California ponders a fundamental question: Should voting be easier or harder?

There is a problem with elections in California and Los Angeles. It’s just not the one you think.

For some, the issue is fraud. Lengthy ballot counts, ending in elections won by Democrats, strike those critics as prima facie evidence that results are being manipulated. They have no evidence, mind you, but they don’t like the outcome, so they assume chicanery.

What should offend the public, however, is not false charges of fraud but real evidence of voter indifference. In the 2024 presidential election, with California’s own Kamala Harris running against Donald Trump, less than 60% of the state’s eligible voters bothered to cast a ballot. That’s a problem: Low turnout undermines electoral legitimacy by producing outcomes that large numbers of people — sometimes local majorities — don’t necessarily support. 

Turnout is still being tabulated in the June gubernatorial race and Los Angeles mayoral election, but even those hotly contested primaries failed to entice eligible residents, especially younger voters of color. Barely 38% of registered voters in L.A. County cast ballots last month, according to preliminary data.

This year offers a series of opportunities for Californians to consider their voting principles and whether they should enlarge or constrain participation.

Those who seek to restrict the vote have qualified a measure for the November ballot that would require would-be voters to produce a government-issued ID card if voting in person, or to supply the last four digits of such an ID on their mail-in ballot. If Proposition 39 passes, fewer people might vote, which in theory would help more conservative candidates win.

At the other end of the debate are those who seek to expand the franchise. They have already found success in San Francisco, where certain residents without legal status can vote in school board races. That 2016 measure, which later had to fight its way through the courts, is grounded in the notion that voting should be open to those who care about a place, rather than as a reward of citizenship. 

A similar measure ran aground in Los Angeles recently, but will almost certainly be back on the civic agenda soon.

The common thread is a serious disagreement in California about who should vote and in which elections. Here, then, are a few issues and observations.

The effects of wider participation

First, long counts are a natural result of the state favoring participation. It is a reflection of local leaders — and their constituents — backing a process that makes it easier to vote. 

The Supreme Court recently validated that choice, upholding election rules that permit ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted as much as a week later. That ruling, incidentally, upheld the voting system of deep red Mississippi, which adopted a process that is similar to California’s — a reminder that voting does not have to be a matter of partisan disagreement.

Second, noncitizen voting redefines participation. It is expressly prohibited in federal elections and in nearly 20 states. But many localities have permitted it in the past, and in recent years Vermont, Maryland, Washington D.C. and California have authorized noncitizens to vote in local races if those jurisdictions approve it.

When the idea was floated this year for some local races in Los Angeles, the usual suspects breathed fire, claiming that L.A. was on the verge of letting “illegal aliens” flood voting rolls. As usual, those claims were false. The measure would have let L.A. voters authorize legal, noncitizen residents — green card holders, for example — participate in elections for city council or school board. 

Councilman Hugo Soto-Martinez championed the idea. He and others contended that opening the franchise to legal, noncitizen residents would recognize the real interest that taxpaying legal immigrants have in city or school board races. 

There’s room for disagreement, but the point is worth considering. A green card holder who has lived and worked in Los Angeles for years and who has children in Los Angeles schools surely has a greater stake in education matters than a recent transplant without kids. If the theory of voting is to let “stakeholders” participate, then noncitizen voting makes sense.

After seeming poised to head to the November ballot, however, Soto-Martinez pulled the measure at the last minute, conceding that it had riled some Black leaders, who worry about the effects on representation in their communities. The idea will certainly return.

Meanwhile, it’s a reminder that these are tough issues, with sometimes unexpected ramifications.

Losing is not evidence of fraud

Third, losing elections is not evidence — much less proof — of fraud. 

On June 10, the Dodgers were ahead 6-1 in the 7th inning against the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Dodgers blew the lead and lost 9-8. It must have been rigged! The Dodgers were the better team on paper, and they had the lead.

Fraud! Recount!

That’s ridiculous, of course. Sometimes a lead slips away. That’s why baseball teams play all nine innings.

To state the obvious, that’s true in elections, too. Losers like to complain, and that’s been the case in both the state and Los Angeles elections this summer. President Trump responded to Spencer Pratt’s defeat in the L.A. mayoral race by claiming, predictably, that the election was “rigged.” 

Trump’s a well-documented liar, so it hardly bears noting, but there was no evidence whatsoever that the city’s elections were rigged. Ballots were counted as they arrived, and though they arrived slowly, they were lawfully tallied and logged. 

The late-arriving ballots skewed more liberal than in-person votes, as is typical, given that younger, working, more liberal people take more advantage of California mail-in options. The Democratic skew was even more pronounced in this cycle, as many Democrats waited until the end to choose between Tom Steyer and Xavier Becerra in the governor’s race. 

The state balloting ultimately settled on Becerra and Republican Steve Hilton as the top-two finishers (hardly what you would expect if Democrats were manipulating the process). The Los Angeles count put incumbent Mayor Karen Bass on top, with City Councilmember Nithya Raman finishing second (again, not the outcome preferred by Bass, who was hoping to run against the hapless Pratt). 

Those results don’t reflect rigging — they reflect math. Becerra’s finish in the gubernatorial primary is no more evidence of fraud than Wyoming’s history of electing Republicans. 

The United States has a voting problem, but it’s not the one Trump likes to mewl about. Federal, state and local elections are not marred by widespread fraud. Illegal immigrants are not casting ballots. The real problem is that too few people participate, not too many.