The Brief

The University of California suspended for a year its plan to allow undocumented students to acquire campus jobs, crushing a student-led movement more than a year in the making.

The decision all but halts an effort by UCLA law professors and student advocates to create a pathway for the estimated 4,000 undocumented UC students to earn a paycheck legally. While many students without legal immigrant protections receive state financial aid and have their tuition waived, those students are often on their own financially to cover rent, food and other necessary expenses to continue their studies. These students also are blocked from receiving federal grants, further intensifying their fiscal strain.

“We have concluded that the proposed legal pathway is not viable at this time,” said Michael Drake, president of the UC, at today’s regents meeting. He said the proposal is “inadvisable” and “carries significant risk for the institution and for those we serve.”

However, “as new information becomes available, we will evaluate that information, and if appropriate, move ahead,” he said.

Regents, who make up the top governing board of the UC, voted to formally rescind a policy it adopted in May to explore implementing the hiring plan. Undocumented students in the audience screamed through tears, some who were on a hunger strike since Tuesday to pressure the UC to adopt the hiring measure.

“Cowards!” a student yelled. “Shame,” another said. “I hope you live with this for the rest of your life,” said another.

“I’m deeply disappointed that the UC Regents and President Drake shirked their duties to the students they are supposed to protect and support,” said Jeffry Umaña Muñoz, a UCLA undocumented student and leader at Undocumented Student-Led Network, in a statement. “We as UC students deserve so much more from our university leadership. This is not the end of our fight for equality.”

Ten regents voted in support of the motion to rescind the proposal for a year and six opposed. One voter abstained.

“I can’t think of a moment where I’ve been more disappointed sitting around this board table,” said John Pérez, a UC regent and member of a working group to explore the plan. He voted no.

The UC would have been the first university to adopt such a measure, said Jorge Silva, a senior spokesperson for the UC.

UC’s general counsel, Charles Robinson, and his legal team were “very skeptical of the legal theory,” said Merhawi Tesfai, a UC regent and graduate student who votes on the board. Tesfai was also part of the working group and wanted the UC to hire undocumented students.

Drake in his comments today said that his office consulted with legal experts “inside and outside the university.”

Tesfai said the general counsel’s office sought legal analysis from multiple outside law firms, and their conclusion was that “this wasn’t something that they would recommend and that it wouldn’t be legally viable,” Tesfai said, summarizing comments that Robinson and Drake made to him and other regents.

After today’s vote, he and a few other regents consoled the crying undocumented students in attendance at the UC San Francisco meeting space. “It was all justified anger,” he said.

Legal theory

Core to the novel legal argument of the UCLA coalition Opportunity For All is that while a 1986 federal law bars employers from hiring undocumented immigrants, the UC, as a state agency, is exempt. “Under governing U.S. Supreme Court precedents, if a federal law does not mention the states explicitly, that federal law does not bind state government entities,” the coalition’s 2022 legal memo said. Nothing in that federal law “expressly binds or even mentions state government entities.”

Pérez said that “we have gotten so focused on the question of what the law clearly says today that we’re losing sight of the moral imperative of what the law should be interpreted as being.”

Student Karely Amaya, center, organizes an “opportunity for all” activism group at UCSF Mission Bay Conference Center in San Francisco on Jan. 25, 2024.

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Loren Elliott

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CalMatters

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But Drake said the risks were too great. Human resources employees and legal staff “might be subject to criminal or civil prosecution if they knowingly participate in hiring practices deemed impermissible under federal law,” he said. He said the UC “will be subject to civil fines, criminal penalties, or debarment from federal contracting if the university is found to be in violation of the Federal Immigration Reform and Control Act,” the 1986 federal law. The billions in federal research grants could also be at risk, Drake said.

The argument to hire undocumented students has the support of some of the country’s most prominent immigration law scholars, who signed the legal memo backers of Opportunity for All published in 2022. Meanwhile, more than 500 faculty have signed a December letter saying “we will hire undocumented students into educational employment positions for which they are qualified once given authority to do so by the UC.”

Student advocates of Opportunity For All pushed the UC Regents to take the group’s legal theory seriously. Last May, the regents voted to consider whether the UC could hire undocumented students and what that process would look like. Students were initially jubilant, but months later were furious when the UC blew past its own deadline on how to proceed at the November meeting. Several dozen students risked arrest by crossing the stanchions separating them from the regents, shutting down the meeting. That prompted a meeting between advocates and several regents.

