Jurors Got It Right on Karmelo Anthony
The citizens charged with adjudicating this case took that task seriously and called Anthony’s crime what it was: murder.

Spencer Pratt’s pratfall in LA, Graham Platner’s victory, prediction markets, and other takeaways from the California and Maine primary elections. The post The Right’s “Election Fraud” Cry for Midterms Previewed in Primaries appeared first on The Intercept.
The citizens charged with adjudicating this case took that task seriously and called Anthony’s crime what it was: murder.
“Accuracy comes before speed.” That was California Secretary of State Shirley Weber’s message to voters in a press release issued two days after officials began counting ballots from June’s primary. In the same release, she reminded voters that the count could continue for up to 30 days after Election Day.Weber argued that California is “taking the time to do this work correctly” to protect voters’ rights and ensure election integrity.After 2022, 2024, and this year’s primary, the problem no longer looks like a glitch. It looks like a pattern created by poor policy choices.She is right about one thing: Accuracy matters.Every lawful ballot should be counted. Every voter should be confident that election officials will get the count right.But a week after Election Day, California was still processing 1.4 million ballots under a system that routinely extends vote counting for days and sometimes weeks after voters cast their ballots.That raises a question California’s leaders seem increasingly unwilling to answer: Why are voters repeatedly told they must choose between accurate elections and timely results?This is not the first time California has found itself in this mess.In 2022, several California congressional races remained unresolved long after Election Day while control of the U.S. House hung in limbo. Two years later, California took 38 days to certify its election results. Now in 2026, Californians are again waiting weeks after Election Day for final results.The details change. The outcome does not. Californians keep waiting.So why does this keep happening?The answer starts with California election law. According to CalMatters, the delay is due in part to policies California adopted to make voting easier after the COVID-19 pandemic: Every registered voter receives a mail ballot, and ballots remain valid as long as they are postmarked by Election Day and arrive at county elections offices within seven days.Election law expert Hans von Spakovsky has argued that California’s slow vote count is not an isolated incident or unexpected complication. It is the way the state’s election system is designed.RELATED: ‘Fraudster’s paradise’: Feds plan to file election fraud charges in California Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesIn other words, California is not experiencing an unexpected delay. It is experiencing the predictable results of the laws it chose.Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) helped cement those policies in 2021 when he signed AB 37, making universal vote by mail permanent. His office promoted the law as “landmark elections legislation” that would expand vote by mail and strengthen election integrity.Yet, Californians are now being sold the idea that waiting days or weeks for election results is simply the reality of modern elections.It is not. It is the reality of California elections.Timely results are part of election integrity. The longer ballots remain uncounted, the longer election officials must maintain secure chains of custody, verification systems, and storage. Delay does not automatically mean fraud. But delay does create more opportunities for confusion, suspicion, and avoidable controversy.If California leaders want faster results, they should examine the policies that slow them down.Instead, voters are told these delays are the unavoidable cost of administering elections in a large state. That explanation falls apart under scrutiny.Look at Florida. The 2000 presidential election exposed serious weaknesses in that state’s election system. Legislators responded by reforming the state’s election administration and ballot-processing procedures.Today, Florida is one of the fastest states in the country to report election results.Florida allows election officials to begin processing mail ballots before Election Day, giving counties a head start on verification. The state also requires most mail ballots to be received by Election Day rather than days afterward. Voters whose signatures are missing or do not match generally have a much shorter window to fix those problems than California voters do.Florida proves that accuracy and speed are not mutually exclusive.California has chosen a different approach.This is about more than administrative efficiency. In five months, Californians will return to the polls for the midterm election. Voters deserve confidence that the results will be accurate. They also deserve confidence that those results will arrive on time.RELATED: Homeless people on Skid Row claim they were paid to vote — and not for Spencer Pratt Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Times/Getty ImagesLawmakers should examine whether ballots should continue arriving after Election Day and still be counted. They should review whether lengthy ballot-curing timelines help voters or simply extend uncertainty.
As election integrity debates continue to rage across California, Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck believes state leaders are making a dangerous mistake: treating skepticism as a threat instead of addressing the concerns behind it. “What’s happening in California is dangerous, and ... if you can be reasonable and you can listen without the lens of your tribe, there is a way to an answer here. But nobody seems, especially on the left, nobody seems to want to actually fix the problem,” Glenn says. “And so what do they want to do? They want to shut you up,” he adds, explaining that Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill that “said fines and jail time [for] three years if you are interfering with the election.” “This particular penalty is aimed at people who physically walk off with boxes of ballots,” Glenn explains. “Listen to the language around it.”“The governor wrote a letter telling his officials to ‘count fast’ so the ‘election lies’ don’t take hold. Stop and think about that for a second. Wait a minute. The chief executive of the largest state in the union has appointed himself the man who decides which doubts are lies,” he says. “And in the same season, his allies pass a provision that tells election observers they may no longer challenge the signatures on the ballot they’re watching get counted. So, they didn’t criminalize your doubt. They did something quieter,” he continues. “They turned down the lights in the room where the counting happens. And you’re told it’s a conspiracy theory to ask, ‘Why did it get so dark?’” Glenn explains that a glaring issue with this is that the government cannot ever “be the arbiter of truth.” “Especially when the question on the table is about the government itself. You cannot let the accused run the evidence room,” he says. “You’re accusing California of having fraud, and what do they do? They say, ‘No, we’re in charge.’ Right? You’re the one that everybody’s saying is causing the fraud, and they’re saying, ‘No, you can’t question because there’s no fraud,’” he continues. “That doesn’t help anything.” “This is not a conservative idea or a liberal idea. It’s just how you keep a free people free,” he adds.
