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Voter ID remains a contentious topic in U.S. elections, and a new California bill related to the practice has become the target of misinformation.

"SB 1174 was just passed in California, and it opens the door for illegal immigrants to vote by eliminating the requirement for voter ID at polling places,"  read a screenshot of an X post shared on Instagram.

The Instagram post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.) We also saw a Facebook post that said the bill would "ban voter ID statewide."

These claims are misleading and lack context about California’s current voter ID laws.

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In the end, it came down to 19 ballots in Santa Clara County that ultimately made the difference in the hotly contested Congressional District 16 race — ballots that were never counted the first time around due to simple human error.

While a change equal to just a fraction of a percent of votes is unlikely to shift the entire results of most elections, a once-in-a-generation perfect tie in this case exposed the gaffes and fumbles by one county in the tabulation process.

What followed the March primary was two months of counting and recounting more than 182,000 votes in the race to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Anna Eshoo — a stunning saga that finally came to a close on Wednesday afternoon, with Assemblymember Evan Low emerging victorious over Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian by a margin of just five votes.

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Mystery, sniping and challenged ballots — all swirl around the extraordinary recount in the Congressional District 16 race as it drags into its third week.

Who will emerge the victor — if anyone — between Assemblymember Evan Low and Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian who are in a dead heat for second place?

There may be no hanging chads in this ballot counting, but the much awaited outcome is still very much unknown.

On April 15, Santa Clara and San Mateo counties began the ambitious task of recounting the more than 182,000 votes cast in the March primary race to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Anna Eshoo. Since then, nearly 175,000 ballots have been pulled out of storage boxes and rescanned by machines. As of Friday afternoon, Low had a one vote lead on Simitian.

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Two weeks plus one day after voting ended in California’s primary, there are 108,000 ballots left to be counted, and a dozen congressional and legislative races remain too close to call. 

While the uncounted ballots are less than about 2% of the 7.7 million cast, readers have again asked why it takes so long for California to finish counting votes.

California started mailing ballots to all registered voters for the November 2020 election. This year, about 50% of ballots cast were counted on primary night March 5, compared to 41% in June 2022, according to data from the California Voter Foundation.