Those regents told the students then that they were committed to a full roll-out of the plan by this month, but they were not speaking for the full board.

“It is deeply shameful that the UC is holding them back from achieving their full potential,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, a UCLA immigration law scholar and one of the architects of the legal theory arguing undocumented students can legally work at the UC.

Recent federal rules

The ability to work legally is a matter of survival for immigrants in the U.S. But while more than half a million undocumented immigrants who entered the U.S. young are allowed to have jobs through the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, federal courts have halted the federal government’s ability to accept new applications. But even if the courts permit new applications, most of today’s young undocumented immigrants wouldn’t benefit. That’s because DACA applies to individuals who arrived in the U.S. by June 15, 2007 and are at least 15 years old upon applying, leaving most young students today ineligible.

In 2023, just 1% of all DACA recipients were under 21 years old.

“As a leader of an American Indian nation, for us to sit here and be so concerned and keep talking about risk when the students and their families have gone through so much risk just to get here, only can strike me as patronizing,” said Gregory Sarris, a UC regent.

The UC has a history of upholding legal protections for undocumented students. The university sued the Trump administration in 2017 for ending the deferred action program. That legal saga culminated with a Supreme Court decision upholding the program in 2020. DACA lived on, but lower court decisions since then have blocked the Biden administration from processing new applications.

But Pérez said the UC didn’t lead, as Drake said, but reacted to student, faculty and community advocacy to challenge the Trump administration. Roughly 17,000 Californians don’t qualify for the deferred program because of decisions by the Trump administration and the courts.

Donald Trump is likely to emerge as the Republican nominee for the Oval Office. A Trump presidency could lead to a redux in the fight between the UC and the federal government over immigration rights for the country’s young residents.

“What happens if we have a new administration?” asked Jose Hernandez, a UC regent who supported the hiring plan. “I don’t even think this is going to be considered to be implemented, to tell you the truth, so I think we’re squandering a great opportunity.”

There had already been pushback to the UC proposal from some Republicans, among them Rep. Darrell Issa of San Diego County. He shot off a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom warning that California couldn’t “pick and choose which federal laws to follow and which to declare null and void.” If the UC system did approve the policy change, he wrote, “please inform Congress how the system intends to refund its current federal funding, as well as provide a detailed estimate of the fiscal impact to students by foregoing future federal assistance.”

Work and financial aid

Abraham Cruz, 25, is a UCLA senior and undocumented. His DACA status lapsed a few years ago and he has been unable to renew it, so no employer can legally hire him.

He found a loophole, but it’s uncommon: Cruz is part of a labor cooperative where he’s his own boss. He consults clients on immigration policy, research and writing, he said.

An “opportunity for all” sign from an activism group that gathered at UCSF Mission Bay Conference Center in San Francisco on Jan. 25, 2024.

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Loren Elliott

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CalMatters

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Still, he’d rather have a campus job, where managers know to prioritize students’ academics over work. Or he could work with a professor and pursue research in his field of labor studies.

Drake, UC’s president, said in November that he wants to protect students from any legal consequences, but Cruz said students are already assuming the risk of working under the table or in dangerous jobs, often below minimum wage.

I don’t know what the UC thinks, but if it doesn’t offer jobs on campus students are going to have to find a way … to come up with that money,” he said. “The best thing the UC could do is provide these safe jobs for students.”

Pérez echoed that view. “We can fool ourselves into thinking that our students aren’t working. They’re not,” he said. “They’re working in underground jobs subjected to inhumane and horrific conditions.”

Another option for undocumented students is receiving an academic fellowship. But fellowships and scholarships are financial aid — and no student can receive aid above the state cap, which is equal to what a campus calculates is the cost of attendance. Even the most generous financial aid package from the UC still expects a student to find $8,000 to $10,000 of their own money each year to pay for tuition, housing, food and other costs. Academic fellowships and outside scholarships can’t exceed that $,8000 to $10,000 personal contribution.

And while students with income could see their financial aid decrease, most undocumented students have low enough incomes to qualify for California’s marquee financial aid tool, the Cal Grant, which waives tuition. 

“I’m frustrated, I’m pissed off, I’m angry that we’re at this point,” said Keith Ellis, a regent representing UC alumni. “I feel like we’ve led on the students, that we’ve lied to you in some ways, and for what it’s worth, I apologize.”

