rating.

Fake.

False.

Fony.

And I fired my book agent.

I checked out some of the books ranked higher than mine — other than the “holy” Bible — and it didn’t take long to figure out what’s going on.

First of all, a lot of the people allegedly “buying” books don’t exist. Somewhere between 30% and 40% of the people who go onto the review section and claim they love Stephen King books are actually dead.

And then you have a lot of people coming into this country illegally, ghastly people, and they are voting in elections and they are voting on books, too, because they’re being put up to it, and being well-compensated, I might add.

Little-known fact:

The vote-counting machines and the book-counting machines are made by the same company.

You know what they should call that company?

RIGGED!

Not to be obsessive, but I’ve heard it said that Stephen King doesn’t care for me much, and that’s fine. Water off a duck’s back. My dog has more talent than that guy. All he does is write stories about killers and horrible, sick people.

He should write a book about my neighbor, if he likes deranged people so much. Most neighbors love me; they’re kissing my you-know-what. But then there’s this guy, whom I’m having investigated. I went out to the curb to throw the bathroom scale away, and what do I see? That jackalope is putting his trash can on my property. I’m the one who’s encroaching, he tells me, and I should go to the county offices and check the property records.

Well, it just so happens that I already checked the records, and they’re inaccurate. It figures, because that last county administration was the worst in history. A bunch of corrupt, evil people. Who should have been impeached. They hired incompetents as surveyors, so don’t stand on the street and tell me where I can and can’t put my trash can, because the boundaries are rigged and I’m having them rewritten.

My lawyers are on it, and we will win this case on Day One, guaranteed, with time left over for a round of golf.

Note to self:

On the way home, pick up a bathroom scale.

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