Some Californians were carving Halloween pumpkins and taking their children trick-or-treating when they cast their votes in this year's election. Now they are putting up Christmas trees while officials still vote counting in some places.
With the vast majority of votes counted, most races have been called by media organizations anyway, including some very close ones. In Orange County, Democrat Derek Tran was declared the winner in his race against incumbent Michelle Steel last week.
With that and a race in Iowa called the same week, California now claims the distinction of hosting the last congressional race in the country that has yet to be called. That's in the Central Valley's 13th District, where, with about 99% of votes counted as of Monday afternoon, Democratic challenger Adam Gray led Republican Rep. John Duarte by 143 votes.
That doesn't mean everyone should continue hating California for taking so long. First of all, we have more residents than any other state. Second, every voter in the state is automatically mailed a ballot about a month before Election Day. In Los Angeles County, more than 70% of voters mailed or dropped off their ballots, said Mike Sanchez, spokesman for the county recorder. According to the California Secretary of State's office, nearly 90% of voters cast their ballots by mail in the 2022 midterm elections.
Californians can also register and vote by provisional ballot on Election Day. It takes more time to process those ballots.
California ballots had to be postmarked by Nov. 5 to be counted, but election officials could receive them up to seven days later. All such mail-in ballots must be checked to see if the signatures match those on the voter lists. And if they don't, voters are contacted and told they can correct (or “cure”) the ballot with a signature.
Voters in the state had until December 1 to fix their ballots. And that's why we still have votes counting even when Christmas shopping is in full swing.
Los Angeles County workers have been processing and counting ballots every day since Nov. 6, the day after Election Day, except Thanksgiving Day, according to Sanchez. In fact, the week after the election, the county had shifts processing ballots 24 hours a day.
Could some counties process and count ballots faster? Maybe. Some state lawmakers are interested in finding ways to speed up the process.
But more importantly, the slowness has gone hand in hand with allowing voters enough time and some ways to cast their ballots, and then fixing problems that could prevent them from being counted. The painstaking process of collecting and verifying these ballots speaks both to electoral integrity and providing voters with access and opportunities to vote.
That makes some races that seemed to take forever to call worth the wait.
Closing is approaching. All counties must submit their results for the state election by Friday. (And, as far as state officials know, no county has missed the deadline.) And the secretary of state is expected to certify the state election results on Dec. 13, weeks even before the winners' terms begin.
