A review of voter registration records found 7,600 voters tied to homeless shelters and service providers across Los Angeles, including 1,160 registrations at a single Skid Row mission that has beds for only 120 people. U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli now says he will investigate.
The numbers alone are striking. But one connection stands out: 185 registered voters are tied to the address of St. Joseph Center in Venice, a homeless services drop-in center that received a $600,000 taxpayer-funded grant from Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman while she chaired the City Council's Housing and Homelessness Committee. A photograph showing Raman presenting a check to the center was taken down from St. Joseph Center's website after the New York Post began making inquiries.
Raman, who eliminated Spencer Pratt from the LA mayor's race on Monday night, has not responded to requests for comment. Neither has St. Joseph Center.
The Post's review covered shelters, supportive housing developments, affordable housing projects, behavioral health and addiction treatment facilities, and Los Angeles County social services facilities. The findings paint a picture of a registration ecosystem that is, at minimum, disconnected from reality.
At the Midnight Mission in Skid Row, 1,160 voters are registered. The mission's own website lists capacity for 84 men and 36 women, 120 beds total. That means nearly ten registered voters exist for every available bed.
Across four behavioral health and addiction treatment facilities, Corner of Hope Mental Health Service Center, Volunteers of America Alcohol Services, Los Angeles Centers for Alcohol and Drug Abuse, and Homeless Health Care Los Angeles' Harm Reduction Center, more than 80 registered voters appeared in the records. Another 313 registered voters were tied to addresses associated with Los Angeles County social services facilities.
Several locations added nearly 200 registered voters during the final weeks before the registration deadline. Three addiction treatment and crisis service providers appeared among addresses with significant numbers of registered voters.
Martin Rowe, a homeless man living in Venice, told the Post he was registered to vote during an outreach effort outside a Ralphs grocery store.
"They asked you all the questions. They gave you a paper."
Rowe's account is simple and matter-of-fact. Someone approached him, filled out the paperwork, and handed him a form. He is now a registered voter.
A homeless man on Skid Row identified only as Norman, he declined to give his last name, citing a pending court case, offered a more detailed account. Norman said he had witnessed voter registration efforts in the area for years. He claimed he had previously been paid to help sign up voters and that cigarettes were offered to some people during the drives. The Post noted it could not independently verify a connection between Norman's account and any campaign, political organization, or voter registration group.
"It was a big push to get a certain area of town registered to voting. They are just doing it because we're here. You see people sitting around. It's just a few lines to sign and you're a registered voter."
The Post also met Bo Jackson, a registered voter, outside the Midnight Mission on Monday afternoon. Jackson said he could not remember registering and could not name a single candidate in the LA mayor's race. He is, nonetheless, on the rolls.
When the Post asked Midnight Mission staff how ballots are handled when they arrive at the shelter, the reporter was asked to leave. No response was provided. In a political environment where newly surfaced documents can reshape entire investigations, the refusal to answer basic questions about ballot handling is itself a data point.
Garrett Fahy, an attorney who practices election law in California, told the Post that the registrations identified during the review reflect how California's election system is designed to operate. County election officials, he said, generally are not tasked with independently investigating voter registrations. They administer elections under state law and regulations established by lawmakers and the secretary of state.
"The system is not set up to prevent people from voting. It's to ensure anyone who can register votes. This is the system that our representatives have given to us."
Fahy directed frustration toward Sacramento and the secretary of state, not local election officials.
"If you don't like our system, don't yell at your local elections official. Go yell at Sacramento and go yell at the secretary of state because those are the people who determine the laws that we have."
That is a candid admission. California built a system with no voter ID requirement, permissive ballot harvesting, state law permits voters to designate another individual to return a completed ballot on their behalf, and voter rolls that no one is required to independently verify. Fahy's message is plain: this is how the system was intended to work.
The question is whether voters across the country are comfortable with a system that produces 1,160 registrations at a shelter with 120 beds and calls it working as intended.
The link between Nithya Raman and St. Joseph Center deserves closer scrutiny. Raman, who chaired the City Council's Housing and Homelessness Committee, awarded a $600,000 taxpayer-funded grant to the center. That same center's address shows 185 registered voters tied to it. A photograph of Raman presenting the check appeared on the center's website, until the Post started asking questions. Then it disappeared.
Raman's campaign was contacted last week for comment. As of publication, no response had been received. In a race where Democratic political strategy increasingly relies on targeted constituency-building, the silence is notable. A candidate who just advanced in the LA mayor's race has a documented financial relationship with a facility that hosts a large cluster of voter registrations, and neither she nor the facility will talk about it.
None of this proves fraud. But it raises questions that demand answers, not silence.
U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said he will investigate the concerns uncovered by the Post and "follow the evidence" to see if the law has been broken. His broader critique of California's election infrastructure was blunt.
"California has effectively decriminalized election fraud by removing basic fraud detection that are common in other states. Dirty voter rolls, with no voter ID and unregulated ballot harvesting is a open invitation for bad actors to commit fraud."
Essayli also issued a direct challenge to state officials.
"If California wants to restore public trust, we invite them to comply with federal law and allow us to audit its voter rolls, what are they afraid of."
That question hangs in the air. California has resisted federal oversight of its voter rolls for years. The state's posture has been that its system is secure and that outside audits are unnecessary. The Post's findings, thousands of registrations at facilities that cannot house the voters listed at their addresses, suggest the state's confidence may not be warranted.
This is not the first time voter registration on Skid Row has drawn scrutiny. The Post previously reported that a woman from Marina Del Rey agreed to plead guilty to charges that she paid homeless people on Skid Row to register to vote in a scheme that stretched over 20 years, tied to illegal petition signature collection. That case demonstrated that when photographs and records surface publicly, they can force accountability that officials had been content to avoid.
The Post's review raises questions that neither Los Angeles officials nor state authorities have addressed. Who conducted the voter registration outreach described by Martin Rowe outside the Ralphs grocery store? Who paid Norman to help sign up voters, and who offered cigarettes during registration drives? How are ballots handled when they arrive at the Midnight Mission, and why did staff refuse to answer?
Which person or organization removed the photograph of Raman presenting a check from St. Joseph Center's website, and why? What specific facilities account for the 313 registered voters tied to Los Angeles County social services addresses?
These are not rhetorical questions. They are investigative leads. And they exist because California built an election system that treats verification as an afterthought and then acts offended when someone asks to look at the books.
Essayli's investigation may answer some of them. But the broader problem is structural. A state that removes fraud detection, refuses voter ID, permits unregulated ballot harvesting, and then declines federal audits has built a system optimized for one thing: making it as difficult as possible to distinguish legitimate participation from activity that warrants serious scrutiny.
Garrett Fahy was right about one thing. This is the system California's leaders built on purpose. The rest of the country should take a long, hard look at what that purpose actually serves.
