Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility
California Counts Methodically as House Control Hangs in the Balance
d8a347b41db1ddee634e2d67d08798c102ef09ac
By The New York Times
Published 1 week ago on
November 12, 2024

Election workers remove ballots from envelopes at a county building in City of Industry, Calif., on Nov. 9, 2024. California still had nearly five million votes to count going into the holiday weekend. (Mark Abramson/The New York Times)

Share

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

SAN FRANCISCO — The nation is again waiting on California to finish tallying votes almost a week after Election Day.

The state has most of the remaining undecided races that will determine the balance of power in the House, and its slow vote-counting process has drawn greater scrutiny — and some scorn — as each day goes by.

While many states tallied the bulk of their ballots within hours of polls’ closing last Tuesday, California still had nearly 5 million to count going into this holiday weekend, just under one-third of all of the ballots that were cast there.

Leaders in California, the nation’s most populous state, defend the deliberate process as necessary to ensure that the tallies are accurate and that as many voters participate as possible. They say their generous provisions for voters give the public greater confidence.

The delay in full results has left Americans wondering why the balance of power in the House is yet to be known. It has also opened avenues for disinformation, with Democrats and Republicans seizing upon the incomplete results as evidence of voter fraud or manipulation.

Mailed Ballots Take Longer to Count

Counting votes in California is not as simple as running ballots through a machine.

The state is one of a handful nationwide where every registered, active voter is mailed a ballot. Mail-in ballots take longer to process than those cast in person.

Election offices must verify that the signature on each envelope matches the voter’s signature on file. Instead of throwing out ballots that were filled out improperly, election workers in California spend days calling voters and giving them another chance to verify their signatures so that their votes can be counted.

This process, known as ballot curing, occurs in half of U.S. states. But because nearly all of California’s ballots are mailed or hand-delivered in envelopes, the verification process is more tedious than elsewhere.

And unlike most other states, California counts ballots that arrive up to a week late, as long as they were postmarked by Election Day.

Twenty years ago, only one-third of California voters cast ballots by mail, and 81% of votes were counted within two days of Election Day. In the primary election in March this year, when nearly 90% were cast by mail, only 59% had been counted within two days, according to an analysis by the nonprofit California Voter Foundation.

California gives counties 30 days to finalize their tallies, far longer than most states do. That means that counties can count at whatever speed suits them, hiring varying levels of reinforcements and drawing up different work schedules, as long as they finish by the deadline, said Secretary of State Shirley N. Weber, the top election official in California.

Weber said in an interview that she thought Californians were accustomed to a slower vote count and that other Americans became impatient only when there were national stakes, as is the case now with the House.

“That’s not our problem,” she said. “We go as fast as we can.”

California Has Large Share of Outstanding Ballots

California is responsible for the largest share of the outstanding ballots left.

Because Vice President Kamala Harris currently has 10 million fewer votes nationwide than President Joe Biden did in 2020, a handful of Democrats have made unfounded claims that Republicans must have caused millions of ballots for Harris to disappear. Some Republicans in turn have incorrectly asserted that the current count for Harris is a more accurate reflection of national support for Democrats and shows that Biden received fraudulent votes four years ago.

“Even actions that are actually just good-faith efforts to have a reliable election” can become fodder for conspiracy theories, said Eric Schickler, a political science professor at the University of California, Berkeley. “There’s a lot of suspicion and distrust of governmental institutions — this ends up playing into that.”

Weber said that she was aware that an information vacuum could lead to false narratives, but she did not think that providing results faster in California would do much to stop election conspiracists.

“They’re going to do that anyway,” she said. “The reality is that even things that have been resolved, they create stories about them. We want to count every vote.”

In 2022, it took two weeks to determine the winner of a tight U.S. House race in a Northern California district. In 2018, a long delay led then-Speaker Paul Ryan to question the integrity of the state’s voting system after Republicans lost several House contests in which it initially appeared that they would sail to victory.

As of Monday, nine of the 16 uncalled House races that will determine control of the chamber are in California, including in Orange County and the Central Valley. Five are among the most hotly contested in the nation.

Alameda County in Northern California, which includes Oakland, has counted more slowly than any other large county in California and had tallied only about one-third of its ballots two days after the election. The county does not have any battleground House races, but The Associated Press determined Monday that the Oakland mayor and Alameda County district attorney had both been recalled by voters.

Election offices do not process ballots 24 hours a day. Many count during normal business hours and give workers days off before the counts are complete. In Orange and Marin counties, employees were working Saturday and Monday but not Sunday. In Contra Costa County, counters stopped working Friday and will start again Tuesday morning.

A rush of last-minute ballots compounded the state’s counting burdens. Many local election officials said far more ballots arrived on Election Day this time than did four years ago. That meant that workers had less of a head start on counting, officials said.

In Los Angeles, the most populous county in the United States, roughly 4 million voters cast ballots, with 1 million mail-in ballots dropped off on Election Day, said Mike Sanchez, a spokesperson with the registrar’s office. Election workers had to finish staffing polling places and counting in-person votes Tuesday before they pivoted to processing those mail-in ballots.

