As the media focuses on Arizona’s handling of the midterm election, California still has over 250,000 uncounted ballots across the state.
America, the world’s technological superpower, still needs to count all the votes from the 2022 midterms amid issues with machines, amongst other things.
Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of the uncounted ballots are from mail-in votes, with Sacramento County failing to count 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
The most outstanding ballots were Sacramento with 89,000, followed by Placer County with just under 39,000 left.
Los Angeles County came in third with 15,105.
The remaining ballots represent a tiny fraction of the votes cast in California, but why is it taking so long?
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Well, if you remember, in 2020, California, along with other states, began mailing votes to all registered voters. As The Daily Wire notes, that practice became permanent in 2021, and ballots postmarked on or before Election Day must be accepted for up to seven days after the polls close.
California, with 22 million registered voters, mean millions of ballots come in by mail.
Five million people voted by mail in the golden state in 2020 – 87% of the total votes.
Although this year was a smaller percentage, it is still a large number.
The state would continue to process votes until December 8, CNN reports.
This means results will not be certified 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.”
It’s also worth noting more than 100,000 mail-in ballots were rejected by California election officials during the March presidential primary in 2020, according to data obtained by The Associated Press.
This still doesn’t explain why California can’t count votes as fast as Florida.