Hi Folks,
The November 8th election is behind us but ballot counting continues across California. Many observers are watching the count closely since the balance of power in the House of Representatives is still undecided and several congressional contests in California remain too close to call. In addition, contests for the state legislature, Mayor of Los Angeles and many other local contests across the state remain undecided.
To help the public and media track these close contests, The California Voter Foundation's program manager Samantha Abelove has created a spreadsheet summarizing the day-by-day vote counts and margins in 14 close California races, including how many ballots are left to be counted in each county within the district and showing how these results fluctuate over time. Access to CVF's Close Contests Excel tracking sheet is available here and includes the contests for Congressional districts 3, 13, 22, 27, 34, 41, 45, 47 and 49, as well as State Senate district 8, Assembly district 7, 40 and 47 and the LA Mayoral Race. An example of CD 13 tracking is featured below:
CVF is updating vote counts daily using the California Secretary of State's Unofficial Election Results and the Unprocessed Ballot Status Report as well as unprocessed ballot status reports on county election office websites where available. Another helpful resource is the County Reporting Status page (which shows as of noon today approximately 8.7 million ballots have been counted).
Additional local election results are available on county websites, which can be accessed through CVF's Directory of County Election Offices.
As we shared in CVF's November 3rd newsletter, the long vote count is due to a number of factors: California is home to one in eight U.S. voters; over 90 percent of California ballots are now being cast as vote-by-mail ballots; and mail ballots take longer to process, especially when they arrive at voting sites, drop boxes and at USPS on Election Day and election officials are unable to pre-process them before Election Day.
For some coverage of the long count featuring CVF's comments and data, take a look at today's New York Times story, CBS-13 (Sacramento) coverage yesterday and last week,and the Los Angeles Times' story last week as well. Yesterday's news release from California Secretary of State Shirley Weber provides additional details about California's vote-counting process and schedule.
Though the vote counting process will take some time, state law requires that county election offices finalize their results by December 8th. The Secretary of State then has until December 16, 2022 to certify the results of the election.
CVF and others will be exploring ways to potentially accelerate this process for future elections; in the meantime we urge folks to be patient and supportive of the elections staff who are tasked with this important job and are working around the clock to count ballots securely and accurately.
-- Kim Alexander, President & Founder
California Voter Foundation
About the California Voter Foundation
The California Voter Foundation is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization working through research, oversight, outreach and demonstration projects to improve the election process so that it better serves the needs and interests of voters. CVF-News is a free, electronic newsletter featuring news and updates about the California Voter Foundation's projects and activities.
Support CVF's work with a tax-deductible contribution!
-- Kim Alexander, President & Founder
California Voter Foundation