Los Angeles County quietly stopped handing out syringes and pipes at the county’s flagship services hub in Skid Row in August, and has now terminated the contract of the nonprofit that ran harm reduction programs there, the Department of Health Services told LAist.

The pause — which county officials said is temporary — began in August, “in part due to concerns that community stakeholders and local businesses raised to County leadership,” according to a statement provided to LAist by Thomas Lynch, a spokesperson for the county’s Department of Health Services.

The changes come amid a growing cluster of HIV cases in Skid Row and mounting pressure from the Trump administration and neighboring businesses on L.A. programs that distribute drug paraphernalia. Critics argue the programs enable drug addiction and contribute to crime in the area.

The goal of these programs is to keep people who use drugs alive and free of infections like HIV and hepatitis, while working to connect them with services including treatment.

In late August, the county Department of Public Health identified a cluster of HIV cases among people who live in and around Skid Row. As of Sunday, 15 people had been linked to it, 11 of them women, according to Becky Schlikerman, a spokesperson for that department.

In a statement, Schlikerman said both substance use and sexual transmission are being investigated as possible factors, and that the department is working with street medicine teams and harm reduction groups to expand HIV testing and prevention in the area.

“There is an active HIV outbreak in Skid Row, so reducing safe injection supplies to people who use drugs in this moment seems particularly dangerous,” said Ricky Bluthenthal, distinguished professor of population and public health sciences at USC’s Keck School of Medicine.

The Skid Row Care Campus still distributes naloxone — the opioid overdose reversal drug — wound care supplies and safe sex supplies, Lynch said, but “distribution of syringes and pipes is currently on pause.”

He also said they have not set a date for syringe services to resume, that the pause applies only at the campus, and that staff are referring people to syringe programs elsewhere.

The state lists 24 authorized syringe services programs in L.A. County, according to the California Department of Public Health. Two are based in or next to Skid Row.

Harm reduction services are provided across much of L.A. County, according to the L.A. County Department of Public Health.

Darren Willett, director of the Center for Harm Reduction in Skid Row, in September of 2021.

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Al Seib / Los Angeles Times

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Provider layoffs 

The county has also terminated its contract with Homeless Health Care Los Angeles effective Tuesday, county officials said. The county announced the change in an Aug. 28 statement, the same month the syringe and pipe pause began.

Homeless Health Care Los Angeles, one of L.A.’s best-known harm reduction providers, notified the state in September that it would permanently lay off 134 workers — including 117 employees at the Skid Row Care Campus — effective Tuesday, Nov. 3, according to state Employment Development Department records.

“Right now, HHCLA is being forced to say goodbye to some deeply valued staff and reduce services that some of LA’s most marginalized rely on every day,” the nonprofit wrote in an Instagram post in late September.

In the same post, Homeless Health Care Los Angeles said its jobs program for people in Skid Row “no longer exists.” The nonprofit said the program offered “real income, real pathways forward for people too often shut out of opportunity.”

The county is bringing in nonprofits St. Joseph Center and LA Community Health Project instead, officials said. Meanwhile, Social Model Recovery Systems will expand its existing services and Wesley Health Centers will continue providing healthcare on site.

In statements provided to LAist, L.A. County's health services and homelessness departments described the shake-up as “contractor changes” made as part of an effort to “strengthen operations.” Officials are updating campus protocols, “strengthening on-site safety” and expanding substance use treatment and healthcare, according to those statements.

County officials said they are committed to a transition that avoids disruption for people using the campus.

“Providers are hiring from within the Skid Row community and have worked hard to retain staff who were working for Homeless Health Care Los Angeles,” Lynch told LAist.

Those providers have hired more than 80 people so far, and nearly 90% previously worked for Homeless Health Care Los Angeles, according to the department.

Representatives for Homeless Health Care Los Angeles did not respond to repeated requests for interview or comment.

The nonprofit has worked in Skid Row since the 1980s and ran the campus’s harm reduction and overdose response programs. It celebrated its 40th anniversary this year.

A group of Skid Row community members and laid-off campus workers calling itself the Skid Row Coalition for Community Safety has launched a campaign saying L.A. County is “playing politics with people’s lives.”

“Supervisor Hilda Solis and LA County chose to cowardly abandon the recommendations of public health experts and the Skid Row community,” the group said in a statement on its website.

County Supervisor Hilda Solis, who represents the area and authored the 2022 motion that created the Skid Row Action Plan, told LAist in a statement that the decision to end Homeless Health Care Los Angeles’ contract was made jointly by the county’s health services and homelessness departments.

