By Soumya Karlamangla, Orlando Mayorquín and Coral Murphy Marcos
The country is once more looking to California to complete its vote tally nearly a week after Election Day.
This state holds most of the remaining unresolved races that could shift the power dynamics in the House, and its protracted vote-counting has generated increased scrutiny — and some disdain — as time passes.
While many states processed the majority of their ballots within hours after polls closed last Tuesday, California still had close to 5 million to tally heading into the holiday weekend, representing just under one-third of all ballots cast there.
Officials in California, the largest state by population, justify the meticulous process as essential for ensuring accurate counts and maximizing voter participation. They argue that their comprehensive provisions for voters enhance public trust.
This postponement in final outcomes has left Americans questioning why the composition of power in the House remains uncertain. It has also created opportunities for misinformation, with both parties exploiting the incomplete data as proof of voter fraud or manipulation.
Vote counting in California is not merely a matter of passing ballots through a machine.
The state is among a select few in the nation where every registered, active voter receives a ballot by mail. Mail-in ballots require more time to process compared to those cast in person.
Election officials must validate that the signature on each envelope matches the registered voter’s signature. Instead of discarding ballots filled out incorrectly, California election workers dedicate days to contacting voters and providing them another opportunity to confirm their signatures, ensuring their votes are counted.
This procedure, referred to as ballot curing, is implemented in half of U.S. states. However, because almost all ballots in California are mailed or delivered in envelopes, the validation process is more labor-intensive than in other states.
Additionally, in contrast to most other states, California counts ballots that arrive up to a week after Election Day as long as they bear a postmark from that day.
Two decades ago, merely one-third of California voters opted for mail-in ballots, with 81% of ballots counted within two days of Election Day. In this year’s primary election in March, where nearly 90% of votes were cast by mail, only 59% were counted within two days, as per an analysis conducted by the California Voter Foundation.
California allows counties 30 days to complete their counts, significantly longer than the timeframe permitted in most states. This timeframe enables counties to conduct counts at their preferred pace, employing varying levels of staff and organizing different work schedules, provided they meet the final deadline, according to Secretary of State Shirley N. Weber, California’s leading election official.
Weber stated in an interview that she believed Californians were used to a slower counting process and that the impatience from other Americans arose primarily when national implications were involved, as is the case with the House now.
“That’s not our issue,” she remarked. “We proceed as swiftly as we can.”
California accounts for the largest proportion of outstanding ballots.
Due to Vice President Kamala Harris currently having received 10 million fewer votes nationally than President Joe Biden did in 2020, several Democrats have made baseless claims suggesting that Republicans must have been responsible for the disappearance of millions of ballots for Harris. Conversely, some Republicans have inaccurately claimed that Harris’s current vote count reflects a more accurate picture of national Democratic support and indicates that Biden experienced fraudulent votes four years ago.
“Even actions that genuinely aim to ensure a trustworthy election” can become tools for conspiracy theories, noted Eric Schickler, a political science professor at the University of California, Berkeley. “There’s significant suspicion and mistrust towards government institutions — and this situation exacerbates that.”
Weber acknowledged in her comments that an information void could give rise to false narratives but doubted that hastening results in California would prevent election conspiracies from forming.
“They will do that anyway,” she stated. “The reality is that even resolved matters are spun into stories. We want to ensure every vote is counted.”
In 2022, it took two weeks to declare the victor of a closely contested U.S. House race in a Northern California district. In 2018, a significant delay led then-Speaker Paul Ryan to question the integrity of the state’s voting process after Republicans lost several contests where they initially appeared to be winning comfortably.
As of Monday, nine of the 16 undecided House races that will influence control of the chamber were situated in California, including in Orange County and the Central Valley. Five of these races are regarded as some of the most fiercely contested in the country.
Alameda County in Northern California, which encompasses Oakland, has experienced a slower counting rate than any other large county in the state, tallying only about one-third of its ballots two days post-election. While the county lacks any significant battleground House races, The Associated Press confirmed Monday that both the Oakland mayor and the Alameda County district attorney were recalled by voters.
Election offices do not operate around the clock. Many count ballots during regular business hours and grant workers days off before they complete their counts. In Orange and Marin counties, staff worked on Saturday and Monday but not on Sunday. In Contra Costa County, ballot counters paused work on Friday and will resume on Tuesday morning.
A surge of last-minute ballots added to the state’s counting challenges. Numerous local election officials reported that a significantly larger number of ballots arrived on Election Day compared to four years ago, resulting in reduced time for counting preparations, according to officials.
In Los Angeles, the most populated county in the nation, approximately 4 million voters submitted ballots, with 1 million mail-in ballots delivered on Election Day, reported Mike Sanchez, a spokesperson from the registrar’s office. Election workers first needed to complete staffing at polling places and tally in-person votes on Tuesday before shifting focus to processing the mail-in ballots.
The delays in California’s tally may have skewed the popular vote totals in the race between Harris and President-elect Donald Trump, Schickler stated. Current data shows Trump leading nationwide by roughly 3.6 million votes, yet millions of Democratic votes in California and other West Coast states remain uncounted.
Schickler suggested that Trump’s victory could ultimately resemble Biden’s in 2020, reflecting a smaller popular-vote margin than was perceived on election night. Regardless, reframing the results for public understanding two weeks later will be challenging for Democrats.
“The narrative takes hold and can be misleading, and California’s late reporting contributes to that,” he remarked.
