Yes, polling stations will be open across Los Angeles this week. And no, you don't have to cast your vote by mail.
With days to go until June 2, President Trump made misleading claims about the election process, this time falsely claiming that the city was holding a mail-in election only.
Trump's comments came Saturday during an appearance on Fox News when he was asked by host Lara Trump – the president's daughter-in-law – about her predictions for the upcoming primary.
“You know, they don't have voting booths; everything is by mail,” Trump replied. “I don't think a Republican can win in California unless they pass the Save America Act — they're going to have to show proof of citizenship, they're going to have to get rid of mail-in voting.”
The LA County recorder moved to set the record straight in a tweet posted Sunday morning that read “MISINFORMATION ALERT.”
Realizing that in-person voting is allowed, the organization announced that it has 646 polling stations across the state – each with multiple polling stations. The centers will be open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday and Tuesday, the agency said in a dispatch, while tagging Fox News and the White House.
A map of polling stations displayed on the organization's website shows that there are a number of polling stations available across the country. Mobile polling stations have also been made available at various locations in the region. Mobile voting begins 10 days before election day and will not be available until June 2, according to the county recorder.
As of Friday morning, 333,000 votes had been cast in the June 2 elections for Los Angeles mayor, city attorney, city administrator and eight of the 15 City Council seats. This is up from 321,000 in the same period in 2022, according to the registrar.
Registered voters should have already received a ballot by mail. Those who prefer to vote in person can take their mail ballot to a polling station and request to vote in person instead. Residents who have not yet registered to vote can still do so by requesting a conditional voter registration application at any polling station and completing their ballot as they normally would.
The latest polls suggest that, ahead of Tuesday's primary election, incumbent Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has what voters see as a slim lead in her campaign for re-election as the city's top executive. Bass has been in conflict with councilor Nithya Raman and former colleague Spencer Pratt.
Trump has signaled his support for Pratt but has yet to officially endorse the former TV star and registered Republican. Trump's former adviser, Steve Bannon, said the president did not do that because he was afraid that it would hurt Pratt's chances in Los Angeles, which is a Democratic alliance.
In 2020, during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Gov. Gavin Newsom took the unprecedented step of issuing a statewide mandate to vote by mail in that year's election in what he described as a necessary step to contain the spread of the virus.
Several rural counties had no polling places in March.
In 1979, the state eliminated the need for an excuse to obtain an absentee ballot, and the option to vote absentee was created in 2002. In the decades since, Californians have embraced the flexibility offered by remote voting. In almost every national election since 2008, a majority of votes have not been cast at a regular polling station.
An additional 14 counties — including Orange, Sacramento and Santa Clara — have adopted the County Voter Choice Act, an optional state law that requires them to post individual ballots and set up regular polling places for multiple-use polling places. Those personal centers offer many election services up to 10 days before election day.
Los Angeles, the 15th state to adopt the state's new law, was initially given special permission by the Legislature to implement it without submitting an individual vote.
Trump has for years repeated baseless claims that the 2020 election was rigged and that undocumented immigrants are trying to vote illegally.
Because of these claims, Trump and other Republicans have pushed for new restrictions on voters. A federal proposal known as the Save America Act – which would require Americans to prove they are US citizens before they can register to vote and show their identity at the polls, among other things – cleared the US House but made its way into the Senate.
In November, California voters will weigh a similar contentious measure pushed by Republicans that would require all voters in the upcoming election to show identification every time they vote in person or provide a special PIN when submitting mail-in ballots.
Under current state law, Californians must provide identification when registering to vote and must swear under penalty of perjury, a felony, that they are eligible to vote and are US citizens. They are not required to show or provide identification when voting in person or by mail.
If passed, California's voting system would require voters to present government-issued identification, such as a state driver's license, each time they vote. Voters sending in ballots will need to write a four-digit number, essentially a PIN, on their ballot envelopes that matches the one created when they registered to vote.
Critics of California's voter ID system, including many legal scholars, say the voting measure addresses a problem that doesn't exist.
In May, a federal judge handed Trump a victory by refusing to stop the president's order to create a federal list of eligible voters and order the US Postal Service to deliver mail-in ballots only to those on the list. Observers say the decision opens the door to radical changes in the way American elections will be conducted just before the midterm elections.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
