In a recent viral social media post, U.S. Sen. Rick Scott makes bold allegations about the recent Los Angeles mayor’s primary election that saw Mayor Karen Bass and Democratic candidate Nithya Raman edge out Spencer Pratt, the former reality TV star endorsed by President Donald Trump.
“The fix was in – Spencer Pratt never had a shot,” the senator from Naples says in the June 11 video which has received about 175,000 views. “When you look at what’s going on in California, they’re paying homeless to vote. You don’t need an ID to go vote. You can accumulate a bunch of ballots and it takes forever, you know, to count the votes. He didn’t have a shot. And it’s right in front of our eyes … elected Democrats like fraud.”
He concluded the video claiming the race showed that elected Democrats “like fraud.”
Quickly after Scott’s video was posted, the criticism began. As of press time, only about 3,700 of the roughly 13,000 reactions to the post were positive, while the vast majority, roughly 8,500, were in the form of the laughing emoji. The majority of the post’s 16,000 comments ridiculed Scott and claimed he was dead wrong about the election.
A sampling of the other responses:
“For the love of God STOP with the election fraud stupidity,” wrote Judi Lee.
“If you understand how their election laws work,” posted Bob Farr, “then you understand their election is fair. And observed by both parties.”
“Source: ‘trust me bro,’” wrote Kathy Gregory.
Several of the senator’s detractors claimed Pratt never had a chance to win the election for another reason: Republicans account for only 19 percent of registered voters in the city. Pratt ultimately outperformed that number – and several polls – by getting 26 percent of the vote (Trump received 32 percent in 2024).
“Just present some evidence [of the fraud],” commenter Jaime Marshall challenged Scott.
The Florida Trident requested that evidence from Scott’s press office, which responded that the post “speaks for itself.”
Examining Scott’s claims
When Scott makes his first allegation – that Californians “are paying the homeless to vote” – he accompanies those words with a photo of 39-year-old Shanekka Renee Johnson, an alleged homeless resident of L.A.’s Skid Row who appeared in a video posted by a pro-Pratt TikTok account claiming she was paid $5 to cast a ballot for Bass. A multitude of MAGA-backing social media accounts have touted the video — which includes two other Skid Row residents making similar claims — as proof of fraud.
But Johnson’s story has been debunked. In a response to the video on social media, Los Angeles County election officials said there was no evidence Johnson voted in the mayor’s race and added that she was registered in nearby Inglewood, meaning she couldn’t have legally voted in the L.A. election.
Back in May a woman pleaded guilty to paying Skid Row denizens to register to vote so they would be qualified to sign ballot petitions she was circulating – but that wasn’t tied to any specific race or candidate.
In California, ID is required when registering to vote, not upon voting. The state is somewhat unique in that it relies predominantly on mail-in voting. Every registered voter is mailed a ballot, which they either mail in, deposit in a designated drop box, or vote in person. No evidence has surfaced to date that the lack of in-person ID requirement was exploited for fraud in the mayor’s race.
Scott alludes to the practice of third-party ballot return – commonly known as “ballet harvesting” by critics –in California that allows people and political parties to gather completed ballots from individuals and submit them together. Anyone who collects ballots must sign their name on the outside envelope, preserving their involvement. Again, there’s been no fraud found to date due to third-party ballot collection in the mayor’s race.
In the Facebook video, Scott also complains that vote counting “takes forever” and implies that’s a sign of fraud. There are however obvious reasons the California election took several days to decide the election, the first being that election offices accept all ballots post-marked by election day, which means ballots arrive days after the vote. Elections workers also are required to check every signature on every ballot to make sure it matches the signature on the voter’s registration form.
In the L.A. mayor’s race, those late-arriving votes broke for Rathan over Pratt and allowed her to wipe out an election day lead over the course of several days. But GOP strategist and former chairman of the Republican Party of California Ron Nehring explained that movement in the numbers during a recent interview.
“The Republicans tend to vote early, they tend to be older, they receive their ballots, they vote early, and those ballots are counted early,” Nehring, a Pratt supporter, told Sky News. “The Democrats decided late, many of their votes came in later and those tend to be counted later … so it shouldn’t be a surprise [Pratt lost his lead late in the counting process].”
That didn’t stop unfounded allegations of fraud to spread. Early in the process claims that Pratt received zero votes in an updated count was propagated, prompting viral fraud claims, but that was soundly debunked by the U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli.
“It’s right in front of our eyes”
Essayli should hold weight with California election deniers – he was appointed by President Donald Trump, who himself has rampantly spread fraud claims about the California elections. When pressed for evidence of that fraud during a June 7 appearance on Meet the Press, Trump said, “all you have to do is look,” before walking out of the interview.
Scott echoes that sentiment, saying the fraud “is right in front of our eyes.” His detractors on social media contend the election is indeed highly visible, but only because both parties and the public are allowed to observe the process in real time inside the counting room.
“They’re just counting ballots in a supervised, glass room where anyone could come and watch what they’re doing,” wrote Mary G. Steffes Hewson.
Essayli’s office is investigating.
Rick Hasen, a leading expert on California voting and director of UCLA’s Safeguarding Democracy Project, told the Los Angeles Times last week that the idea of massive voting fraud stemming from Skid Row is preposterous.
“If you were going to pay people $3 or $5 to vote, and you had to pay tens of thousands of them … it would be a pretty expensive and risky way to try to sway an election,” he told the newspaper. “You’re talking about a ridiculous, vast conspiracy.”
Ultimately, U.S. Attorney Essayli may have the last word on the election. On Friday, he opened “multiple fraud investigations” across the state.
The Trump administration of course has a history of investigating alleged voting fraud. After the 2016 election, Trump created the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity to investigate what he claimed was massive voting fraud involving undocumented immigrants.
Those investigations produced very few actual verifiable voting crimes and ultimately served to confirm there was no systemic fraud to be found. Trump’s claims the 2020 election was rigged against him of course led to the January 6 assault on the Capitol, but there is still no evidence after those allegations have been thrown out of dozens of courtrooms.
Essayli, however, is already promising results from the current investigation.
“Under longstanding DOJ rules, we can’t discuss the specifics of any investigation,” Essayli told a local television station. “But they are ongoing, and I do believe they will result in criminal charges in the future.”
About the Author: Bob Norman is a senior editor for the Florida Trident. His work as an investigative reporter has won dozens of awards and led to criminal charges and the removal of several corrupt public officials. He can be reached at norman@flcga.org.
