California’s Third World Elections: Slow Count Looms as Officials Blame ‘So Many Candidates’ for Delayed Results

Election Day is something of a misnomer in California. By state law, the process of voting and tabulating ballots stretches far beyond the traditional single day of in-person polling. With universal mail-in ballots sent out to every registered voter up to 29 days before Election Day, and early in-person voting available at designated voting centers starting as early as the weekend before the election, voting in the Golden State is effectively a multi-week affair. Vote-by-mail ballots can be postmarked by Election Day but received and counted up to seven days later. The full official canvass, including signature verification, provisional ballots, cures, and mandatory audits, gives counties up to 30 days after Election Day to certify results. While a new law (AB 5, signed in 2025) pushes counties to count most ballots by the 13th day, exceptions for late-arriving and “complex” ballots mean the true end of an election can easily stretch into a full month or more.

This prolonged timeline marks a sharp departure from historical norms. For over a 100 years, election results in California and across the nation were routinely known on Election Night, driven by predominantly in-person precinct voting where ballots were counted locally and reported promptly after polls closed, without the advent of the internet or artificial intelligence.

This system worked effectively for more than a century, consistently delivering Election Night results, until Democrats pushed sweeping changes to election laws that prioritized universal mail-in voting and ballot harvesting over speed and essential, traditional safeguards– like chain of custody.

Even after California expanded no-excuse absentee voting in 1978, mail ballots remained a small minority for decades, preserving same-night tallies in the vast majority of races. The shift to universal mail-in ballots, made permanent in 2021 and fully implemented during the “pandemic,” fundamentally changed the process, prioritizing expanded access over speed, turning what was once a single-day event into a drawn-out, opaque exercise.

California has been manipulating elections since before 2010, but has done so more brazenly in recent years.Democrats passed a pair of 2016 laws, Senate Bill 450 by Sen. Ben Allen (D-Santa Monica) and Assembly Bill 1921, authored by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego), which legalized and expanded ballot harvesting, allowing third parties to collect and return unlimited voter ballots while extending the window for counting ballots for up to 30 days following the election, among a myriad of other changes that critics say tilted the system in favor of mail-in operations.

As the Globe has reported, the Election Integrity Project California has repeatedly warned about the risks. Hundreds of thousands of ballots for California’s November elections have been mailed to registered voters who have likely moved or died, while more than one ballot was sent to thousands of others. In May 2020, based on a report by the Election Integrity Project, we warned that 458,000 dead persons could be mailed ballots if the state moved to an all-mail system for the November 2020 election. And then Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an Executive Order on May 8, 2020, requiring all California voters to receive a vote-by-mail ballot for that cycle– a move later made permanent.

This week, Judicial Watch filed a federal lawsuit against Secretary of State Shirley Weber, exposing that over 873,000 inactive voter registrations remain on California’s rolls– many eligible for removal under the National Voter Registration Act after multiple federal elections without activity. These “ghost voters” could still receive mail ballots, further complicating the already bloated system.

The U.S. Supreme Court is currently weighing these very issues. In March 2026, the Court heard oral arguments in Watson v. Republican National Committee, a case challenging more than a dozen state laws, including California, that permit mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day to be received and counted days/weeks later. Conservative justices appeared skeptical. Justice Samuel Alito, in particular, emphasized the plain meaning of the term: “If we start with that, if I have nothing more to look at than the phrase ‘Election Day,’ I think this is the day in which everything is going to take place, or almost everything.” Alito likened Election Day to other fixed observances like Labor Day or Independence Day and raised concerns about the potential for late-arriving ballots to radically flip outcomes, and the resulting erosion of public confidence due to the appearance of impropriety or fraud.

As Californians head to the polls or drop off their mail-in ballots in an unmanned, unsecured ballot drop box on this “Election Day,” state officials are already preparing the public for yet another painfully slow tabulation process, one that could stretch days or weeks beyond the closing of polls at 8 p.m. The culprit, according to election administrators and a recent Los Angeles Times report: an unprecedented number of candidates, particularly in the wide-open gubernatorial race, coupled with California’s mail-in ballot rules that prioritize volume over speed.

