California voters could see faster election results under new state law

California’s famously slow vote-counting process could see slight improvements next year after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill that gives counties an earlier deadline to tally voters’ ballots.

The law, Assembly Bill 5, requires county election offices to count ballots no later than 13 days after election day, but does not change the 30-day deadline for local officials to certify results. Counties unable to meet the new deadline must give a reason for an extension to the secretary of state’s office.

“California has one of the most accessible and secure voting systems in the country,” said the bill’s author, Assemblymember Marc Berman, a Menlo Park Democrat, in a statement. “One opportunity for improvement was to speed up how quickly we count ballots and create a system that gave greater certainty to the public for when results would be available.”

Voter fraud is rare, typically occurs in isolated instances and is generally detected. However, local election officials have received greater scrutiny across the country after President Donald Trump and his allies disputed false claims of election fraud after the 2020 election.

Local officials in California have since launched social media campaigns to explain and show voters how their ballots are processed.

Lawmakers suggest the new law, which received bipartisan support in the state Legislature, will help clamp down on misinformation as some Republicans have grown increasingly distrustful of mail ballots.

Proponents such as the nonprofit California Voter Foundation have said it will increase the public’s trust in elections and avoid officials being sworn in before their races have been certified, which was the case for a number of state lawmakers last year.

Secretary of State Shirley Weber’s office opposed the bill.

Timothy Cromartie, a spokesperson for Weber, said at a Senate Elections and Constitutional Amendments Committee earlier this year that there was a concern that 13 days would not be enough time for counties, which currently have 30 days to complete the count. The secretary of state’s office proposed a deadline of 15 days instead, but that was not adopted.

“As always, we will do our best to uphold the laws as passed by the Legislature and signed by the governor,” Weber said in a written statement.

More mail-in ballots slow down counting

It is increasingly common for counties to take weeks to count ballots due to the growing popularity of mail-in ballots, particularly after the coronavirus pandemic. More than 80% of California voters voted by mail in the 2024 November election, according to the secretary of state’s office. That trend has accelerated since a 2021 law required each registered voter to receive a mail ballot.

Mail ballots take longer for officials to process than votes at a polling place because of the required steps for officials to verify signatures and confirm that voters have not already cast a ballot somewhere else. The state also allows ballots postmarked by election day to be counted even if they arrive up to a week later. Those ballots will not be subject to the 13-day deadline, nor will provisional ballots or ballots missing voter signatures.

It is not possible to know how long it took counties to count all their ballots in the last election because of a state law that prohibited them from certifying results any earlier than 28 days after election day, Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation, said in an email.

“Historically, some counties count faster than others. This has to do with a number of factors — space, equipment, staffing,” Alexander said.

Some California counties, such as Los Angeles, can take close to a month to count election results, as was the case last year in the 22nd Congressional District in Southern California, which was eventually won by Democratic Rep. Derek Tran. Experts largely attribute California’s size and widespread use of mail-in ballots as the reason for this.

Los Angeles County officials say the new law will change little about how they process ballots.

“We’ve always processed ballots much earlier than the date signed into the law. We’re not particularly concerned with that 13-day requirement,” said Mike Sanchez, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles County Clerk. “It may seem more ceremonial than anything else.”

Election workers have said that public messaging urging voters to drop or mail off their ballots sooner could speed up the process.

Newsom also signed a bill that bans voters from being paid to register to vote in response to the millions of dollars that billionaire Elon Musk gave away to registered voters in swing states during the 2024 election. Another piece of legislation he signed would schedule a ballot measure for the 2026 election to allow voters to decide if taxpayer funds can be used for political campaigns.

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