Governor expresses worry as deluge of last-minute ballots and slow system could delay results in tightest races
California’s primary elections, including its fiercely fought gubernatorial contest, are at the mercy of a notoriously slow vote-counting system as polls closed on Tuesday, and it could be days or even weeks before the outcomes of the tightest races become clear.
Voting experts expect the state’s 58 county elections offices to be deluged with last-minute absentee ballots, as they have been in the last few election cycles, and spend weeks undertaking a painstaking ballot-by-ballot verification process.
That presents a procedural problem whenever races are close, as they tend to be in the state’s most competitive congressional districts, and the whole country is left waiting – as it was in 2020, 2022 and 2024 – to find out which party controls the House of Representatives.
It is also a political headache worrying everyone from Gavin Newsom, the state’s outgoing Democratic governor, to an aggrieved Republican party that has not won statewide office for 20 years and has become increasingly bold about accusing its political opponents of playing dirty, even without evidence.
“Time is of the essence in preventing election lies from taking hold,” Newsom warned in a letter that he sent to county election offices last month, urging them to speed up their counts. “We face an assault on our democratic values unlike anything we have seen in our lifetimes, and it’s our job to...
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