President Donald Trump has promoted dozens of completely different lies about American elections. Some of them are comparatively subtle. Some are transparently foolish.
House Speaker Mike Johnson is now selling one of the very most laughable.
In an interview that aired Monday, Trump said Republicans ought to “take over the voting” in at the least “15 places” as a result of of supposed corruption he has proven no proof of. Then Johnson told reporters Tuesday:
“In some of the states – like in California, for example. I mean, they hold the elections open for weeks after Election Day. That’s just one thing that bothers so many people. We had three House Republican candidates who were ahead on Election Day in the last election cycle, and every time a new tranche of ballots came in, they just magically whittled away until their leads were lost. And no series of ballots that were counted after Election Day were our candidates ahead on any of those counts. It just – it looks on its face to be fraudulent. Can I prove that? No, because it happened so far upstream.”
Even with Johnson’s un-Trumpian admission that he doesn’t have proof of fraud, this can be a lot of nonsense.
There is nothing magical and nothing fraudulent “on its face” a couple of Republican having an early lead in a California vote depend after which dropping that lead as extra votes are counted – simply as there may be nothing magical or fraudulent on its face a couple of Democrat having an early lead in a vote depend in one other state after which dropping that lead as extra votes are counted.
All that occurs in each instances is that … professional ballots are legitimately counted.
In the presidential swing state of Arizona, mail-in ballots must arrive at elections offices by the time the polls close on Election Day. Because mail-in votes are inclined to favor Democrats as of late, partly as a result of Trump has repeatedly discouraged his supporters from voting this manner, Arizona’s Democratic candidates might have illusory big leads when mail-in votes that arrived early are shortly added to the vote totals on Election Night – however they could lose these leads or see them slim because the votes which are solid in-person or dropped off on Election Day are totally counted over the approaching days.
Conversely, California permits mail-in ballots to arrive up to seven days after Election Day so long as they’re postmarked on or earlier than Election Day – and the Democratic-dominated state with the nation’s largest inhabitants has a huge volume of mail-in ballots to depend, around 13 million out of roughly 16.1 million votes in the 2024 election. California’s guidelines for processing mail-in ballots and for mail-in voters fixing issues with their signatures additionally contribute to a slower depend than in different states. So: California’s Republican candidates might have illusory large leads within the early depend from in-person votes, then lose these leads or see them slim as mail-in ballots are totally counted.
None of this ought to be remotely difficult to anybody as closely concerned in US elections because the speaker of the House is. And media shops have been explaining it to the general public for years.
Johnson didn’t clarify precisely what he meant by “they hold the elections open for weeks after Election Day,” however he actually left open the impression that Californians are allowed to vote after Election Day. They aren’t. California voters should vote in particular person or ship of their mail-in poll on Election Day or earlier.
It is true that California tends to take weeks to complete its vote depend. That course of might get a bit quicker after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a 2025 bill to attempt to get counties to hurry it up. Regardless, a gradual depend is an indication of a gradual depend, not an indication of fraud. And opposite to what seems to be a widespread notion, vote-counting continues for days after Election Day in states all through the nation – even when media shops have already “called” the winner.
Those media calls are casual projections, not ultimate outcomes, and don’t finish the depend even in landslide victories wherein most of the people shortly stops being attentive to candidates’ exact numbers. It could be unfathomable for Johnson to not know this.
Mel Levey is the registrar of voters in Merced County, California, which sits within the House district that had the closest race within the nation in 2024, the place a Republican candidate was initially leading in the count however the Democrat ended up winning by 187 votes. Levey stated in a press release to NCS that observers and attorneys from each the Republican and Democratic campaigns “observed every single aspect of the canvass” in 2024 and that neither facet requested a recount after the certification of the razor-thin end result; “they knew the results were fair and accurate,” Levey stated.
“I invite Speaker Johnson to visit my office to observe how elections are actually conducted in California. There is nothing ‘magical’ about it,” Levey stated. “Just a lot of hard work and long days from non-partisan election officials who live and work in the communities for whom they help administer elections.”