DOJ Official Bill Essayli Debunks Spencer Pratt Zero-Vote Claim In Los Angeles Mayoral Race

A Los Angeles-based Justice Department official, First Assistant US Attorney Bill Essayli, debunked a social media claim that an election-night ballot update in the Los Angeles mayoral race showed Republican candidate Spencer Pratt received zero new votes.

“Spencer Pratt named two high-profile celebrities whom he claimed had endorsed his bid for Los Angeles mayor just days before voters headed to the polls in the city's primary”

Al-Bayader

Essayli wrote, “We reviewed official county records. The claim is false. Each candidate received votes in every update,” as the conspiracy theory circulated on X alongside right-wing figures including billionaire Elon Musk.

Al-Bayader

CNN reported that the Associated Press spokesperson said the apparent discrepancy came from timing, noting “there was a lag in an automated update such that some candidates’ votes were added in one update and the other candidates followed about a minute later.”

CNN said the AP’s real-time vote counts showed Pratt was in the second batch of candidates, meaning the initial update made it look like he gained no additional votes while Bass and Raman received thousands.

CNN said the AP spokesperson explained that “Exactly one minute later, the electronic update picked up the votes for another group of candidates including Spencer Pratt.”

The AP spokesperson added that “Taken together, the updates included 21,870 votes for Pratt, 12,850 votes for Bass and 9,521 votes for Raman,” along with votes for other candidates.

CNN

The Los Angeles Times described how a late election-night update on its results pages initially showed leading Democrats Mayor Karen Bass and Councilmember Nithya Raman receiving tens of thousands of new votes while Pratt received no new votes.

The Times reported that the update showing zero Pratt votes was followed one minute later by another update showing tens of thousands of votes for Pratt, and none for Bass or Raman, and it said there was no batch of votes that included zero votes for any candidate.

The slow pace of vote counting in California fueled repeated accusations by U.S. President Donald Trump and others, and CNN said Trump continued to push false claims about election fraud as votes continued to be counted.

“How a simple mix-up fueled false conspiracies about L”

Los Angeles Times

CNN reported that the Justice Department sent one of its attorneys to observe ballot processing in Los Angeles, after the county’s election office told CNN that monitoring was underway.

The Los Angeles Times said Trump made claims of cheating in the vote, as it described how the narrative took root among online conspiracy theorists, bot accounts, conservative influencers and people close to President Trump.

In a separate account, the West Asian outlet al-bayader said Spencer Pratt claimed that Leonardo DiCaprio and Jamie Foxx privately endorsed his campaign for mayor of Los Angeles, while CNN focused on the DOJ’s insistence that the vote-count discrepancy claim was false.