California’s notoriously slow ballot count persists despite attempts to fix the problem, leaving key races in the Tuesday primary uncalled and unleashing a new round of baseless conspiracy theories.
Officials knew before the election that they would be accused of vote-rigging, as they have in past cycles in which Republicans lost ground as late ballots were counted. Last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed bills aimed at a faster count. Last month, he urged election authorities to process ballots quickly.
But nearly one-third of votes were uncounted as of Friday night as mailed ballots are being processed. While the Associated Press projected Friday night that Democratic gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra would advance to the general election, his opponent remains unclear.
Californians are also still waiting to know the general-election matchups for Los Angeles mayor and several competitive congressional districts. California stands virtually alone in dragging its counts for days compared with other populous states such as Texas and Florida and large democracies across the world.
Supporters of California’s system say the slow count is the by-product of a system designed to make it easy to vote while protecting against fraud.
Instead, Republicans are again claiming fraud, without evidence, as GOP candidates see their early leads over other candidates erode as mail ballots that typically favor Democrats are counted. Republican voters are generally more likely to vote in person, and those results are tabulated faster and appear to give the GOP an early lead.
“It’s easier to try to imply something illegitimate happened if it happened a week later or even two weeks later, even though it is, in California, just the playing out of a legal process,” said Eric Schickler, co-director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California at Berkeley.
Voting rights advocates say California should give election administrators more funding and staff to process ballots faster instead of scaling back the voting options it offers.
Under California’s top-two primary system, candidates appear on the same ballot regardless of party, and the two receiving the most votes go to the general election. That means Republicans competing in the key races could be shut out of the November contest after appearing up in early counts.
President Donald Trump has fueled unfounded accusations that California election officials are trying to lock out GOP candidates.
“Look what’s happening in California, the Dumocrats, right before our very eyes, are stealing the Vote,” Trump wrote Thursday in Truth Social posts about the state’s count.
The president has used the slow count to pitch the Save America Act, a voting bill that would mandate proof of citizenship to register to vote, among other restrictions.
In response to Trump’s claim that the state “found” mail-in ballots to count, Newsom’s office wrote on the social media platform X that counting postmarked ballots when they arrive has been a “standard practice for years.”
“We’d also like to remind the President that HE HIMSELF VOTED BY MAIL,” Newsom’s office said.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton, a former Fox News host who led in early returns and is now vying for the second spot in the general election, has criticized the state’s election management as additional updates favored his Democratic rivals Becerra and Tom Steyer. He has blamed Newsom for the sluggish process and, like Trump, highlighted that countries with more voters than California count ballots much faster.
Newsom and election officials spent the week debunking claims about how California counts. They argue that the process is exhaustive to prevent the kind of election fraud the GOP has surmised and that the unique steps to enfranchise more voters adds to the tallying time.
Each of the more than 23 million Californians registered to vote receives a mail ballot, unlike other states where they must be requested.
California accepts mail ballots postmarked by Election Day that arrive within a week. An unusual amount of voters submitted their ballots late this year, prolonging the count.
Officials verify signatures on every ballot, a measure only required in some states with mail voting.
If a signature doesn’t match the one on file, election officials are required to notify voters at least eight days before the election is certified and allow them to verify that they cast the ballot until two days before the certification.
This extensive mail ballot process, coupled with in-person voting, gives overseers of the process a lot to handle.
“Our election officials are basically running two election systems simultaneously,” said Kim Alexander, president of the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation.
The foundation is one of several voting advocacy groups that support California’s procedures but say long waits for results undermine voter confidence in the outcomes.
To quicken the count, the California Voter Foundation is lobbying the state for $55 million for more elections staff and equipment. Alexander cited Los Angeles and Orange counties, which increased funding for elections offices and saw faster counting times (though both had nearly 30 percent of the vote uncounted as of Friday night).
“We know it can be done if there’s a will to invest the money,” she said.
Her group also supports bills to allow people to address signature discrepancies on their phones and make it easier to return mail ballots in person, which requires less time to verify signatures.
Newsom has not committed to allocating additional funds. His office declined to comment while legislation to do so is pending, but the governor recently said that negotiations were “very positive.”
In a letter to election clerks last month, Newsom urged them to tabulate votes as quickly and accurately as possible.
“Time is of the essence in preventing election lies from taking hold,” he wrote.
But that prompt, Alexander said, might have fallen flat when it came with no extra help.
Alexander Hurtado, a 29-year-old teacher in San Jose, said he didn’t mind that California’s results took longer. In previous elections, he had dropped off his ballot on Election Day, but California’s grace period had made him feel confident that the ballot he mailed last month was tallied.
“I want to make sure everyone who is eligible to vote can and doesn’t have to worry about their vote not being counted,” he said.
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