AP Vote Feed Split 21,870 Pratt Ballots, Fueling False LA Fraud Claims
Updated
Updated · Los Angeles Times · Jun 5
AP Vote Feed Split 21,870 Pratt Ballots, Fueling False LA Fraud Claims
3 articles · Updated · Los Angeles Times · Jun 5
Summary
A 1-minute lag in the Associated Press election feed made Los Angeles mayoral results briefly show 0 new votes for Spencer Pratt, triggering fraud claims amplified by Elon Musk and Trump allies.
AP said an automated update pulled in one group of candidates first and another 1 minute later; taken together, the two updates included 21,870 votes for Pratt, 12,850 for Karen Bass and 9,521 for Nithya Raman.
The Los Angeles Times, which checks the AP feed once a minute, captured the first partial update at about 8:35 p.m. and the second on its next refresh, creating the misleading snapshot seen online.
Los Angeles County said its official results never showed a batch with zero Pratt votes, and Stanford researcher Justin Grimmer's review found the ballots were simply reported in two back-to-back updates.
The episode echoes 2020-style vote-count conspiracy claims, highlighting how media data feeds are now scrutinized as if they were official election reports.