From Tammany Hall to LA City Hall: How Democrats Legalized Election Fraud

In a concise four-minute explainer posted on X, Daily Wire host Michael Knowles laid bare the Democratic Party’s long history of systematic election manipulation dating back to its founding in 1828. Titled “How Democrats Steal Elections In 4 Mins,” the video uses the recent Los Angeles mayoral primary, where conservative insurgent Spencer Pratt saw his lead evaporate amid late mail-in ballot dumps favoring progressive Democrat Nithya Raman, as a modern case study of tactics refined over nearly two centuries. 

Knowles opens with the June 2026 LA primary scenario: Pratt appeared poised to advance to a runoff against incumbent Mayor Karen Bass after strong election-night and early-vote performance. After days of counting “extra ballots,” Raman surged past Pratt in the mail-in totals, securing second place and ensuring Democrat control of Los Angeles regardless of the general election outcome. He then traces the methods back to Tammany Hall and beyond.

WATCH:

Knowles systematically catalogs documented instances of Democratic election fraud:

• Tammany Hall (New York, post-1828 onward): The Democratic machine institutionalized theft through ballot box stuffing, repeat voting, ballots cast for dead people, bribery, voter intimidation, absentee ballot abuse, ballot harvesting, and importing voters from outside districts.
• 1868 New York City election: A post-election audit revealed that 16% of all votes cast were fraudulent, orchestrated by Tammany Hall Democrats.
• 1948 Texas U.S. Senate race: Lyndon B. Johnson stole the Democratic nomination (and thus the seat) by the sudden appearance of 202 late votes in “Ballot Box 13,” flipping the result by just 87 votes. The case reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to intervene. LBJ went on to become Vice President and President.
• 1994 Pennsylvania state Senate race: Republican Bruce Marks led Democrat William Stinson by more than 500 votes on Election Day. Overwhelmingly Democratic absentee ballots flipped the seat. A federal judge later ruled that Philadelphia election officials illegally delivered hundreds of absentee ballot packets directly to Democratic operatives, who then harvested votes from ineligible individuals or forged ballots outright.
• 2003 East Chicago, Indiana mayoral race: Democrats employed the identical absentee ballot harvesting scheme. The Indiana Supreme Court intervened, ordering a new election—which the Democratic fraudster then lost.
• 1982 Illinois elections: Widespread absentee ballot harvesting produced 62 indictments and 58 convictions involving campaign workers, precinct captains, and election officials. In Chicago alone, a grand jury determined that 100,000 fraudulent votes had been cast. Chicago had long been a Democratic machine hub; biographer Robert Dallek concluded Democrats “probably stole Illinois” from Richard Nixon in the 1960 presidential election.

Knowles notes that while hundreds of Democrats have been convicted of election fraud across American history, these represent only a tiny fraction of allegations and proven cases acknowledged by historians. He connects the dots to 2020, when Democratic politicians expanded absentee voting and unsecured ballot drop boxes—sometimes in violation of state constitutions, such as in Pennsylvania.

The video’s LA example mirrors the historical playbook with eerie precision. 

In the 2026 mayoral primary, Pratt held a strong position after Election Night (Bass ~35%, Pratt ~29%, Raman ~23%). Raman, trailing badly, then received a massive influx of late mail-in ballots—described in California Globe reporting as a roughly 43,000-vote swing in key updates—that propelled her past Pratt for the runoff spot against Bass. Raman even underperformed in her own Council District 4 compared to Pratt and Bass, yet dominated the late-counted citywide mail ballots. 

California Globe coverage has extensively documented the systemic vulnerabilities enabling such outcomes: California’s no-excuse mail-in system, extended ballot harvesting and curing periods (often 30+ days), lack of voter ID requirements, unsecured drop boxes (including on Skid Row), and notoriously inaccurate voter rolls containing hundreds of thousands of inactive, deceased, or relocated registrations. 

Past Globe reporting has highlighted:

• Federal charges against a Marina del Rey woman (Brenda Lee Brown Armstrong) for allegedly paying homeless individuals on Skid Row $2–$3 each to register to vote, part of a “cash-for-ballots” scheme that spanned over two decades.
• U.S. Attorney statements confirming “multiple election fraud investigations” underway in Los Angeles.
• DOJ efforts leveraging these cases to demand a full audit of California voter rolls.
• Recurring patterns in which conservative or outsider leads evaporate during prolonged mail ballot counting, benefiting Democrats. 

In contrast to several historical cases, where courts ordered new elections (2003 Indiana), judges documented illegal harvesting (1994 Pennsylvania), or grand juries secured dozens of convictions (1982 Illinois), the LA primary results stand. 

On cue, media outlets and Democrats have largely dismissed fraud concerns as “unfounded conspiracy theories” or statistical anomalies explainable by demographics, despite the statistical improbability of Raman surging past both Pratt and Bass in late ballots from overlapping voter bases.

California’s one-party dominance has produced laws and practices (automatic voter registration via DMV, expanded mail voting, nonexistent chain-of-custody rules) that the Globe has repeatedly warned weaken election integrity.

Previous coverage has detailed how these changes, accelerated during the 2020 pandemic, create opportunities for the very tactics Knowles traces to Tammany Hall: harvesting, late dumps, and exploitation of vulnerable populations—specifically on LA’s Skid Row. 

Knowles closes with a pointed question: If Democrats insist there is no voter fraud, why do they keep expanding the exact methods—absentee ballots, harvesting, drop boxes, and lax verification—that their party has used to steal elections for nearly 200 years?

In California and Los Angeles, the answer appears to be structural tolerance. While isolated prosecutions occur and investigations continue, the outcomes of close races rarely face the level of judicial intervention seen in past cases like East Chicago or Pennsylvania. 

In California and beyond, voter rolls remain bloated, drop boxes unsecured in high-risk areas, and extended counting periods allow “extra ballots” to decide results after initial tallies favor non-Democrats.

The California Globe has consistently reported these issues not as isolated incidents but as a continuation of machine-style politics in a state where one party controls every lever of power. Michael Knowles’ video provides the historical through-line: the tools have been upgraded, but the objective remains the same.

As certification deadlines approach and audits are demanded, the question for Californians is whether this century-old Democratic tradition of “delivering the vote” will finally face meaningful accountability, or whether Los Angeles and the Golden State will continue down the path toward the oligarchy critics have warned about for years.