California’s notoriously slow process of counting ballots and certifying an election is once again a topic of debate, including in Los Angeles County, where voters have been waiting for nearly a week now to find out which top two candidates will advance to the general election in the race for governor and the Los Angeles mayoral contest.
California is one of 14 states that allow ballots that don’t arrive at local election offices until after Election Day to still be counted — so long as they’re postmarked by Election Day. In California, ballots that arrive up to seven days after an election must be counted if they meet the postmark deadline.
That fact, combined with the sheer size of L.A. County — which has nearly 5.9 million registered voters, or a quarter of all registered voters statewide — and the volume of ballots received on or close to Election Day, is what causes the ballot counting to extend well beyond election night, said Michael Sanchez, spokesperson for the L.A. County registrar’s office.
He said it’s not the ballot counting itself that takes the most time, but rather, steps required along the way, including receiving ballots, verifying voter signatures, processing vote-by-mail ballots, reviewing provisional ballots and ensuring all ballots are accounted for.
“Our focus is on ensuring every valid ballot is counted accurately, not simply counting ballots as quickly as possible,” Sanchez said in an email on Monday, June 8.
In neighboring Orange County, Bob Page, the registrar of voters there, noted on LinkedIn that the state legislature also set a deadline for how long voters have to “cure,” or correct their ballot, if, say, the signature on the envelope doesn’t match the signature the registrar’s office has on file.
For this primary election, the ballot curing deadline is 5 p.m. June 24, and county election officials aren’t allowed to certify election results until June 26.
But President Donald Trump has long raised concerns, without evidence, that allowing ballots that arrive after Election Day to count leads to election fraud.
“Why the vote counting DELAY???” the president posted on social media last week.
He suggested the state’s Democrats were somehow cheating so that two candidates he favors — Republicans Steve Hilton in the governor’s race and Spencer Pratt in the L.A. mayoral race — would be bumped from the coveted No. 2 spot to advance to the general election.
“You see what’s happening in California, they’re rigging the election,” he told reporters during an Oval Office gathering on Thursday.
California officials, including Secretary of State Shirley Weber, have repeatedly refuted claims of fraud and, in fact, have defended the state’s slower process as critical to ensuring the counts are accurate.
As of early Monday evening, Hilton remained in second place in the governor’s race, with Democrat Tom Steyer in third place. The Associated Press already declared last week that Democrat Xavier Becerra, in the No. 1 spot, would advance to the November runoff, but had not yet called who would join him.
Hilton is scheduled to hold a press conference outside the L.A. County registrar’s office in Norwalk on Tuesday morning, demanding a faster election reporting process.
“Every vote must be counted accurately. No one disputes that,” Hilton said in a statement Monday.
“Long delays do not build confidence. They breed confusion, frustration, speculation and distrust,” Hilton added. “California voters deserve accuracy, transparency, and timely results. That should not be too much to ask of the fourth-largest economy in the world.”
In the L.A. mayoral race, Raman overtook Pratt in the vote count on Sunday, after several days of vote counting. And on Monday evening, the Associated Press officially called it: Raman, a progressive, would join Democratic Mayor Karen Bass in the general election.
As of Monday evening, the L.A. County registrar of voters estimated it had about 148,000 ballots left to be processed. More than 2 million ballots had already been counted, it said, which is nearly 35.5% of registered voters.
Although state officials have defended California’s election process, the state could be forced to change its practice if the U.S. Supreme Court rules that ballots that arrive at an elections office after Election Day — even if they’re postmarked by that Day — can’t be counted.
The Supreme Court could rule on a case coming out of Mississippi this month.
If the court strikes down such grace periods, the implications could extend well beyond California and 13 other states that give a grace period for regular ballots, depending on how the court ultimately rules. A total of 29 states allow extra time for at least some mail voters, including those who cast military and overseas ballots, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures and the Voting Rights Lab.
Sanchez, the spokesperson for the L.A. County registrar’s office, said whether California should change how it counts votes is a policy question left for lawmakers and voters, not election administrators, to decide.
“Our responsibility is to administer elections in accordance with the laws,” Sanchez said.
“Under current law, Vote by Mail ballots that are postmarked by Election Day and received within the statutory deadline are valid and must be counted,” he continued. “Our role is to implement those requirements accurately, consistently, and impartially, regardless of the policy debate surrounding them.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.