The lies \u2014 combined with Trump\u2019s sustained attacks on election security and a number of moves or threats his administration has made to interfere with local election processes \u2014 have raised alarms about what could happen in November.<\/p>\n
To set the record straight, KQED\u2019s Political Breakdown podcast sat down with election security expert David Becker<\/a> to discuss California\u2019s voting process, the federal government\u2019s role in elections and the likelihood that the Trump administration could interfere in the midterms.<\/p>\n Becker is executive director and founder of the nonpartisan, nonprofit Center for Election Innovation & Research, which works with election officials of both parties to ensure voting is secure, including providing pro bono legal assistance to election officials who are threatened with frivolous criminal prosecution, harassment, or physical violence.<\/p>\n He was previously a senior trial attorney at the Department of Justice\u2019s Civil Rights Division, overseeing voting rights enforcement in several states, including California and Georgia.<\/p>\n In short: Because California\u2019s a giant state with 23 million registered voters that has enacted a slew of policies aimed at making voting as easy and accessible as possible. Most notably, the state automatically sends every registered voter a mail-in ballot \u2014 and allows those ballots to arrive up to seven days after Election Day, as long as they are postmarked by Election Day.<\/p>\n As Becker said, when people mail in their ballots, it takes longer for county election officials to verify that legitimate voters cast those ballots and ensure that they aren\u2019t fraudulent.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd we want that to happen. We want every single one of those ballots to be assessed to make sure the person hasn\u2019t voted in another way,\u201d he said, \u201cand to confirm that the right person is returning it. When you vote in person, that\u2019s done at the polling place, before you ever get a ballot. When you do it by mail, it\u2019s done afterwards, when the election officials get it.\u201d<\/p>\n Becker said that by the end of election night, some 5.1 million ballots were counted around the state.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s more than most states see in a presidential general election,\u201d he said, noting that many counties have been counting at a fast clip since. \u201cLos Angeles County, for instance, is counting about 200,000 mail ballots every single day. That\u2019s huge.\u201d<\/p>\n (Los Angeles County has 9.6 million residents \u2014 more than the population of 40 U.S. states.)<\/p>\n In addition to verifying mail-in ballots, election officials in California are working to review provisional ballots \u2014 those cast when a voter\u2019s eligibility can\u2019t be immediately confirmed \u2014 and ballots from members of the military deployed overseas.<\/p>\n Becker said that this year, amid a competitive governor\u2019s race, many Democrats held onto their ballots<\/a> until the last minute, delaying the count even further.<\/p>\n No, Becker said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve had mail voting since at least the Civil War, probably before that. We have extensive federal laws that actually accommodate late-arriving ballots for people like military and overseas voters, which is really important,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Calling races. Becker said that the public doesn\u2019t really care when every single ballot is tallied \u2014 they care about knowing the outcome of important races.<\/p>\n The slow count only matters, he said, when there are close races that are difficult to call.<\/p>\n \u201cOn election night in 2024, at 8:01 p.m. Pacific time, they called the presidential race. Is that because they finished counting the presidential ballots? Not even close. But the margins were so big, there was no question who won the presidential race. But in those congressional races that were really close, that were decided by a few-thousand-vote margin, they needed a lot more detail,\u201d he said, adding that \u201cevery single state that ran a June 2 primary, not just California, is still counting some ballots.\u201d<\/p>\n Speaking with KQED on June 9, Becker said that a week after the election, \u201cmost of the major races are pretty clear and have been called by the media\u201d in California.<\/p>\n Becker said individual voters could speed things along by turning in mail-in ballots earlier, or voting prior to Election Day at early vote centers. In other words: don\u2019t wait until the last minute.<\/p>\n Counties and the state could also give election offices more resources <\/a>to speed up the count, according to election officials.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not clear whether barring ballots from arriving after Election Day \u2014 the subject of a case<\/a> now before the U.S. Supreme Court \u2014 would actually speed things up<\/a>, since many of the mail-in ballots counted later are the ones turned in on or just before Election Day.