Q&A of the Day – Why Does It Take So Long for Some States to Count Votes?
Each day I feature a listener question sent by one of these methods.
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Today’s Entry: Brian, I understand when election results are very close and a hand re-count is needed.
That is not the case in California for the US House of Representatives Seats 13, 22, 27, 41, 45 and 47. As of today they at best have only tabulated 79% of the vote, and at worst 58% of the vote. The same “slow motion” occurred in 2022 with the mid-term elections. California took weeks to produce results like these. What is causing their slow pace of tabulating election results. Control of the House of Representatives hangs in the balance as we hold our breath.
Thank you for all your excellent journalism. I either read or listen to your posts every day. I miss them when you take a well-deserved vacation. Stay healthy and safe.
Bottom Line: I believe most Americans, perhaps even most Californians, share your sentiment. To your point, here we are a full week removed from Election Day, and yet there are still 18 House seats yet to be decided, with control of the House of Representatives hanging in the balance. Notably, there remains a Senate race in Arizona that’s yet to be called. Most of the undeclared races, 10, are in California, although they’re far from being the only state that’s especially slow when it comes to counting votes. There are eight states that a week later have at least 5% of the vote currently unaccounted for:
- Alaska
- Arizona
- California
- Colorado
- Maryland
- Oregon
- Utah
- Washington
While they’re mostly western states, they aren’t exclusively western states and while they’re mostly “blue” states they aren’t exclusively “blue” states. There is, however, a common thread that runs between them. Lots of vote-by-mail ballots and lax voter deadlines. Your question was specifically about California, and most of the outstanding races are in California, so in the interest of directly answering your question, in addition to painting a picture of what goes on elsewhere let’s look at California’s situation.
In 2020 California passed a new voting law for the way elections would be conducted within the state that led to the slower vote tabulation process. There were three big changes to California’s law that’s led to the protracted vote counting process.
- Every registered voter within the state is automatically mailed a ballot
- Mailed in ballots may be counted if they arrive within seven days of an election if they were post marked no later than Election Day
- Everyone who shows up to vote is allowed to cast a ballot. If someone isn’t able to be confirmed as a valid voter, they’re provided with a provisional ballot
Those three conditions have created the conditions for the especially slow vote counting process that you see. California has 22+ million registered voters. With all registered voters receiving mailed in ballots, most Californians now vote by mail. Vote-by-mail ballots must each be individually confirmed by election workers creating a manual process for every ballot received at each election office. Also, as noted, there’s not a sense of urgency under California law, so actually yesterday was the deadline for ballots to be received with a proper postmark. If there’s an issue with the ballot, a la no signature on a ballot, a mismatched signature, etc., each voter is to be contacted and presented with the opportunity to cure the ballots. That’s obviously a process that takes time.
As of Monday, a total of 4.95 million ballots still needed to be accounted for in California statewide. Of them, 4.1 million were vote-by-mail ballots received on or before Election Day, with 243,976 of them were ballots arriving as recently as yesterday. Additionally, 76,764 provisional ballots were still waiting to be cured. That's a lot of manual processes playing out after Election Day. Whereas most states, most notably Florida, which has become the example of how elections should be run, have moved to less manual and more efficient processes; California and a few other states have opted to either not optimize or to establish more manual processes. California has justified the decision by saying they've made it easier for voters to vote.
While those decisions account for the majority of the slowly tabulated vote totals, California also allows same day voter registration and doesn’t mandate local election supervisors provide certified results to the state for 30 days (it’s 13 days in Florida). What we’ve come to see in California, and other similar states, is the new election normal unless these states chose to adopt systems and procedures that would speed the process up. Given the political makeup up California in particular, that would appear to be unlikely.