Despite it now being more than two weeks since Election Day, over 250,000 ballots still remain uncounted in California.
Much of the attention has been on Arizona’s midterm elections due to the mounting allegations of incompetence and malfeasance.
While all eyes are on Arizona and its handling of the midterms, California, the largest state in the country, is still counting ballots.
The vast majority of the uncounted ballots are from people who voted by mail, with Sacramento County failing to count a whopping 84,000 mail-in ballots.
“Thanksgiving is upon us, and California will still have at least 250,000 leftover uncounted ballots after the holiday,” Rob Pyers, research director for the non-partisan California Target Book, wrote on Twitter.
Thanksgiving is upon us, and California will still have at least 250,000 leftover uncounted ballots after the holiday.https://t.co/z56FAjg5mr pic.twitter.com/xQAdMWcmcA
— Rob Pyers (@rpyers) November 24, 2022
Sacramento had the most outstanding ballots with 89,000, including the mail-in ballots and 5,000 provisional ballots.
The state capital is followed by nearby Placer County with just under 39,000 left to count.
Los Angeles County had the third-most uncounted ballots, with 15,105.
The remaining ballots represent a tiny fraction of the total votes cast in the Golden State in 2022, but it’s prompted some to ask what is taking so long.
The answer is simple: In 2020, during the pandemic, California, along with other states, began mailing ballots to all registered voters.
The practice became permanent in 2021, CNN reported.
Ballots postmarked on or before Election Day must be accepted for up to seven days after the polls close.
California, being the most populous state in the country with more than 22 million registered voters, means that millions of ballots come in by mail.
In 2020, 15 million people in the state voted by mail – 87% of the total votes.
This year should see a smaller percentage, but the number will still be staggering.
CNN reported that the state would continue to process votes until December 8, meaning the election results will not be certified by California’s secretary of state until December 16.
“It’s just a huge electorate and in some of the counties – LA County, Orange County, even Kern County where the [GOP Rep. David] Valadao race is – there are a lot of people living there and a lot of ballots that have to be counted,” Christian Grose, academic director at the USC Schwarzenegger Institute for State and Global Policy, told CNN.
“With that ‘week after’ deadline, really the counting starts in earnest now.
“They really will be finishing the counting in the next week or two instead of the immediate day after Election Day.”
And while 250,000 seems like a big number, it does appear as though California is working quickly to count the ballots.
On November 16, the state still had 2.8 million uncounted ballots, so it’s processed more than 2.5 million in the past eight days.
