California’s lengthy ballot count after the June 2 primary has renewed debate over whether the state can deliver election results more quickly without limiting access for voters who rely on mail ballots.
The slow pace drew national scrutiny after it took roughly a week for enough ballots to be counted to project the California governor’s race. In the days after the primary, critics including President Donald Trump, election analyst Nate Silver and The New York Times editorial board pointed to the delay as a problem for public confidence in elections.
California leaders in both parties say they want faster results. But Democratic officials, who control state government, have shown little interest in major changes if those changes would make it harder for voters to participate.
The central issue is California’s heavy use of mail voting. Large numbers of ballots arrive on Election Day or shortly before, leaving county election offices with a surge of envelopes to process after polls close. That dynamic affects counties across the state, including Southern California and the Inland Empire, where mail voting has become a routine part of elections.
Assemblymember Gail Pellerin, a Santa Cruz Democrat who chairs the Assembly elections committee and previously served as a county registrar, said faster election-night results would come with tradeoffs. She warned that the state would have to return to more in-person voting, set much earlier mail ballot deadlines or take other steps that could leave some voters out.
Secretary of State Shirley Weber has also emphasized accuracy over speed. In April, she told CalMatters that accuracy is “far more important,” and she dismissed some of the criticism of slow results as a political talking point amplified by Trump.
Mail ballots generally take more time, staffing and money to handle than ballots cast in person. County election offices must manage the workload with limited resources, and the Public Policy Institute of California has reported that counties do not receive enough funding to hire the additional workers that could help speed up processing.
Unlike some other states, California does not provide counties with ongoing state funding dedicated to election administration. That leaves local registrars to balance voter access, accuracy and staffing constraints within their existing budgets.
Eric McGhee, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, said county election officials are doing what they can with the money available to them, but the volume of work is significant.
For now, the debate leaves California with a familiar tension: voters and political observers want quicker answers, but the systems that have expanded access to the ballot — particularly widespread mail voting — are also part of what slows the final count.
Original source: CalMatters
