California governor’s race: DoJ sends in federal observer over slow count

Experts warn ballot-counting could drag on in primaries for governor, LA mayor and Congress, as Trump claims ‘rigging’ The US justice department on Friday sent a federal prosecutor to observe ballot processing in Los Angeles, as Donald Trump continues to make baseless claims that California Democrats were “rigging” the results to win primary elections in the nation’s biggest blue state. State officials have rejected the allegations, but the delay in results immediately fueled misinformation about the integrity of California’s elections, with the president, who has long fanned election-conspiracy theories, repeatedly accusing the state of “cheating”. In a statement on Friday, the LA county registrar-recorder said “our office was notified late yesterday that the US attorney’s office would send an assistant US attorney to the Ballot Processing Center to observe ballot processing activities”. “The individual arrived this morning, was provided an overview of the public observation program, and participated in a walkthrough of the ballot processing operations,” according to the statement, which was first reported by CNN. Earlier on Friday morning, Bill Essayli,