The March 5 California primary is over. And now the waiting begins.
In Los Angeles County, the registrar’s office released its semi-official results around 2 a.m. Wednesday, March 5, and then its first post-election day update in the afternoon. But there are still a lot of outstanding ballots — including those that haven’t arrived in the mail yet.
See the latest election results.
County election officials across the state must certify the results of the vote by April 4, 30 days after the primary. The LA County registrar is tentatively scheduled to certify election results a few days earlier than that, on March 29. The California secretary of state will certify the results by April 12.
In contrast, Arizona, which holds its primary on March 19, two weeks after California, will finalize its results by April 8. That’s 10 days faster than California. In Nevada, the entire process for the Feb. 6 primary election was 10 days.
So why does it take so long for California to finalize election results?
First, the state has more registered voters — more than 22 million, as of Feb. 20 — than any other. That’s because California, already the most-populous state, makes it so easy for citizens to be able to vote.
“In the last three elections, six to eight times more voters voted on the mail-in ballot than in person,” said Stephenie Shea, San Bernardino County’s registrar of voters. “That requires additional time than in-person ballots.”
In the November 2022 election, 87.52% of voters voted by mail, according to the California secretary of state. In Riverside County, 90.11% of voters voted by mail in that election, 85.52% of San Bernardino County voters did so, as did 80.16% of Los Angeles County voters.
Voting by mail has been popular in California for years. But it got a big shot in the arm with the coronavirus pandemic. To avoid exposing voters — and poll workers, many of them older volunteers — to COVID-19, every registered voter in…
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