A Republican election expert slammed one of the top MAGA demands as impossible and "asinine in the extreme."In a recent interview, Stephen Richer, the former Maricopa County recorder and a fellow at the Cato Institute, tore apart the idea of hand counting ballots.Legal reporter Adam Klasfeld asked Richer if the "loudly demanded" idea from election denialists would "do anything to make elections operate faster or more accurately?""This is asinine in the extreme," Richer said. "If you think California is tabulating ballots slowly now, as I do, and we can get into how California can speed that up, but they wouldn't be done for six months if we were having them hand count all of those ovals."Richer brought up that supporters of hand tabulation argue, "France can do it," but countered, "France has one election every so often, and they have one item on the ballot."He explained that California, by contrast, "will probably have about eighty-plus contests" on the average ballot in November."You multiply that over a few million, not just a few million, but close to 20 million voters," Richer explained. "It would be far less accurate. It would be far less fast and be far more expensive."U.S. election officials "do hand count ballots" for audits, and "that's an important feature of an election system." He also supported paper ballots, saying they're "a good thing because it creates an immutable, unhackable, auditable paper trail."
Dear Senator Cornyn, I approached you respectfully at the airport, extending my hand & introducing myself. We were at the ticket gate with literally dozens of witnesses - passengers inches away. Despite a quib reply back from you, I kept things professional & focused on the
After losing county funding, Los Angeles’ primary homeless services agency has lost federal funding due to its failure to address potential fraud.The Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, alongside the Department of Housing and Urban Development, sent a letter on Thursday to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority to inform the agency that it was immediately suspending funding amid an ongoing probe by HUD’s inspector general. The IG’s office is investigating any potential offenses by the LAHSA and its leadership, according to Fox News Digital, which obtained a copy of the letter.'Taxpayers will not bankroll LA’s fraud-filled homelessness industrial complex.'The department reportedly outlined in its letter conflicts of interest, financial mismanagement, fraud, and oversight failures.HUD has given the Los Angeles Continuum of Care, which is led by the LAHSA, nearly $1 billion over the last five years.“Suspending LAHSA’s participation in federal government programs is a necessary step in accomplishing that critical mission in Los Angeles,” the letter read, according to Fox News Digital. “LAHSA’s failures have been so severe and pervasive that Los Angeles County has withdrawn its funding for the agency, and the City of Los Angeles is considering doing so as well.”“HUD cannot ignore LAHSA’s wanton mismanagement of public funds. HUD’s mission is to reduce the plague of homelessness in America,” the agency’s letter continued. “Turning over billions of dollars from American taxpayers to an organization under investigation and suspected of gross misuse of federal funding and ‘obvious fraud’ does nothing to reduce homelessness. Indeed, diverting dollars from worthy programs to LAHSA merely makes the homeless crisis worse.”RELATED: Socialist mayoral candidate is outraged at encampment outside her LA home — but it's not what it seems Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times/Getty ImagesHUD’s letter quoted a federal judge who stated last year that the LAHSA had committed “obvious fraud” after it allegedly sought full funding for an 88-bed shelter despite maintaining only roughly half occupancy.HUD also noted that a former top LAHSA official, Va Lecia Adams Kellum, was caught up in a conflict-of-interest scandal. The LAist reported in Feb. 2025 that the executive signed contracts that funneled $2.1 million to a nonprofit where her husband held a senior leadership position. The LAHSA told the outlet that Adams Kellum was “completely recused” from any business related to the nonprofit, and the contracts were inadvertently given to her for signature.The LAist reported that the LAHSA has an $828 million budget this fiscal year, 46% of which comes from Los Angeles County, 35% from the city of Los Angeles, 11% from the federal government, over 8% from California, and a smaller amount from private philanthropy.RELATED: Homeless people on Skid Row claim they were PAID TO VOTE — and not for Spencer Pratt Scott Turner. SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images.L.A. County voted last year to cut $300 million in funding from the LAHSA, beginning in July. The county has formed a new department to address homelessness, which it believes will increase accountability by “streamlining bureaucracy to stretch our dollars further, and improving care for people experiencing homelessness.”HUD Secretary Scott Turner stated that the agency “will fund results, not corrupt failure.”“While hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars were funneled to LAHSA with little accountability, homelessness skyrocketed,” Turner wrote. “Taxpayers will not bankroll L.A.’s fraud-filled homelessness industrial complex.”“For years, American taxpayers have been sending billions of dollars to Los Angeles to house the homeless and other vulnerable Americans. The result? Fraud and corruption. That ends today,” White House Task Force Executive Director Scott Brady stated, according to a HUD press release.The LAHSA confirmed receipt of HUD’s letter and warned that the department’s actions “could put thousands of formerly homeless people back on the street,” the agency said in a statement provided to Blaze News.“After initial review, this appears to be a blatant attempt to pull yet more resources from Los Angeles, a city they have targeted time and again, when it is clear that LAHSA has either corrected or is in the process of correcting nearly all of the issues raised,” the agency said. “Local oversight actions have already resulted in strong repairs and reforms to LAHSA’s internal controls, which are accountable and viewable to the public.”The LAHSA noted that it is also modernizing its financial systems.“If HUD’s inspector general actually conducts a fair review of LAHSA’s current and future practices, they will clearly see how our systems now allow us to clearly track the work and investments that have resulted in L.A. outperforming the nation by reducing homelessness over the last two years,” the statement continued.
Why have a meltdown when you could have this AC instead?
The department once tried to stay out of state elections, urging caution. It is now pressing forward with claims of fraud as President Trump revives his unfounded assertions that elections cannot be trusted.