Every registered voter in California gets a ballot mailed to them. You can do one of the following to turn it in: fill it out and bring it to a drop box; drop it in the mail; or bring it to your polling place, to your county elections office, or to a vote center.
And if you prefer voting in person, guess what? You can do that too. Bring in your unused mail in ballot. Trade it in and you get an in-person ballot. Or if you don’t have your unused mail in ballot, you can still vote in person with a provisional one. That vote will count after they make sure that you haven’t also voted by mail.
Here’s why California elections take so long. It is both a vote-by-mail state and the biggest state, so the sheer number of mail-in ballots means it takes longer to open and count those ballots than if everyone just voted in person. Also, California state law allows seven days for mail-in ballots to arrive if they were postmarked on or before Election Day, which is not unusual.
Thirteen other states also have that, including Alaska, Washington and Illinois, which all have longer grace periods than California. But here’s why. There’s a partisan difference in the results on election night in California versus after — Democrats tend to prefer voting by mail, and Republicans tend to prefer voting in person.
In a state where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans almost 2 to 1, that means that the bulk of Democratic votes are getting counted later than Republican ones. And if Democrats wait until the last minute to drop off or mail in their ballot, it means it’s extra delayed. Which is exactly what just happened after Eric Swalwell dropped out.
It took a while for a Democratic front runner to emerge in the governor’s race, which finally it did with Javier Becerra. But as a result, California Democrats waited until the last minute to turn in their ballot. Hence the Red Mirage on election night and the flood of Democratic votes being counted after.
It’s not fraud, it’s just how California always does its elections, which you can either like or dislike. And if you dislike it, you can push your state lawmakers to change it.
Ben Sheehan is a political commentator and digital creator. He specializes in civics education, which is showcased in his latest book, What Does the Constitution Actually Say?: A Non-Boring Guide to How Our Democracy Is Supposed to Work. Check out his Substack, Politics Made Easy.
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