It's been almost a week since Election Day and California is still counting votes, imposing an agonizing wait on a nation wondering who will preside over the next US House of Representatives.
It's no surprise that California is taking its time verifying, processing and counting the ballots of its more than 22 million registered voters.
While some might see the delay as a problem, Russia Chavis Cárdenas, manager of California Common Cause's voting rights and redistricting program, called it a virtue.
“It means that election officials are doing everything they can to count every legitimate vote fairly and accurately,” Cárdenas said.
California has about 5 million ballots that still need to be counted, according to the California secretary of state's most recent raw ballot report.
The county leading the pack for raw ballots is Los Angeles, with a staggering 1 million ballots left to count. Ballots waiting to be counted include same-day ballots, but most are vote-by-mail ballots.
The majority of unprocessed ballots from counties across the state are vote-by-mail.
Registered voters tend to keep their mail-in ballots until Election Day and all turn them in at the same time, said Kim Alexander, president of the California Voters Foundation.
Counting mail-in ballots is not easy.
Election officials began processing and verifying mail-in ballots 29 days before Election Day; However, registered voters who cast their ballot by mail had several ways to deliver it. They could have mailed it on or before Election Day, put it in a mailbox, or authorized someone to return the ballots on their behalf.
Vote-by-mail ballot envelopes are reviewed to ensure that they are signed and that the signature matches the signature on record. If a voter's signature is missing or does not match the signature on file, California law requires election officials to notify that voter and give them the opportunity to fix the problem, which can also delay the process.
“We give voters plenty of opportunities to make sure they are not disenfranchised,” Alexander said.
For example, the state allows ballots to be accepted seven days after the election, but only if they are postmarked on or before the election.
If a vote-by-mail ballot is left in another county's mailbox, election officials must send it to the appropriate county recorder's office to be counted.
Many states do not have these “assurances in the system to protect voters and ensure that we have a minimum amount of disenfranchisement,” Alexander said.
To ensure all votes are counted, the state is giving counties 30 days to complete their recounts, and on Dec. 13 the secretary of state will certify the results.
The way ballots are processed is not the only factor delaying election results. Minor party candidates were eliminated from the general election ballots, leaving only the top two candidates in each race. As a result, there are more votes and narrower margins for the major party candidates left on the ballot.
California has always taken 30 days to count ballots, but Alexander said voters didn't realize until the House's margin of control became so narrow and “everybody was left waiting to find out.”
California has 11 congressional seats that are yet to be determined. The California Voter Foundation is monitoring congressional and legislative races through the Close County Transparency Project, which aims to provide a clear picture of how margins in swing races fluctuate as more votes are counted.
According to the nonprofit, when ballots were counted last week, including Friday and Saturday, two races flipped from Republican candidates to Democratic candidates who took the lead in the 27th precincts (Los Angeles County). and 47 (Orange County).
As of Saturday, Democratic candidates were leading in five races, Republicans in four, and the remaining two had already been called by the AP, according to the project.
In most congressional races the nonprofit tracks, Democratic candidates' leads have increased and Republican candidates' leads have decreased as more votes are counted.
