Leaders in the state party are concerned about local elections, particularly in one important Orange County state Senate race.

But President-elect Donald Trump fanned the flames by tweeting California was one of three states with “serious” voter fraud. His Sunday tweet followed another sent hours earlier claiming that he’d “won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.” 

Serious voter fraud in Virginia, New Hampshire and California – so why isn't the media reporting on this? Serious bias – big problem!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 28, 2016

So far, Trump has offered no proof to his claims, which were dismissed in great detail by PolitiFact California. Secretary of State Alex Padilla immediately sent a press release disavowing the claim: “It appears that Mr. Trump is troubled by the fact that a growing majority of Americans did not vote for him. His unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud in California and elsewhere are absurd.”

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California Republican Party Chairman Jim Brulte told party officials in an internal email obtained by CalWatchdog that the state has a history of “anomalies” that “deserve further scrutiny.” Brulte added that he believed “most of the government officials charged with ensuring voter and ballot integrity are good people who want to do the right thing.”

Brulte cited several incidents throughout the years, but came back to a recent election in Orange County — which ultimately gave Democrats a legislative supermajority — where voter turnout “increased in some cases up to 30 percent over the 2012 election.”

The Orange County Registrar of Voters attributed the spike in turnout percentage to a cleanup of the voter roll. 

Orange County’s history

California Republicans point back to a 1996 congressional race in Orange County, were 624 non-citizens voted after having registered illegally, according to a congressional investigation. In that race, the Democratic challenger, Loretta Sanchez, defeated the Republican incumbent, Bob Dornan, by less than 1,000 votes.

“That was before online registration, late registration, a boom in illegal residency, driver’s licenses to illegal aliens, and other trends,” said Harmeet K. Dhillon, a member of the Republican National Committee from California. “Logically, the numbers are much higher today and the state seems deliberately to make it difficult to verify eligibility to vote and also takes little to no interest in preventing fraudulent voting.”

Ways to improve?

Dhillon said Republicans are concerned that the current online voter registration system doesn’t track the computer’s ISP address, which helps detect fraud, and that users can self-verify citizenship with a driver license number, which are issued to non-citizens.

Dhillon said Republicans believe new voters should verify citizenship, not just check off a box. 

Nothing to see here

But the Secretary of State’s office holds that there’s no problem. A spokesman told CalWatchdog that the SOS “already conducts routine security assessments of our systems,” but declined to give specifics.

Many election law experts say there is no evidence of widespread problem voter fraud. Jessica Levinson, a law professor at Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, said Trump’s claims did not happen and “lack any evidence or grounding in reality.” 

An investigation into what happened in Orange County may be worthwhile, Levinson said, but added that increased turnout itself isn’t enough to allege voter fraud.

“There are plenty of reasons this election cycle as to why people in Orange County would be motivated to go to the polls.” 

It seems Los Angeles County is testing the old philosophical question: What if they gave an election and nobody came? The most populous county in the state had the lowest percentage turnout in last November’s election.

While 42 percent of state voters turned out for the general election, Los Angeles County turnout was only 31 percent. The last mayoral city election in Los Angeles saw a turnout of a mere 23 percent.

The California Senate and Assembly election committees are chaired, respectively, by Sen. Ben Allen, D-Santa Monica, and Assemblyman Sebastian Ridley-Thomas, D-Culver City. The chairs called a joint oversight committee hearing on Feb. 20 to look for the reasons and solutions of the extremely low turnout in Los Angeles County. YouTube here.

The answer just might be a feeling of powerlessness among voters.

Loyola Law professor Jessica Levinson told the committee the low turnout in Los Angeles elections could be a case of voter apathy. Los Angeles is not a political town, she said. Everyone knows when the Super Bowl and the Oscars occur, but they don’t know when an election happens.

Many suggestions were made at the hearing on why there was a low voter turnout:

• Voters believe their vote doesn’t matter;
• The size of the county takes away the personalization of politics;
• Lack of civic education in the schools;
• Frequency of elections;
• Lack of an interesting ballot;
• Demographics in which the large minority populations which make up much of Los Angeles County’s potential voters have a history of not voting.

Major obstacles

All those items contribute to the low voter turnout. But are there really major obstacles to prevent voters from coming out if they cared to?

Some of those testifying to the committee seemed to think so. Common Cause’s Kathay Feng said the progressives who set up the rules for stand-alone local elections not only wanted a focus on local government, but they were also racist. They didn’t want certain people to vote and they were successful by setting up elections in off years.

