In summary
Fifteen days after the California primary, only 16 of 58 counties have finished counting votes. While election officials say they need time to verify ballots, two new laws could help speed up the count.
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Seventeen days after voting ended in California’s primary, there are 56,000 ballots left to be counted, and a half dozen congressional and legislative races remain too close to call.
While the uncounted ballots are less than about 1% of the 7.7 million cast, readers have again asked why it takes so long for California to finish counting votes.
California started mailing ballots to all registered voters for the November 2020 election. This year, about 50% of ballots cast were counted on primary night March 5, compared to 41% in June 2022, according to data from the California Voter Foundation.
But processing mail-in ballots can take time. Any ballots postmarked by March 5 and received by March 12 still get counted. Also, there are a number of steps county elections offices take to ensure the integrity of each voter’s ballot, some of which can’t start until after election day. And counties have varying levels of staffing or resources that can impact how quickly the work is done. As of Friday, 14 of 58 counties reported completing their tallies.
“It’s not just about counting ballots, although that is critically important,” said Ryan Ronco, president of the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials and registrar of voters for Placer County. “It’s also about counting ballots accurately with staff that you have that can commit to that project — knowing that there are also other legally required projects that we need to complete during this period.”
Those counties that have finished counting include several small ones, but also a few larger ones such as San Francisco. California’s most populous county, Los Angeles, has counted more than 1.6 million ballots, and has about 4,000 left to go.
While part of the delay is due to ensuring accuracy, lengthy vote counts can create distrust among some voters.
The state passed some laws to try and speed up the process. One new law allows counties to immediately scan vote-by-mail ballots from people who bring them in person. Placer County did so this primary: About 8,000 people used the system of the nearly 15,000 who came to vote centers.
Another new law allows counties to contact voters via email or text for signature verification. But both laws just went into effect on Jan. 1, and not all counties have had the time or resources to opt in yet.
In Orange County, the last batch of notification letters were sent out March 13, according to Bob Page, the county’s registrar of voters. Voters have until two days prior to certification of the election to respond.
The county is also working on processing provisional and conditional ballots, and resolving issues with ballots that were damaged or marked improperly. As of Tuesday evening, the county had processed about 678,000 ballots, and had nearly 12,000 left to count.
Counties have until April 2 to report the final results of the presidential primaries to the Secretary of State’s office, and until April 5 for other state races. The Secretary of State will certify the final primary results by April 12.