Regarding Arthur Saginian’s Aug. 18 and Lynn Wright’s June 10 letters claiming there is no evidence of election fraud: I absolutely disagree. Both remind me of the three wise monkeys: see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.
The best way to see what actually happens during an election is to become a poll watcher. You don’t just sit in a chair; you stand inside the room and watch the machinery of the vote. As an observer, you track everything from the minute check-in logs open to the second ballot containers are sealed. You see how provisional ballots are handled, witness how spoiled papers are tracked, and hear exactly what instructions precinct workers give to voters.
It is a grueling job to see whether rules are followed to the letter, or if things are quietly swept under the rug. Having worked the front lines, simply declaring “no evidence” does not make hard questions disappear.
During the Gavin Newsom recall, I personally witnessed more than 50 voters get turned away at a Santa Clarita polling place after doors closed, even though voters in line are legally entitled to vote. This is a matter of law, not opinion. I did not sit idly by; I filed a formal report on the spot.
I have also watched poll workers “help” confused elderly voters by explaining propositions in ways that directed them toward a particular choice. Workers must never manipulate a voter’s decision under the guise of assistance. I saw this again when driving an elderly friend to vote. A worker intervened and attempted the exact same tactic, prompting me to file another formal report.
Security around drop boxes is equally deficient. California rules require drop boxes to be locked at 8 p.m., yet in Santa Clarita, I saw locked boxes left entirely unattended for hours before collection teams arrived. When a small bag of ballots is retrieved long after voting ends, voters watching from the outside are left in the dark about the chain of custody. Who tracks this to ensure no late ballots were slipped into the mix before the lock went on? Poll watchers do.
At the registrar’s office in Norwalk, the ballot handling raised further concerns. I watched ballots run through the system twice, and even saw a floating supervisor holding five ballots, sealing them, and delivering them directly to a computer operator. Staff claimed they were testing machines. Maybe so, but transparency should eliminate questions, not create them. When citizens watch an election, they should easily understand what they see.
The tabulation process is equally troubling. During the 2024 congressional election, we watched Mike Garcia lead by several hundred votes for hours until thousands of late ballots flipped the race to George Whitesides. We saw a similar situation in the June 2026 Los Angeles mayoral primary. Spencer Pratt initially led Nithya Raman, but late ballots pushed Raman ahead to advance to the runoff with Karen Bass.
Mail ballots take time to process legitimately, but when numbers shift drastically, voters deserve to know what is being counted, when those ballots arrived and how they were processed. Watching the count is not the same as blindly trusting it. That distinction is missing from both writers’ arguments.
Look at the data. California’s June primary resulted in 148,241 rejected mail ballots due to late arrivals, signature problems and procedural issues. Does that number prove fraud? No. Does it prove every official is corrupt? No. But does it justify citizens asking tough questions about how our election system works? Absolutely.
You have turned the absence of proof of fraud into proof that there is nothing worth investigating. Those are not the same thing.
If you truly believe there is no evidence, I challenge both writers: Become poll watchers. Stand inside polling places. Watch voter assistance, drop boxes, ballot handling, counting, and the numbers. Stay until the job is done. Then tell us what you saw.
Stop dismissing firsthand observations just because they don’t fit a preferred conclusion. Scrutiny is not a threat to a clean system; it should be welcomed. I will not close my eyes, cover my ears, or remain silent. I choose to watch.
Glenda Roybal
Canyon Country
