WOW! 😮 Ro, let’s go line by line.
You say your close friend is canceling his registration and you “explained” to him why the count is slow — as if a condescending civics lesson is what a disillusioned voter needs. Your friend isn’t confused about mechanics, Congressman. He’s disgusted by outcomes. There’s a difference, and the fact that you can’t see it tells us everything about how disconnected you are from the people you claim to represent.
You explain that absentee ballots skew older and more conservative and get counted first, while Election Day voters skew younger and Democratic and come in later. You present this as neutral information. It isn’t. What you just described is a system whose structural design produces dramatic late shifts that consistently benefit one party. You built that system. You voted to protect that system. You have defended that system for years. And now you’re explaining it to a grieving voter like it’s a weather pattern nobody controls. Own it.
Then you pivot to calling for 48-hour tabulation — which is precisely what conservatives have been demanding for YEARS while being called dangerous election deniers and conspiracy theorists by people in your party. Florida counts millions of ballots overnight. The wealthiest state in the nation, home to Silicon Valley, your own district, somehow cannot do what Mississippi manages. That is not a resource problem. That is a choice. And your party made it.
And then — the most revealing part — you say the slow count is “eroding trust and spawning conspiracy theories.” Ro, YOU just spent two paragraphs explaining exactly how the system works and who benefits from it. When voters look at those same mechanics and draw conclusions, that’s not a conspiracy theory. That is the same pattern recognition you just demonstrated. The only difference is you have a blue checkmark and they don’t.
What you never mention — not once — is that Los Angeles conservatives had ZERO choices on the November mayoral ballot. Zero. The top-two primary that your party created and celebrates wiped them off the map entirely. You want to talk about eroding trust? A system that gives an entire class of voters no one to vote for IS the conspiracy. It’s just a legal one.
Your friend isn’t wrong to walk away, Ro. You just made his case for him.
A close friend of mine is cancelling his voter registration today. He is convinced Spencer Pratt was robbed of the election. I explained to him that in California we count absentees first (which skew older and more conservative) and election day voters are younger and more Democratic. The slow count is largely because of policies to maximize participation, including postmarking a ballot on Election Day.
Regardless, we need to figure out in California how we can get the vote counted faster and results tabulated so it does not drag on. We should make the investments in operational improvements and resources in the wealthiest state in the nation. It is worth spending the resources to get the vast majority of the vote counted within 48 hours. Right now the system is eroding trust and spawning conspiracy theories.