THE SECOND ELECTORATE. What Los Angeles' Late Ballots Are Really Telling Us

THE LA MAYOR RACE MAY COME DOWN TO NUMBER CRUNCHING AND A RECALL

Following The Votes That Changed Los Angeles' Runoff

In our previous article, "Spencer Pratt's Less Than Zero," we examined the election-night reporting anomaly that briefly showed Pratt receiving zero votes while other candidates accumulated thousands. Whether that event ultimately proves to have been a reporting-feed problem or something else, it succeeded in accomplishing one thing:

It got people looking at the numbers.

Once observers moved beyond the controversy surrounding the reporting glitch, a more interesting question emerged.

How did Nithya Raman overtake Spencer Pratt?

The answer commonly offered by election officials and media organizations is straightforward. Late-counted mail ballots, provisional ballots, and cured ballots came from voters who were more favorable to Raman than the electorate reflected in the election-night returns.

That explanation may ultimately prove correct.

But it leaves unanswered a more fundamental question.

Who were those voters?

The issue is not whether ballots were counted.

The issue is understanding the composition of the electorate that entered the count after election night.

For many Americans outside California, this is where the process begins to feel unfamiliar. Elections are expected to evolve as additional ballots are counted. What appears unusual is when the later electorate seems to behave substantially differently than the earlier electorate.

The question is not whether that happened.

The question is why.

One of the most useful places to begin looking for answers may be a precinct that appears, at first glance, completely unremarkable.

According to public reporting, a Gramercy Park precinct delivered approximately 82 percent of its vote to Karen Bass. A comparable precinct reportedly delivered roughly 75 percent to Bass during her successful 2022 mayoral campaign.

If accurate, this means Bass did not lose support in that area.

She strengthened it.

That creates what might be called the Gramercy Test.

If Bass is receiving 82 percent of the vote, then only 18 percent remains available to every other candidate combined.

Raman.

Pratt.

Minor candidates.

Write-ins.

Everyone.

That reality creates a simple arithmetic question.

How much of Raman's eventual surge could have originated from precincts where Bass was simultaneously consuming more than four-fifths of the electorate?

At present, the answer is unknown to us.

We know Bass's reported percentage.

What we do not know is the precise distribution of the remaining vote.

How many votes went to Raman?

How many went to Pratt?

How many went elsewhere?

Without those figures, it is impossible to calculate with certainty how the residual vote was allocated.

This does not prove anything.

But it does establish a useful framework for analysis once the final precinct-level canvass becomes available.

If Raman's gains originated primarily from university districts, renter-heavy neighborhoods, younger voters, and progressive activist communities where she was already strongest, the explanation becomes relatively straightforward.

If, however, substantial portions of her gains originated from precincts where Bass was simultaneously posting 75 to 82 percent of the vote, then observers are entitled to ask additional questions about how the remaining vote inventory was distributed.

This is not an accusation.

It is an accounting exercise.

Elections, after all, are governed by arithmetic before they are governed by politics.

Every precinct contains a finite number of votes.

Every candidate draws from a finite pool.

When one candidate consumes the overwhelming majority of a precinct's electorate, the remaining vote inventory becomes increasingly important to understanding the performance of everyone else.

That is why the final certified precinct returns matter.

Not because they will necessarily overturn any existing explanation.

But because they will allow the public to test those explanations.

The "Less Than Zero" controversy focused attention on a reporting anomaly.

The larger story may ultimately be something different.

It may be the story of a late-count electorate that behaved differently from the voters counted on election night.

Perhaps there is a perfectly ordinary explanation.

Perhaps there is not.

Either way, the answer will not be found in political arguments.

It will be found in the numbers.

And when those numbers become available, the first place many observers should look is not at who won the precinct.

It is at who received the missing 18 percent.