California election limbo fueled by 4 pressure points dragging out vote count, expert says
California’s still-unsettled election results are the consequence of the state’s vote-by-mail system, according to election law expert Hans von Spakovsky, who said the process can keep ballots moving through verification and counting for days and even weeks after Election Day.
The Golden State is continuing to count ballots cast in its June 2 primary elections, a process that has extended beyond Election Day due to the state's election laws, administrative procedures, and vote-counting policies, said von Spakovsky. The delay is not the result of an isolated incident or unexpected complication but stems from the structure of its electoral system before final results can be certified.
"There are four reasons why California takes so long," von Spakovsky, senior legal fellow at Advancing American Freedom, told Fox News Digital on Friday. "First of all, it's almost entirely a mail election now."
The Los Angeles mayoral race has captured the nation's attention as Republican-aligned candidate Spencer Pratt awaits a tally determining if he or Democrat-aligned Nithya Raman will advance to the runoff election in November against incumbent Democrat Karen Bass. While former Health and Human Services secretary under the Biden administration, Xavier Becerra, Republican Steve Hilton and Democrat Tom Steyer are still duking it out for the top two spots in the state's jungle primary process ahead of the general election in November.
Von Spakovsky identified what he said are the four causes for the delay in final tallies: mass mail voting, a seven-day post-Election Day ballot receipt window, a 22-day cure period for signature issues, and high volumes of provisional ballots that must be individually investigated.
Of the four causes of the delay, von Spakovsky said California’s mail-ballot rules cause the greatest concern because it dramatically slows the counting process. With the vast majority of ballots cast by mail, election officials must spend additional time verifying and processing those ballots before they can be counted, extending the timeline for final results.
"You can go vote in person, but like in the 2024 election, out of 16 million votes that were cast in the presidential election, 13 million were by mail. It takes much longer to process a mail-in ballot than a ballot that's cast at a polling place," he said.
Mail-in ballots allow voters to cast their ballots from home, avoid long lines and grew in popularity during the pandemic.
Ballot drops are still rolling in and once they do, counties then have additional time to process, verify and tabulate those ballots, with counting expected to continue through June 15.
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Von Spakovsky pointed to postmarks on ballots as a key vulnerability in counting ballots.
"California law says, ‘We'll count absentee ballots or mail-in ballots received up to seven days after Election Day if they're postmarked by Election Day. But if the postmark's missing, or it's blurry, and we can't read it, we will just go by whatever date the voter wrote inside the envelope,’" he said.
He said the state's election rules are too permissive, pointing to policies such as not requiring voter ID, automatic voter registration, and lengthy post-election ballot processing periods, which he argued invite fraud or irregularities.
California is one of eight states, along with Washington, D.C., that automatically sends mail ballots in to all active registered voters in their universal vote-by-mail policy.
President Donald Trump singled out the state's election process this week, announcing that U.S. attorneys are looking into Los Angeles as the mayoral race remains pending.
"Without commenting on any specific investigation, my office has multiple election fraud investigations underway in coordination with @FBILosAngeles," First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California Bill Essayli wrote on X Thursday. "We will follow the evidence wherever it leads and prosecute any violations of federal election law to the fullest extent."
"The state has stonewalled every effort to verify that only eligible U.S. citizens are registered to vote. This case is now before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal. My office will not look the other way. We will investigate and prosecute. Every legal vote deserves to be counted. Every illegal vote cancels one out," he added.
Democrats have played down concern over the process to count the ballots, including Becerra saying those who bemoan the amount of time it takes are working "to undermine confidence in our elections."
"We count every ballot. Thank you for your patience as we give democracy time to work," Steyer wrote on X, citing Trump's recent comments on the election.
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Viral rumors have spread across social media since June 2, including claims that Pratt did not receive a single vote out of about 24,000 Los Angeles ballots that rolled in.
"That’s a lie," the California Attorney General’s Office told Fox News Digital, pointing to an X statement from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s press office debunking the claims as "disinformation" and a "lie."
The California governor sent a letter to state election officials in May calling on them to swiftly tabulate the upcoming elections, while focusing the letter on building and maintaining confidence in voting.
"We must continue building confidence in our elections and ensure not only that every vote is counted, but that every vote is trusted. We must acknowledge that the longer the voting count takes, the more mis- and disinformation spreads. That means we must do all that we can to tabulate votes quickly and accurately. Time is of the essence in preventing election lies from taking hold," he wrote.
Fox News Digital reached out to Newsom's office for additional comment.