Rumors of a rigged June primary were spreading fast online. Some people cast doubt on the process. One alleged Kobe Bryant was still on LA County voter rolls.
As part of the office responsible for the election, Michael Sanchez and his team followed the likes and comments as posts from accounts with thousands of followers were shared — election misinformation was going viral under his watch.
Here’s how it all went down.
Trump vs LA County
On June 3, President Donald Trump accused Democrats in a Truth Social post of stealing the Los Angeles mayoral race. Local and national media called the registrar’s office for comment. Federal authorities later opened election-related investigations.
Sanchez and his team huddled to assess each claim before taking their case to the comments section.
“We can’t verify all the claims in this post, but we can fact-check some,” the registrar’s X account responded in a series of comments. “Kobe was not an LA County voter, and his OC registration is canceled.”
The county had spent months preparing for disruptions to voting and ballot processing, including potential federal interference and changes to mail-in voting. But the June primary presented a different challenge, one that required explaining the election in real time as misleading claims spread online.
In more than a decade at the Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s office, Sanchez had never seen election misinformation spread online as quickly.
“Trust is such a fragile thing right now in the election administration space,” said Sanchez, the communications manager who leads the team tasked with monitoring social media for election dis- and misinformation.
Fighting fake news
The registrar’s office provided updates to the Board of Supervisors in April on how they were preparing for potential disruptions to upcoming local elections.
They equipped community and county election workers with deescalation and conflict-resolution techniques.
An additional cohort of trained volunteers was deployed to support vote centers in case federal law enforcement, the military or National Guard got involved with the election process. The Election Resource Liaisons (ERL) program was piloted in 2025.
About 50 ERLs were planned for deployment across Los Angeles County during the June primary election.
Meanwhile, Sanchez and no more than five people scoured the internet for election misinformation and spoof accounts. They helped manage and monitor social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube and X using the official @LACountyRRCC account handle.
X, according to Sanchez, was the platform with the highest volume of misinformation.
“While my team is relatively small, given the scale,” Sanchez said, “we do utilize and maximize a few different solutions to be able to help manage, track and monitor as much as possible in real time.”
The office attempted to get ahead of the conversation with its social media presence. It sees the platforms as “cost-effective” tools for delivering messages to the public and for engaging with questions and misinformation — even if that means having a little fun with responses when the team finds it appropriate.
“Fact check this — false report and was not from late last night,” the registrar’s office wrote in a comment to claims that Republican nominee Spencer Pratt received zero votes. “Nope. Pratt gained 10,336 votes in today’s update,” they wrote in another. And they responded “No…” to claims that homeless residents on Skid Row were being paid to vote for Mayor Karen Bass.
“We want to try and stay vibrant,” Sanchez said. “We want to make sure people who are reading and following our account are engaged.”
What it means for November’s election
The misinformation did not stop when the polls closed.
On June 11, the county responded to an X post claiming thousands of ballots were being rejected, including ballots cast for specific candidates. The registrar’s office called the claim “incorrect/deceptive” and explained that voters whose ballots had been challenged because of missing or mismatched signatures had been contacted or given an opportunity to fix them.
“All have been contacted with information on how to respond and ensure their ballot can be counted,” the office responded.
It took 24 days for the registrar’s office to certify the June 2 primary. During that period, ballots continued moving through verification and processing before they could be counted. Vote-by-mail ballots made up a large majority of ballots cast in the primary.
“June really taught us the scale and the pace,” Sanchez said. “We identified that there’s room for continued education on areas of our office.”
That lesson is shaping how the registrar’s office prepares for November.
Sanchez said his team is developing a social media framework around the questions and claims that surfaced repeatedly during the primary, including how election results are reported and why some voters receive notices asking them to correct their ballot signatures.
The approach will remain a mix of getting information out before misinformation spreads and responding when the office sees inaccurate claims gaining traction. Its focus, Sanchez explained, isn’t solely on those engaging with the posts but also on those quietly reading the claims.
“We think it’s important to be online,” Sanchez said. “We will continue to be online.”