The delays in California’s tally have most likely distorted the popular-vote tally in the race between Harris and President-elect Donald Trump, Schickler said. The current figures show Trump leading nationwide by about 3.6 million votes, but millions of Democratic votes have yet to be counted in California and other West Coast states.

Schickler said that Trump’s victory could ultimately look similar to Biden’s in 2020, with a smaller popular-vote win than there seemed to be on election night. Regardless, it will be difficult for Democrats to reframe the results for the public two weeks later.

“The narrative sets in and can be misleading, and California coming in so late contributes to that,” he said.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Soumya Karlamangla, Orlando Mayorquín and Coral Murphy Marcos/Mark Abramson
c. 2024 The New York times Company

RELATED TOPICS:

DON'T MISS

Suspect Arrested After Oakhurst Crime Spree Leaves K9 Injured

DON'T MISS

Top War-Crimes Court Issues Arrest Warrants for Netanyahu and Hamas Officials

DON'T MISS

With or Without Lockridge, Can Bulldogs Get Out of Their Own Way to Become Bowl Eligible?

DON'T MISS

Classes for Cannabis? UC Merced Extension Launching Weed Workforce Training

DON'T MISS

This Kitty Seeks a Quiet Home to Call Her Own

DON'T MISS

‘Woke’ Terminology Not Commonly Used by Americans: YouGov Survey

DON'T MISS

FBI Arrested a Man Who’s Been Charged With Planning an Attack on the New York Stock Exchange

DON'T MISS

Shoppers Flock to Clovis for Vallarta’s Grand Opening

DON'T MISS

Thousands of University of California Workers Go on 2-Day Strike Over Wages, Staff Shortages

DON'T MISS

Madera County Shooting Strikes K-9, Investigation Ongoing

UP NEXT

Top War-Crimes Court Issues Arrest Warrants for Netanyahu and Hamas Officials

UP NEXT

With or Without Lockridge, Can Bulldogs Get Out of Their Own Way to Become Bowl Eligible?

UP NEXT

Classes for Cannabis? UC Merced Extension Launching Weed Workforce Training

UP NEXT

This Kitty Seeks a Quiet Home to Call Her Own

UP NEXT

‘Woke’ Terminology Not Commonly Used by Americans: YouGov Survey

UP NEXT

FBI Arrested a Man Who’s Been Charged With Planning an Attack on the New York Stock Exchange

UP NEXT

Shoppers Flock to Clovis for Vallarta’s Grand Opening

UP NEXT

Thousands of University of California Workers Go on 2-Day Strike Over Wages, Staff Shortages

UP NEXT

Madera County Shooting Strikes K-9, Investigation Ongoing

UP NEXT

Republicans on House Ethics Reject for Now Releasing Report on Matt Gaetz

Classes for Cannabis? UC Merced Extension Launching Weed Workforce Training

4 hours ago

This Kitty Seeks a Quiet Home to Call Her Own

4 hours ago

‘Woke’ Terminology Not Commonly Used by Americans: YouGov Survey

4 hours ago

FBI Arrested a Man Who’s Been Charged With Planning an Attack on the New York Stock Exchange

15 hours ago

Shoppers Flock to Clovis for Vallarta’s Grand Opening

15 hours ago

Thousands of University of California Workers Go on 2-Day Strike Over Wages, Staff Shortages

15 hours ago

Madera County Shooting Strikes K-9, Investigation Ongoing

16 hours ago

Republicans on House Ethics Reject for Now Releasing Report on Matt Gaetz

16 hours ago

Demography Drives Destiny and Right Now California Is Losing

16 hours ago

Hate Your Instagram Feed? New Reset Feature Enhances User Control

17 hours ago

Suspect Arrested After Oakhurst Crime Spree Leaves K9 Injured

A Mariposa man faces multiple felony charges after a violent series of events Wednesday in Oakhurst, where he allegedly rammed vehicles, sho...

2 minutes ago

A Mariposa man was arrested after a violent crime spree in Oakhurst, injuring a sheriff's K9 and prompting multiple investigations. (Instagram/FresnoDAIA))
2 minutes ago

Suspect Arrested After Oakhurst Crime Spree Leaves K9 Injured

25 minutes ago

Top War-Crimes Court Issues Arrest Warrants for Netanyahu and Hamas Officials

4 hours ago

With or Without Lockridge, Can Bulldogs Get Out of Their Own Way to Become Bowl Eligible?

4 hours ago

Classes for Cannabis? UC Merced Extension Launching Weed Workforce Training

4 hours ago

This Kitty Seeks a Quiet Home to Call Her Own

4 hours ago

‘Woke’ Terminology Not Commonly Used by Americans: YouGov Survey

15 hours ago

FBI Arrested a Man Who’s Been Charged With Planning an Attack on the New York Stock Exchange

Vallarta Supermarkets in Clovis. November 20, 2024. (GV Wire/Jahz Tello)
15 hours ago

Shoppers Flock to Clovis for Vallarta’s Grand Opening

Help continue the work that gets you the news that matters most.

Search

Send this to a friend