This is third world behavior.

Just wait for the mail in ballots that they will magically find weeks later. pic.twitter.com/uDzGiG14KK

— Katie Miller (@KatieMiller) June 2, 2026

A June 2 Los Angeles Times article highlighted the issue directly on “Election Day”: “California — and particularly Los Angeles County — is notorious for slow election counts. But Tuesday’s primary could test the patience of even the most-knowing political junkies as some of the highest profile races, including California governor and L.A. mayor, remain tight.” The piece quoted “experts” urging patience, with Tracy Hernandez of the New California Coalition saying, “We’re trying to keep people calm. Expect not to know.” Jessica Levinson, a law professor at Loyola Marymount University, added: “We allow people lots of different avenues to vote, and as a result it takes longer to count up all the votes. And that’s how it should be.” The article noted that universal vote-by-mail requires extra signature verification and cure periods, with ballots accepted up to seven days after Election Day if postmarked on time, and warned that close races could drag on for days or weeks.

Secretary of State Shirley Weber has stressed that accuracy must come first in a system handling millions of ballots across massive counties like Los Angeles. Her office has repeatedly defended the process as necessary to ensure every valid vote is counted.

The result? Election Night tallies capture only a fraction of the vote, with the bulk of mail-ins trickling in afterward. As the Secretary of State’s office has noted in past cycles, this “pig in the python” effect–a massive late surge of ballots–makes rapid reporting impossible by the Democrat’s own design.

If accuracy must come first, as Secretary Weber repeatedly claims, why do nearly 900,000 inactive voters remain on California’s voter rolls, according to this week’s Judicial Watch lawsuit and longstanding warnings from the Election Integrity Project California?

In his March 2023 op-ed “To Fix Our Government We Must Fix Our Election System,” then-Assemblyman Bill Essayli wrote: “The lack of sufficient safeguards to mail voting, poorly maintained voter rolls, and delayed election result reporting are prime culprits.” He noted that “the shift to mail voting has also resulted in massive delays in obtaining election results. This extended delay breeds distrust and skepticism in the tabulation process,” pointing to instances where newly elected legislators could not be seated on swearing-in day because races remained uncalled. Essayli introduced AB 13 to restore pre-pandemic procedures, ban ballot harvesting, limit mail ballots to requested absentees only, and make Election Day a holiday. Needless to say, the bill was killed in the Democratic-dominated Assembly Elections Committee.

Public frustration boiled over today in real time. Conservative commentator Katie Miller captured the sentiment on X, posting: “This is third world behavior. Just wait for the mail in ballots that they will magically find weeks later.” The post, which included a Los Angeles Times image underscoring the absurdity, quickly went viral with thousands of likes and replies decrying the system as rigged for delay and doubt.

Election forecaster Nate Silver echoed the outrage in a post on X today, stating: “The fact that California elections often can’t be resolved for weeks is kind of insane and not common in other electoral systems around the world.” He followed up bluntly: “Like honestly ‘it’s going to take us several weeks to tell you who won the election’ is failed state shit and should be much more stigmatized.” Silver added that tolerating the delays is “a textbook example of learned helplessness.”

The fact that California elections often can't be resolved for weeks is kind of insane and not common in other electoral systems around the world.

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) June 2, 2026

By contrast, Florida, with turnout often in the 60-70 percent range in recent general elections (comparable to or exceeding California’s recent figures), routinely reports near-complete unofficial results on election night. Florida law allows processing and tabulation of mail ballots to begin weeks before Election Day, with strict receipt deadlines. This head start, combined with limits on late-arriving ballots and efficient central counting, enables swift reporting without sacrificing accuracy.

As polls close tonight, don’t hold your breath for final gubernatorial or legislative projections as state law explicitly allowing ballots to arrive and be tabulated long after the polls close. California’s “methodical” process, designed by Democrats, will once again test voters’ patience, and their faith in the system.