Spencer Pratt filed a formal complaint on Tuesday accusing Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass of violating election law by campaigning too close to a ballot box during early voting in Los Angeles. Pratt said Bass had crossed the line by electioneering where state law bars candidates from soliciting votes.
“Karen Bass just violated election law here,” Pratt wrote on X, adding that the complaint had already been filed over what he called “illegally gaming the election.” He also wrote that “Electioneering within 100 feet of a ballot box is AGAINST THE LAW” and that “Soliciting votes at a ballot box is AGAINST THE LAW.”
The complaint asks the City Clerk’s Office and the City Attorney to investigate and prosecute the alleged violations to the furthest degree. Pratt, 42, escalated the dispute further in his post, saying Bass had become “so accustomed to breaking the law with no accountability” that she “even filmed herself doing it,” and promising to “uphold the rule of law and our democratic norms.”
Bass’s campaign pushed back almost immediately. Spokesperson Alex Stack called the complaint “blatantly false” and said the video Pratt cited included two locations: one more than 200 feet from the ballot box, where signs were visible, and another next to the ballot box with no signs. Stack also dismissed Pratt’s accusations with a blunt swipe, saying Pratt was “just mad that his supporters are AI cartoons and we have real Angelenos.”
The clash centers on a line California draws around electioneering. Under state law, candidates are not allowed to campaign within 100 feet of a ballot box, and electioneering is prohibited within 100 feet of polling places and ballot drop-off locations. That distance rule is what Pratt says Bass broke and what her campaign says she stayed well clear of.
Pratt is running for mayor as an Independent and, in polling described in recent coverage, trails Bass by single digits. That gives the dispute a sharper edge than a routine complaint: it pits a candidate trying to force a legal test against an incumbent who is trying to frame the episode as a false attack during early voting.
What happens next now depends on whether the City Clerk’s Office or the City Attorney takes up the complaint. If they do, the question will not be whether Pratt wants a fight. It will be whether the video he cited shows electioneering inside the 100-foot line or simply a campaign scene split between two separate spots, only one of which was near the ballot box.