“Some services have been paused to allow the incoming provider to onboard staff and establish operations,” Solis said. “This is a necessary part of coordinating the transition.”

“I am proud of the Skid Row Action Plan and its commitment to expanding low-barrier services, health care, and pathways to housing,” Solis’ statement continued. “That commitment remains unchanged.”

Solis completes her final term next month and is on Tuesday’s ballot running for California’s 38th Congressional District, which covers parts of eastern Los Angeles and Orange counties but not Skid Row.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda Solis. Solis represents Skid Row and authored a 2022 motion that created the Skid Row Action Plan.

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Criticism of the campus 

The Skid Row Care Campus opened in spring 2025. County officials call it the first community-designed homeless services hub in the nation.

The campus logs more than 2,700 visits a day, a count that includes repeat visitors, according to the county. It costs about $26 million a year to operate. Funding is secured through June 2027. The budget for the following fiscal year has not been finalized.

The campus in the heart of Skid Row drew scrutiny this year. In May, Fox 11 aired a segment featuring Estela Lopez, executive director of the Downtown Industrial Business Improvement District, who called the campus a “meth mansion.” L.A. Mayor Karen Bass told the TV station she was concerned about problems at the campus.

LAPD responded 693 times to the two blocks around it between January and late May, and recorded four homicides there in the first four months of 2026, according to LAPD figures first reported by Fox 11.

On Oct. 8, federal agents and LAPD officers carried out a drug sweep dubbed “Operation Save Skid Row,” centered about a block from the campus. Federal prosecutors charged 28 people and arrested 23, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

In July 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing agencies to stop funding “so-called ‘harm reduction’” efforts. In April, federal health officials barred grantees from using federal money for pipes and drug test strips, on top of a longstanding ban on federal funds for syringes.

L.A. County officials have not said whether federal policy played a role in the pause. The campus is funded through opioid settlement money, Medi-Cal managed care plans, the state and the county — not federal grants, according to officials.

County officials and employees have credited harm reduction programs with helping drive down overdose deaths, which fell 6% in 2025 — the third straight annual decline — according to the county Department of Public Health.

A person walks past an encampment of unhoused people in the Skid Row community. Skid Row is home to thousands of people who are either experiencing homelessness on the streets or living in shelters.

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Getty Images North America

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Harm reduction’s track record

Harm reduction programs including needle and syringe exchanges started in L.A. more than three decades ago in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. L.A. County declared a local public health emergency in 2000 to authorize syringe exchange under a new state law, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation report.

People who use fentanyl in L.A. have increasingly shifted from injecting it to smoking it, according to a 2025 study co-authored by Bluthenthal, with USC’s Keck School of Medicine.

Bluthenthal called the recent syringe and pipe distribution pause at the Skid Row Care Campus “obviously a setback.”

“Harm reduction programs, through providing social and material support, have been one of the most consistent pathways to treatment for people who are currently using illicitly purchased drugs,” he said.

In a statement on the pause, officials at L.A. County’s Department of Health Services said people who receive syringe services are three times more likely to reduce or stop using drugs and five times more likely to enter substance use treatment.

John Raphling, an organizer with the Los Angeles Community Action Network based in Skid Row, said his group is “extremely concerned that the county is cutting these services” and that Skid Row residents “were not at all consulted.”

“Harm reduction services, like those provided by Homeless Health Care, help save lives, prevent the spread of disease, and allow people to survive and work through their recovery,” Raphling said.

Some Skid Row residents see it differently — including Don Garza, who has lived in the neighborhood for 27 years and resides in a single-room-occupancy building there.

“It’s not helping anyone,” Garza told LAist. “It exponentially accelerates the overdose deaths.”

“The part of harm reduction that we still need is the overdose prevention, but without the pipes and the needles,” Garza said. “We still need the Narcan because Skid Row is not going anywhere, and people are still gonna OD, and they're gonna die.”

The U.S. Supreme Court has denied a last-minute request from the Department of Justice to wade into its unprecedented feud with California over the state's voter rolls.

The court denied taking up the Justice Department's appeal on Monday evening, just hours after it was filed. Election Day is Tuesday.

The appeal was the department's latest foray into state election administration, which a federal judge referred to last week as "a broad, ongoing pattern of attempted election interference by federal officials."

After that judge, David Carter, a Clinton appointee, and a divided 9th Circuit Court of Appeals panel rejected the DOJ's request to order California to set aside and stop processing the ballots of thousands of people, the DOJ sought injunctive relief from the high court.

