Why can’t California count?

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Politics<br>Why can’t California count?<br>The Golden State needs to bring its vote counting into the 21st century.

Eli McKown-Dawson and Nate Silver<br>Jun 05, 2026

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Scenes from the Xavier Becerra primary watch party. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.<br>One mode we sometimes use at Silver Bulletin is “Nate’s bad tweets, explained.” (Here’s an example.) But when I expressed my frustration with California’s incredibly slow vote-counting process earlier this week, I was surprised at how little dissent there was from Democrats, Republicans, or pretty much anyone.

Of course, we might want to analyze the implications of California’s elections on Tuesday under the state’s top-two primary system. But we can’t do that because we’re on the third day since the election and the finish line is not in sight yet for several key races.<br>Rather than editorialize too much further, though, we assigned Eli to pull some data. Indeed, California is even more of a negative outlier than I’d realized. –Nate Silver

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California has few (good) excuses for its slow vote counting

by Eli McKown-Dawson<br>It’s been three days since the polls closed in California’s primary elections, and we still don’t have race calls for governor, Los Angeles mayor, and for multiple salient US House contests. Did all of those races come down to a few hundred votes and get bogged down in recounts and litigation? Nope. Was there an earthquake or Succession-esque ballot fire that threw vote counting into chaos? Also no.<br>In fact, this outcome was entirely expected. And that’s the whole problem.<br>Before Election Day, many newsrooms put out similar articles explaining that tight races “could take days or even weeks” to call. That’s because California is notoriously slow at counting its ballots. In 2024, it took California until November 8 (three days after Election Day) to get just 70 percent of its ballots counted. Across all 50 states, the average share of the vote counted by that date was more than 95 percent, putting California squarely in last place. Rest assured, The Golden State did eventually hit that 95 percent mark… a full 10 days later.<br>Of course, statewide general elections — like those for president, governor, and US Senator — are called quickly in California, even though the vote count is slow, because the state isn’t particularly competitive. But close races are another story. In 2024, races for California’s 22nd and 27th districts took weeks to call — and the 13th District took about a month! The country has frequently had to wait on California to see which party won control of the House.

Share<br>That would seem to indicate there are major issues with California’s election administration, or at least some minor issues that need improvement, right? Not according to California Secretary of State Shirley Weber.1 “I know the value of being fast for some folks,” she told CalMatters. “For me, accuracy is far more important.” She’s not alone. There’s an attitude in some (mainly Californian and mainly Democratic) circles that California’s slow vote counting is indicative of a state that takes its time to carefully count every vote and ensure maximum accessibility. Here’s Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer on election night: “It might take some time to figure out where this is going. We’re going to wait until every ballot is counted. We’re going to give democracy time to work.”<br>To be fair, there are real reasons why you’d expect California’s count to take longer than other states. One explanation you’ll hear often is that the state is massive. With nearly 40 million residents, California would rank as the 4th largest economy in the world if it were treated as a country. Los Angeles County alone has a larger population than 40 states. California also sends a mail ballot to every registered voter and most voters — about 80 percent in 2024 — do choose to vote by mail. Those ballots take more time to tabulate, in part because election workers need to verify that the signature on each mail ballot matches the signature on file for that voter.<br>And California is quite permissive about when those mail ballots need to arrive. As long as the ballot is postmarked by Election Day, it can arrive up to one week later and still be counted. That means election offices will be getting new primary ballots to count through next Tuesday. Those late ballots don’t just slow down the count; they can also produce strange-looking results with blue or red skews. In this primary, Democrats on average returned their ballots later than Republicans, so the first-counted results from Election Day and early mail ballots were significantly redder than the eventual final result will be.<br>But none of these factors have anything to do with the accuracy Weber cares about. Vote tabulation is highly accurate across all 50 states, even those that manage to count everything on election night. And none of them are particularly good...