Republican Steve Hilton hasn’t seen evidence of election rigging in California’s race for governor

Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton may not be happy with California’s slow ballot-counting process. But so far, he’s not accusing Democrats of rigging the primary election results in the governor’s race.

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“We’ve had teams on it. We’ve had lawyers standing by,” Hilton said during a Tuesday, June 9, press conference outside the Los Angeles County registrar’s administrative building in Norwalk.

• See also: A week after Election Day, Xavier Becerra and Steve Hilton address ballot-counting concerns

“We’ve seen nothing that would warrant … intervention,” the former Fox News host said.

Although he had convened Tuesday’s news conference there to criticize the state’s election system and call for voter ID reform, Hilton did not go so far as to suggest impropriety in the counting of votes thus far in the race for governor.

Hilton remained in second place as statewide ballot counting continued Tuesday afternoon. He said earlier in the day that he was “confident” he would join Democrat Xavier Becerra in the November runoff, though he was waiting for the Associated Press to call the race in his favor before declaring victory.

Hilton’s comments that his team has yet to observe anything to suggest election rigging in his race put him somewhat at odds with President Donald Trump.

The president, who has endorsed Hilton, frequently alleges, without evidence, that rampant voter fraud has hurt Republicans, particularly in California.

Trump continued making those assertions last week as Becerra closed in on Hilton in the governor’s race and as Republican Spencer Pratt started slipping in the Los Angeles mayoral race.

Later ballots that arrive and get tabulated after Election Day tend to lean Democratic, as Republicans usually vote earlier or in person on Election Day. This year, especially, many Democratic voters held onto their ballots longer than usual before mailing them in as they were still deciding which candidate to vote for in the governor’s race.

So seeing the later ballot counts break for Democrats isn’t particularly surprising.

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On Friday, Becerra overtook Hilton and became the first gubernatorial candidate the Associated Press declared would move on to the November runoff election. Similarly, on Monday, the AP said L.A. City Councilmember Nithya Raman, a progressive Democrat, would join Democratic Mayor Karen Bass and advance to the November runoff in the mayoral race, edging out Pratt who had slipped to third place the day before.

Despite these developments, Hilton said those who have been observing the ballot count closely haven’t seen evidence of fraud in the governor’s race that would require intervention.

“But more than that,” Hilton said, “I’m very confident that Bill Essayli, the (first assistant) U.S. attorney, is looking at it very closely … and so far he hasn’t seen anything that would require that kind of intervention.”

Essayli announced on Friday that his office is conducting “multiple election fraud investigations” along with the FBI, but he did not provide specifics. He also said the U.S. Department of Justice is conducting a comprehensive audit of California’s voter rolls.

“California’s election system has serious structural vulnerabilities. Universal vote-by-mail with no voter ID requirements creates conditions where fraud can go undetected and unpunished, eroding public confidence,” Essayli said in an X post.

A federal prosecutor also visited the L.A. County registrar’s ballot processing center on Friday. A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California did not say whether this was a regularly scheduled visit or part of Essayli’s fraud probe.

Ballot processing is open to public observers, and election officials routinely have observers who are sent there on behalf of candidates, political parties or government agencies.

Essayli, in announcing the probes being conducted by his office, said protecting the integrity of the state’s elections was a top priority.

“We will follow the evidence wherever it leads and prosecute any violations of federal election law to the fullest extent,” he said.

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