The DOJ says it has identified 20,000 "likely" noncitizens on California's voter roll whose ballots should not be counted until their citizenship can be verified.

Courts so far have sided with California and Los Angeles County's arguments that the federal government's list is unreliable, and that creating a novel system to segregate ballots while voting is already underway is infeasible.

"[T]here is a material risk that granting the United States its requested relief would result in disenfranchisement and could jeopardize the County's entire election," 9th Circuit Judges Mark Bennett, a Trump appointee, and Gabriel Sanchez, a Biden appointee, wrote in their Friday decision rejecting the Justice Department's emergency request.

The two judges cited longstanding legal precedent, known as the Purcell principle, that election rules should not be altered on the eve of an election, as well as the fact that the Constitution gives states authority to run elections. The opinion also cited the National Voter Registration Act, which bars states from systematically removing ineligible voters within 90 days of a federal election.

The panel's third judge, Patrick Bumatay, also a Trump appointee, dissented.

The actual number of ballots in dispute is likely much smaller than 20,000, since county election officials have found that many of the people on DOJ's list did not have active voter registrations and were not mailed ballots.

Over the weekend, data scientists at University of California Los Angeles' Voting Rights Project were granted access to the DOJ's list through a court order in another lawsuit and found that 42% of the names on the list do not appear on California's current voter roll. That analysis also found naturalized citizens on the DOJ's list.

The Supreme Court's refusal to intervene comes as the Justice Department has been escalating its feud with California election officials.

In recent weeks, the Department of Justice has sent subpoenas to election officials in California, and reminded officials that they could be criminally prosecuted for allowing ineligible voters to cast ballots.

A federal judge in San Francisco issued a temporary restraining order late Friday barring the Trump administration from threatening, intimidating or coercing election officials to demand they stop processing the ballots of registered voters that the federal government alleges are ineligible to vote. The federal government has appealed the order.
Copyright 2026 NPR

If Rep. Mike Levin’s proposal moves forward, the spent nuclear fuel stashed on the beach at San Onofre will be stored and processed at one of several potential campuses in other states.

Levin, a Democratic congress member representing parts of San Diego and Orange County, discussed his plan from a point above the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station last week.

“Since I've been in Congress, getting this spent nuclear fuel off our coast has been one of my top priorities,” Levin said, overlooking the Pacific Ocean and the steel and concrete canisters housing nuclear fuel rods. “I have been in this fight for eight years, fighting the status quo of inaction on spent nuclear fuel.”

He’s pushing to create facilities called Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campuses in communities that want to recycle some of the spent fuel and store remaining waste, in exchange for economic development opportunities.

The Department of Energy said the campuses could “attract significant investment, expand domestic manufacturing, and create thousands of new high-paying jobs in their respective regions.” Utah, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Idaho have stepped up as potential hosts for the facilities.

Finland and Canada have embarked on similar efforts to locate nuclear waste facilities, with the consent and collaboration of local communities, according to a report by Levin’s office. Finland expects to permanently dispose of nuclear waste as soon as next year.

Levin said similar U.S. sites could begin operation by the late 2030s, and he’s pushing to make the San Onofre plant a priority for nuclear waste removal and storage.

San Onofre ceased operating in 2013, after a newly installed steam generator failed, leaving the plant inoperable. Officials began decommissioning the plant in 2020.

Since then, 700 million tons of building material have been hauled away from the site, and the spent fuel rods were moved from cooling pools to dry storage on the beach, Levin said.

But there isn’t a permanent repository for the spent nuclear fuel, following backlash to an earlier proposal to store the waste.

“The federal government still hasn't done what it pledged to do all the way back in 1998, and so communities like ours have been left holding the fuel,” Levin said.

The federal government previously designated the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository in Nevada as the permanent storage site for nuclear waste. But former president Barack Obama cancelled that plan in 2010, following fierce opposition from environmentalists, local groups and tribes.

Without a permanent storage repository, spent nuclear fuel has remained on site at San Onofre, where its location on the coast, near earthquake faults and next to Camp Pendleton make the waste vulnerable to natural disaster or national security threats.

To address those risks, Levin introduced the Spent Fuel Prioritization Act with co-authors including Rep. Darrell Issa, a San Diego Republican, and Rep.Young Kim, an Orange County Republican. It would move nuclear sites with high seismic hazards, large populations and national security risk, such as San Onofre, up the list for fuel removal and storage. The bill is waiting for consideration in the House Energy and Commerce Committee, according to Levin’s 2026 report on San Onofre.

