Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt questioned California’s vote-counting system for the first time Saturday night as his lead over Councilwoman Nithya Raman shrank.Pratt, who is competing against Raman in the primary to challenge Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, held a less than 10,000-vote lead over Raman as of Saturday night, after leading by about 40,000 votes on Wednesday morning. As of 11:30 p.m., Pratt had received 27.3% of the vote, and Raman received 26.2%, with 77.% of the expected vote having been counted.
Pratt responded to the narrowing margin in a post on X with the caption, “Me trying to figure out how votes get counted in LA.”
The comment comes one day after a Los Angeles-based Department of Justice official debunked a claim circulating on social media that Pratt received zero new votes in a vote-count update. The claim had been amplified by Elon Musk, and President Donald Trump has long raised concerns about mail-in voting and election fraud.
The top two finishers in the primary advance to a Nov. 3 runoff against Bass, who secured a spot on Wednesday.
California’s election results often take longer to finalize because of the state’s widespread use of mail-in voting. Election officials must review and verify mailed ballots, including some that arrive days later, before certifying the results.