Feng, who serves on the committee to move the Los Angeles city elections to coincide with national elections, a measure which will appear on the city ballot in March, said the convenience to the voters of combining elections will bump up the voting totals by as much as a third.

Still, Raphael Sonenshein, executive director of the Pat Brown Institute at Cal State, Los Angeles, may have touched on the reason citizens don’t engage in local elections. He argued that people believe the only election that really leads to change is the presidential election.

If that is so, then many of the suggestions made to increase the vote will probably only do so on the margins.

Change agents

Even if voting is made as convenient as possible — as Jessica Levinson suggested the time might come when everyone can simply vote by pressing some button on their iPhone — an important question remains: Do voters think those votes for local candidates create change?

Do citizens think they have the power through their votes to alter the direction of government? Or do they believe the institutions are so controlled and manipulated by insiders that voting is pointless?

There were higher turnouts in the past when it was arguably more inconvenient to vote.

The key to bringing voters to the polls, rather than constantly devising new systems to make it easier to vote, is for the voters to see themselves as important participants in governing.

Legislative gift-taking eroding public trust

In an effort to stem the damaging headlines, Senate Democrats announced on Thursday their plans to introduce a package of bills to reform the gift rules for elected officials. The proposals include a ban on receiving any gifts from lobbyists, an overall reduction in the annual gift limit from $440 to $200 and an outright prohibition on accepting gifts of spa treatments, golf games and tickets to theme parks, concerts and sporting events.

“There is no question that recent events are testing the public’s faith in how our government does its work,” Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, said at the press conference. “We need to restore the public trust.” Of course, legislative leaders wouldn’t need more laws if they followed the best practices of their colleagues.

In the Assembly, Gatto has set the standard for ethics and transparency. He not only declined all international junkets, but disclosed gifts that even the state’s political watchdog would find unnecessary to report. His disclosure reports even include footnotes. 

Gatto follows spirit and letter of the law

“Giving and receiving small tokens are part of life,” Gatto said. “I try to follow the letter and spirit of the law, and that’s anything over $50.” In explanation of the gift certificate given to his daughter, Gatto said, “The rules are very clear that we have to report anything over $50.” 

Technically, Gatto’s interpretation of the law is correct. According to Fair Political Practices Commission’s instructions for the Form 700, the annual statement of economic interests, elected officials must report “gifts given to members of your immediate family” if the official can “exercise discretion or control over the use or disposition of the gift.” This “control over the use or disposition of the gift” also includes tickets to concerts and sporting events. It explains why Gatto reported tickets to the Rose Parade and Rose Bowl that he gave away to local high school students who had overcome adversity.

For several years, unlike many of his colleagues, Gatto has worked with teachers and administrators and found deserving students to take his spot at the big game.  And don’t think Gatto does it for the positive publicity. He’s been doing it for years and never told the press. The only place you’ll find it: on Gatto’s financial disclosure report, in compliance with state law.

Ethics: Appearance of impropriety

Jessica Levinson, a Loyola Law School professor who specializes in governmental ethics, said that the issue of elected officials accepting gifts is a balance between what is allowed versus what appears to cross the line of undue influence. “If the laws allows legislators to accept gifts, then is it improper or indecent for them to do so?” she asked. “While some gifts are permissible, it can intuitively feel problematic when our elected lawmakers accept gifts when we all strongly suspect they would not receive those gifts were it not for their official roles, and the power they wield in those roles.”

That appearance of impropriety is exacerbated when lawmakers travel with lobbyists on extravagant junkets to exotic locales. Last year, California lawmakers collected passport stamps from Germany, Switzerland, Cuba, Mexico, Poland, Norway, Taiwan, Israel, China, Armenia, Sweden, Canada and South Korea, much of it on the dime of special interest groups.

“When it comes to traveling and attending conferences, I want our officials to leave the Capitol and learn from others,” Levinson said.  “I don’t necessarily want them to do all of that on the public’s dime. When the conferences look fishy, or the sources of the funds have substantial business before the state, it is certainly fair to ask questions.”

Some legislators have avoided the questions altogether. During the Legislature’s 2013 spring break, while dozens of lawmakers were relaxing in Taiwan, Eastern Europe and Cuba, state Sen. Ted Lieu, D-Torrance, fulfilled his monthly Air Force reserve duty. In addition to Lieu, state Sen. Jim Beall, D-San Jose, and Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, have declined to participate in junkets. And, of course, so did the Legislature’s ethical leader, Mike Gatto. “We are a big state with international implications, but I choose to stay in California,” he said. “My policy is simple: I will travel for limited circumstances but only in California. I am a California official.”