Another challenge concerns transport of spent nuclear fuel. Levin said next year a specially designed train called the Atlas Railcar System will complete testing and move the first spent fuel rods from Virginia to Idaho. The Atlas is a 12-axle railcar equipped with sensors and monitoring systems, which can transport nearly half a million pounds of spent nuclear fuel, according to the Department of Energy. It took ten years and cost $33 million dollars to build.

Levin has also introduced bills to create a nuclear waste administration, to require nuclear waste canisters to last 100 years instead of the current 40 years, and to increase public engagement and improve safety inspection at decommissioning power plants.

“I will not declare victory on this until the last canister has left San Onofre,” he said.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

Election officials in both Los Angeles and Orange counties report the early vote is trending higher than the last midterm election in 2022 — on trend with expectations across the U.S.

Nationally, Democrats have outpaced Republicans returning early ballots by more than 10 points, according to tracking by the University of Florida Election Lab.

Here's what you should know about the local vote totals currently released:

• In Los Angeles County, about 24% of registered voters had cast ballot as of Monday.
• In Orange County, the current tally represents about 35% of registered voters.

Keep in mind that Nov. 10 will be the final day for votes postmarked by Nov. 3 to arrive at county elections offices, so the total number of votes cast won't be known until then.

How vote counts will be released

I thought it was election night?

That hasn't been true in quite some time. It takes a while to get results because after the initial tallies on election night, there are still many, many votes to count, and more mail-in ballots are usually arriving.

Here’s what we know so far.

L.A. County turnout

Los Angeles County has more than 5.9 million registered voters. As of Monday, Nov. 2:

• More than 1.42 million ballots have been processed.
• 90% voted by mail.
• 10% voted in person.

What's next:

• We'll know more on election night — and in the following days — about how many ballots remain to be counted.
• Has your ballot been tallied yet? You can track the status of your ballot here.

Observe live counting

Orange County turnout

Orange County has more than 1.9 million registered voters. As of Monday evening, Nov. 2:

• 667,758 ballots have been processed.
• 89.4% voted by mail.
• 10.4% voted in person.

How turnout is trending

Early voting in Orange County is surpassing the last midterm election so far.

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Orange County Registrar

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What's next:

• We'll know more on election night — and in the following days — about how many ballots remain to be counted.
• Has your ballot been tallied yet? You can track the status of your ballot here.

Expected total turnout

Political Data Inc. is tracking ballot returns across California and in some high-profile races.

As of Monday, Nov. 2, statewide turnout is 25%. Note: That is already higher than this time in the primary. Democrats outnumber Republicans statewide by almost double, and have returned more ballots so far (3 million compared to 1.6 million — representing 29% and 28% of each party's registered voters.

See the latest totals ▶

Why Election Day has turned into ballot-counting month

Because of the increasing use of vote-by-mail ballots, the tally has gotten longer, according to the California Voter Foundation. In an analysis, the organization found:

• In November 2004, more than 80% of votes were counted within two days of Election Day, with 32.6% voting by mail. 
• In June 2022, about 50% of ballots were counted within two days of Election Day, with more than 90% of people voting by mail. 
• In November 2024, 66% of votes were counted within the first two days of Election Day, with 81% of the vote by mail.
• In June 2026, 61% of votes were counted within the first two days of Election Day, with 89% of the vote by mail.

A closer look at ballot counting times in California, where an increasing number of vote-by-mail ballots has slowed ballot counts.

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Courtesy California Voter Foundation

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Election officials must physically open mail-in ballots and verify signatures.

Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation, recently wrote about the ripple effect of turning in mail-in ballots by hand or in drop boxes on Election Day. She wrote, for our partner newsroom CalMatters:

"We turn in ballots in envelopes on Election Day that take time and care to process and cannot be processed until after Election Day. Processing these ballots — which account for as much as a quarter of all ballots cast — creates a bottleneck I like to call 'the pig in the python effect.' It prevents counties from doing other tasks they need to do to certify the results."

That said, counting has been speeding up considerably. According to Alexander's organization, the overall share of ballots counted within seven days of the election jumped from 72% in 2022 to 93% in the June primary. L.A. County is moving to around-the-clock counting this cycle, in a move election officials say will help increase voter confidence in the results.