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you go back to the founders, they had just fought a war against a monarch,\u201d Becker said. \u201cAnd if you read the original Constitution, even before the Bill of Rights, there is one thread that is woven throughout the Constitution. And that is the limitations on executive power. They were really careful about this. They wanted power to be retained by the states.\u201d<\/p>\n He said that the elections clause \u2014 giving states the power to decide the time, place and manner of elections \u2014 \u201cis literally the fourth paragraph in the Constitution.\u201d<\/p>\n That dispersal of power is a \u201csecurity feature,\u201d Becker said, that makes it more difficult for anyone to carry out election fraud on a large scale.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t run a national election. We run 10,000 little elections all over the country. We run 58 little elections here in California,\u201d he said, one for each of the state\u2019s 58 counties. \u201cIf there were a bad actor, that bad actor could not overturn the will of the people nationally or in a state.\u201d<\/p>\n No. That\u2019s prohibited by law<\/a>, Becker said. But even the threat of it is troubling, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that there are individuals in the government and in the United States that would like American voters to be scared,\u201d he said. \u201cThey would like them to think that voting might be dangerous. Because that actually could depress turnout, but it\u2019s a lot easier to get them to worry about that than it is to actually do it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s extraordinarily rare,\u201d Becker said. But he said that it does occur \u2014 among both Republicans<\/a> and Democrats<\/a>.<\/p>\n And Becker said offenders are almost always caught.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIt is one of the dumbest crimes someone can commit,\u201d Becker said. He knows from experience: he investigated voter fraud cases as a DOJ attorney.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is one of the easiest crimes to detect. \u2026 If you want to spend some time in lodging courtesy of your state or federal government, you should try to commit voter fraud, because you will be caught and you will go to prison. And if you\u2019re a noncitizen, before you get sent to prison, you will be deported. And this is why we know it\u2019s so rare. The incentive structure just isn\u2019t there to cast one ballot in an election, which 150 million are gonna be cast.\u201d<\/p>\n Becker also said that despite Trump\u2019s obsession with voter fraud, \u201cthis administration has had nearly 18 months [and] the full power of the federal government and the Justice Department. And they\u2019ve been spending a ton of resources looking for fraud. And what have they shown us so far? Nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n Becker doesn\u2019t think so. He said that despite the drumbeat of fraud allegations, turnout in the last two presidential elections was the highest in modern American history.<\/p>\n He said it\u2019s easier and more secure than it has ever been to vote \u2014 and that Americans largely report being happy with their voting experience and with how local officials are running elections. That\u2019s how it should be, Becker said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have to remember how much elections are a celebration of our democracy, a celebration of our nation, of our citizenry and the joy of voting. We should recapture that,\u201d he said, predicting that this fall will set a record for midterm election turnout nationally.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"President](\"https:\/\/cdn.kqed.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2026\/05\/ap26090784092005-scaled-e1781134932262.jpeg\")
Why does it take so long to count ballots in California?<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cdn.kqed.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2026\/06\/voter.jpg\")
Are California\u2019s election laws out of step with American tradition?<\/h2>\n
When we talk about a slow count, are we actually talking about counting ballots or calling races?<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cdn.kqed.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2026\/06\/20260602_PRIMARY2026CD4_GC-20-KQED.jpg\")
What could California do to speed up its vote counts?<\/h2>\n
Trump has talked about nationalizing elections \u2014 why doesn\u2019t <\/em>the federal government control elections?<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cdn.kqed.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2026\/06\/260602-PRIMARYVOTERVOX-20-BL-KQED.jpg\")
Could President Trump put military troops or immigration agents at polling places?<\/h2>\n
How common a problem is election fraud, and do people get away with it?<\/h2>\n
Are the president\u2019s attacks on elections working?<\/h2>\n