WE'RE WAKING UP – AT 12:30 P.M. ET:  Weren't you baffled by the strange vote counting in the People's Republic of California?  On election night, it appeared that a number of Republican congressional seats were safe.  And then, in the weeks after the election, "late counting" reversed every one of them.  Now the Republicans are getting woke, and realizing something may be very wrong in those vote counts.   From Fox: 

House Speaker Paul Ryan questioned the legitimacy of California’s ballot-counting process Thursday, adding to claims from many Republicans that the state’s election procedures are flawed.

“It defies logic to me,” Ryan told the Washington Post. “We had a lot of wins that night, and three weeks later we lost basically every contested California race. This election system they have, I can’t begin to understand what ballot harvesting is.”

"Ballot harvesting" is when a third party collects completed ballots from voters and hands them over to election officials. The practice was legal for the first time in California this year.

Ryan has not accused California of any wrongdoing.

Californa took longer than other states to finish counting ballots cast Nov. 6, prompting criticism from many Republicans. By Election Night millions of ballots that were mailed in still needed to be hand-counted.

Alex Padilla, the state's top election official, fired back at Ryan on Twitter, saying the state makes sure "every ballot is properly counted and accounted for. That’s not 'bizarre,' that’s DEMOCRACY.”

“It shouldn’t ‘defy logic’ that elections officials are meticulous in counting every eligible ballot,” Padilla continued, the Mercury News of San Jose reported. “California works to ensure every ballot is counted properly and every ballot is accounted for. In the most populous state in the nation — and the state with the largest number of registered voters — this takes time.”

Democrats flipped six House seats across the state on Election Night. Most of California’s outstanding ballots were those received by mail or received after Election Day. Others were provisional ballots, which are submitted when voters show up to the wrong polling location, or when their name isn’t on the rolls.

The state also allows same-day voter registration, adding to the number of ballots that needed to be verified and counted.

“The way the absentee ballot program used to work and works now, it just seems pretty loosey-goosey,” Ryan said. “Point being, when you have candidates that win the absentee ballot vote, win the day of the vote and then lose three weeks later because of provisionals, that’s really bizarre. And so I just think that’s a very, very strange outcome.

“When you win the absentee ballots and you win the in-person vote, where I come from, you win the election,” Ryan added.

COMMENT:   An inquiry is called for.  There should have been journalistic questions by now, but don't hold your breath.  The press in California is even more leftist than moral.  Dems win?  No questions.

When you see so many counts all go in the same direction, you have reason to wonder.

American Thinker covers the same subject here.

November 30,  2018