Vote Fraud and Poor Election Administration in California: Recent Examples

California has long had problems with vote fraud and poor election administration.  Why does California have so many issues?  Single-party rule in the state is one possible answer.  Here are some of the remarkable recent examples of problems. 

California has widespread problems with voter registration, leading to issues for the June 7 primary:

Questions about the security and integrity of California voter information have surfaced after Riverside County’s district attorney described several online tampering incidents in which residents’ party registration was changed without their knowledge. . . . Many voters who said their party affiliations weren’t correct ended up using provisional ballots, which take longer to count because the voter’s eligibility has to be verified, or not voting at all.

Another indication of the inaccuracy of California's voter registration rolls is that hundreds of dead people have been voting in many recent elections:

A comparison of records by David Goldstein, investigative reporter for CBS2/KCAL9, has revealed hundreds of so-called dead voters in Southern California, a vast majority of them in Los Angeles County. “He took a lot of time choosing his candidates,” said Annette Givans of her father, John Cenkner.  Cenkner died in Palmdale in 2003. Despite this, records show that he somehow voted from the grave in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008 and 2010.

There was double voting during the June 7 primary:

The June primary election exposed an unacceptable potential for voter fraud in California that the state Legislature must immediately fix.  In just three counties, Contra Costa, Alameda and Santa Clara, 194 people voted twice, suggesting the abuse statewide might run into the thousands. 

There were widespread problems during the June 7 primary:

California voters faced a tough time at the polls Tuesday, with many voters saying they have encountered broken machines, polling sites that opened late and incomplete voter rolls, particularly in Los Angeles County. The result? Instead of a quick in-and-out vote, many California voters were handed the dreaded pink provisional ballot — which takes longer to fill out, longer for election officials to verify and which tends to leave voters wondering whether their votes will be counted.

Exacerbating the issues, California may have mishandled early and provisional ballots after the June 7 primary:

Internet sleuths of varying expertise have attempted to prove that the millions of ballots left uncounted on election night contained a Sanders victory over Hillary Clinton, but were prevented from being added to the count. The fact that 2.5 million early and provisional ballots were not yet counted when the networks called the primary has become another reason to doubt that the media can fairly cover the race. 

California has opened the door to more fraud through mandatory voter registration:  

California has found a way to drive up voter participation. Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, signed the New Motor Voter Act last October that automatically registers individuals to vote when they obtain a driver’s license and — taking nondiscrimination up a notch — driver’s licenses are available to illegal immigrants. Technically, noncitizens aren’t eligible to vote, but the law decrees that one who does “shall be presumed to have acted with official authorization and is not guilty of fraudulently voting or attempting to vote, unless that person willfully votes or attempts to vote knowing that he or she is not entitled to vote.”

Because of its 53 House races and numerous important state legislative races, California's election administration will be very important in November.