It's been almost a week since election day, and California is still counting votes, putting an agonizing wait on a nation wondering who will lead the next U.S. House of Representatives.
It's no surprise that California is taking its time to verify, process and count the votes of its more than 22 million registered voters.
While some may see the delay as a problem, Russia Chavis Cardenas, director of voting rights and redistricting for California Common Cause, called it a virtue.
“It means that election officials are doing everything they can to count all valid votes correctly and accurately,” Cardenas said.
California has about 5 million ballots that need to be counted, according to the latest report of unprocessed ballots by the California secretary of state.
The leading state with undecided votes is Los Angeles, with a staggering one million votes left to count. Pending ballots include same-day ballots, but most are mail-in ballots.
Most of the unprocessed ballots in precincts across the state are mail-in ballots.
Registered voters often hold on to their mail-in ballots until Election Day and turn them in all at once, said Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation.
Counting votes by email is not straightforward.
Election officials began processing and verifying postal ballots 29 days before election day; however, registered voters who vote by mail have a variety of ways to cast them. They could mail them on or before election day, put them in a drop box or authorize someone to return the ballots on their behalf.
Mail-in ballot envelopes are checked to ensure they are signed and the signature matches the signature on file. If a voter's signature is missing or does not match the signature on file, California law requires election officials to notify that voter and give them an opportunity to correct the problem, which can also delay the process.
“We give voters more opportunities to ensure that they are not disenfranchised,” said Alexander.
For example, the state allows ballots to be accepted up to seven days after an election, but only if they are marked after or before the election.
If a mail-in ballot is dropped off at another county's drop box, election officials must send it to the correct county office to be counted.
Most states don't have these “failure safeguards in place to protect voters and make sure we have a minimum number of disenfranchisements,” Alexander said.
To ensure that all votes are counted, the state is giving counties 30 days to complete their counts, and on December 13 the secretary of state will certify the results.
How votes are processed is not the only factor that affects election results. Minority candidates were eliminated from the national election, leaving only the top two in each race. As a result, there are more votes and smaller margins for major party candidates remaining on the ballot.
It always takes California 30 days to count votes, but Alexander said voters didn't notice until the margin for control of the House of Representatives became very narrow and “everyone is still waiting to find out.”
California has 11 undecided congressional seats. The California Voter Foundation monitors congressional and legislative races through the Close County Transparency Project, which aims to provide a clearer picture of how margins in undecided contests change as more votes are counted.
According to the non-profit organization, as votes were counted last week, including Friday and Saturday, two contests went from Republican candidates to Democratic candidates leading Congressional Districts 27 (Los Angeles County) and 47 (Orange County).
As of Saturday, the Democratic primary leads in five contests, the Republican primary in four, and the remaining two have been called by the AP, according to the project.
In most congressional races the nonprofit is tracking, the lead for Democratic candidates has increased and the lead for Republican candidates has decreased as more votes are counted.
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