California election delays draw scrutiny as leaders stress 'system is working'
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- California is facing renewed national scrutiny over its election process as President Donald Trump and other Republicans cast doubt on the state's election integrity because of the time it takes to finalize results.
State election officials and Democratic lawmakers say the system is functioning as intended, balancing voter accessibility with ballot verification and accuracy.
California's expansive mail-in voting system sends ballots to every eligible registered voter.
"We have more voter protections in California than any other state in the country, to try to make it as easy as possible for voters to participate in their democracy," said Assemblymember Marc Berman, D-Menlo Park.
Under a new law authored by Berman, election officials now have 13 days after Election Day to process ballots, down from the previous 30-day window.
"I think there's probably more that we can do to count those ballots faster," Berman said. "But that does not mean that there's fraud in our elections."
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The criticism has been amplified by Trump and other Republican leaders. House Speaker Mike Johnson criticized California's election process to reporters on Capitol Hill Monday.
"I'm not saying it's rigged," Johnson said. "I'm saying it stinks to high heaven, and everybody knows that."
When asked by reporters for evidence, Johnson responded: "Some of these efforts are so diabolical and so far upstream that it's impossible to prove, but I think everybody knows instinctively, something is wrong here, and that's a concern."
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Asked whether anything was currently going wrong in California's election tabulation process, Berman told ABC7, "It doesn't appear like it."
"These are concerns and sometimes complaints and sometimes conspiracies that we hear every two years," he said. "I also think that we need to continuously to show voters and show the public the how our democracy works, how our election systems work so that they can get that confidence that what's happening is completely legitimate."
More than 80% of Californians voted by mail in the 2024 general election, according to data from the California Secretary of State's office.
Paul Mitchell, vice president of Political Data, said California's system gives voters multiple options for casting ballots, including mail, drop boxes and in-person voting sites.
"California has really leaned into and a model for our elections that prioritizes every single vote and tries to ensure that everybody who attempts to vote, that their vote counts," he said.
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Mitchell added that verifying and processing all of those ballots takes a significant amount of time, especially for mail-in ballots that come in after Election Day.
"They have to check the signature, and they have to go through the process of actually counting that along with millions of others," he said. "And so the time it takes is extraordinary."
Political observers say California could speed up ballot counting by dedicating significantly more staffing and resources to the process, though doing so could require diverting millions of dollars from other state priorities.
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A potential nationwide legal shift could also impact California's election laws. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule this month on a case that could affect laws in 13 states, including California, that allow mail ballots arriving after Election Day to be counted.
Tuesday is California's deadline for late-arriving ballots to be counted, one week after the primary election. By law, county election officials must finish processing ballots and publish results by next week on June 15.
