Early GOP Leads in California Election Results May Be Misleading, Experts Warn

Election night in California almost never tells the full story — and this year, that fact is likely to carry more weight than usual.

In race after race, especially the close ones, early returns in California tend to favor Republican candidates. Then, as ballots continue to be counted in the days and weeks that follow, the numbers shift toward Democrats. This pattern — sometimes called the “blue shift” or, from the other direction, the “red mirage” — isn’t evidence of Democrats manufacturing votes or manipulating outcomes, despite repeated claims to the contrary from President Donald Trump and his supporters.

Trump and his allies in the federal government are already laying the groundwork to challenge California’s election results this cycle, part of a broader and unprecedented campaign targeting the state’s voting systems. Election experts warn that the dispute could escalate into a serious confrontation over basic democratic norms — and they’re urging voters not to be swayed by accusations of a “rigged” election simply because early results look lopsided.

The shifts seen in initial vote counts, experts say, come down to predictable patterns in when and how Democrats and Republicans tend to cast their ballots, combined with the sheer amount of time it takes California to process millions of votes.

**A pattern with history**

The phenomenon has been documented for more than a decade, but the terminology gained traction nationally after the contentious 2020 presidential election. That year, early returns showed Trump leading in several battleground states, only for Joe Biden to pull ahead and ultimately win as counties finished tallying ballots in the following days.

In the final weeks of his first term, Trump repeatedly claimed the election had been stolen from him — assertions that have been debunked time and again. Those claims fueled the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

California has seen its own versions of this mirage in congressional and local races over the years. In 2018, four Republican congressional candidates appeared to be winning on election night, only to lose once all ballots were counted.

More recently, during this year’s June primary, reality TV personality and Republican candidate Spencer Pratt appeared to be outpacing progressive Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman in the city’s mayoral race, based on early returns. But Raman ultimately edged ahead, advancing to a general election matchup against incumbent Mayor Karen Bass. That reversal prompted Trump to label the results “fraudulent,” with some MAGA-aligned commentators suggesting behind-the-scenes Democratic interference.

Election experts and officials say there’s no evidence to support those claims — and the explanation is far more mundane.

**Why the numbers move**

California is, first and foremost, enormous. The state has roughly 23 million registered voters — more people than live in the 16 least populous states combined. Los Angeles County alone, the most populous county in the nation, has nearly 6 million registered voters.

California is also home to a substantial number of Republican voters, even though Democrats outnumber them significantly statewide. In fact, in the 2020 election, Los Angeles County — one of the most reliably Democratic counties in the country — cast more raw votes for Trump than any other county in the nation, simply because of its massive population.

That dynamic helps explain how a red mirage forms. During this year’s Los Angeles mayoral primary, Republican voters in the city tended to return their ballots earlier than Democrats. Meanwhile, many liberal voters held onto their ballots longer, weighing a crowded field of Democratic gubernatorial candidates appearing on the same ballot. That meant early results skewed more Republican — a mirage that faded once the full slate of Democratic ballots was tallied.

A similar dynamic could play out this fall across California’s competitive partisan races, including contests that may help determine which party controls Congress. And, as has become the norm, the rest of the country may need to wait weeks for California’s final numbers before many of those questions are resolved.

**Why California counts so slowly**

There’s no getting around it — California’s vote-counting process is notoriously slow, and that extended timeline creates fertile ground for doubt and misinformation to take root.

“This undermines voter confidence and opens the door to election misinformation and falsehoods,” said Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation, during a press briefing last week. “It leads to threats and harassment against our election workers… and it shortens the time available for an orderly transition of power.”

Still, there are structural reasons behind the delays. Since the pandemic, California has mailed a ballot to every registered voter automatically. Processing mail ballots takes considerably longer than processing those cast in person, and many voters wait until Election Day itself to return theirs.

On top of that, California allows a seven-day grace period for ballots postmarked by Election Day to arrive and be counted. The state also gives voters the longest window in the country to fix ballot problems — such as mismatched signatures — requiring election officials to track down voters and resolve the issue. This year, voters have until the day before Thanksgiving to correct such errors, according to Alexander.

State law only requires counties to count ballots for a minimum of six hours a day, and counties aren’t obligated to work weekends or holidays. Alexander noted that many counties go well beyond that minimum, but the pace ultimately depends on local resources — whether a county has enough election workers, can afford overtime pay, and has adequate space to process ballots.

Recent changes to state law aim to speed things up. Lawmakers this year allocated $29 million to help counties purchase additional vote-counting equipment and hire more staff. Even so, Alexander said some close races could remain undecided for weeks, since counties have up to 30 days to formally certify results.

Ben Gips of Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan nonprofit focused on countering authoritarianism, said California voters should be wary of anyone trying to exploit these delays to cast doubt on an election system that, while slow, is functioning exactly as designed.

“These delays really can feed into that narrative and make it a lot easier to mislead people,” Gips said.

Original source: CalMatters