CLAIM: California is still counting votes more than a week after the March 5 primary, a sign the election was rigged.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. It is not unusual for California’s vote count to extend long past Election Day and there has been no indication of widespread fraud in this year’s primaries, experts told The Associated Press. Factors that contribute to this lengthy process include the large number of people who vote by mail, provisional ballots and signature verification.
THE FACTS: More than a week since Super Tuesday, social media users are erroneously claiming that California’s ongoing vote count is a sign of nefarious activities related to its March 5 primaries.
“CA now doesn’t know the winner of its Senate primary race 9 days later,” reads one X post that had received approximately 26,000 likes and 11,200 shares as of Friday, the day after it was published. “CA’s elections are RIGGED.”
Other posts referred to the primaries in general without pointing to a specific race.
But election experts told the AP there is nothing suspicious about how long it’s taking the Golden State to count primary votes. In fact, it’s par for the course.
“It’s perfectly normal,” said Lisa Bryant, an associate professor of political science at California State University, Fresno. “And yet, for whatever reason, people still have this expectation that Election Day happens on a Tuesday and everybody goes in and pulls a lever and that’s the end of the election. And that just doesn’t happen anymore.”
Bryant, who studies election administration, pointed to three reasons in particular the vote count takes so much time in the state — the popularity of voting by mail, the processing of provisional ballots and the verification of voter signatures.
California has more than 22 million registered voters and mail-in voting is at an all time high. In its 2022 primary elections, 91.24% of voters cast their ballots by mail. That number dropped only slightly in the general election, to 87.52%. There were no statewide elections in 2023.
Although mail-in ballots, including those dropped off in person at designated locations, can be processed ahead of time so that they are ready for tallying, they can’t actually be counted until Election Day. And some people wait until the last minute to drop off their ballot, meaning there won’t be time for it to be pre-processed. Ballots that are postmarked on or before Election Day can be counted if they are received by mail no later than seven days after the election, further delaying a final tally.
Provisional ballots cast on Election Day are also a factor. They can only be counted after all vote-by-mail ballots have been processed to ensure voters who cast a provisional ballot did not vote by any other method.
Additionally, signatures on vote-by-mail and provisional ballots are compared to voter signatures on file to verify that they match. If they don’t, or if the signature is missing altogether, voters have until two days before a county certifies its election results to correct any discrepancies — a process known as signature curing.
County officials have until April 2, 2024, to report final results of the presidential primaries to the Secretary of State and until April 5, 2024, for all other races. The Secretary of State must certify the entire election by April 12, 2024.
Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation, a nonprofit that advocates for equal access to voting and more funding for elections, noted that when a race is close in the state, it highlights the lengthy vote count. A race with a wide enough margin can be called before all the votes are tallied, but that’s not so for ones that are neck and neck.
“Just because something’s slow doesn’t mean that something’s questionable,” she said. “It’s just taking time.”
At the same time, Alexander acknowledged that the slow count “can be very frustrating” for campaigns, voters and election staff. She pointed out that it “opens up the process to criticism and false claims of fraud” and advocated for finding ways to speed up the task.
The California Secretary of State’s Office told the AP in a statement that “there is nothing about vote tallies changing prior to certification of election results that constitutes fraud.” It further explained that the state “has an extensive review process that requires more than placing a ballot through a machine.”
Bryant, Alexander and the Secretary of State’s Office all said they have seen no indication of widespread fraud in this year’s primary elections.
There were 499,847 unprocessed ballots statewide as of 5:18 p.m. on March 14, the latest available data. Processing had been completed for more than 7 million, according to the data.
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This is part of the AP’s effort to address widely shared false and misleading information that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.
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