Forget election night. Election season has been upon us for weeks, and it won't end anytime soon.
California's stunning adoption of mail-in voting has fundamentally changed how we engage in the democratic process. This shift has also necessitated a cultural reshaping around election night results, and a reframing of the timeline for learning outcomes in many races.
Final answers are likely to be clear only in the most lopsided contests by late Tuesday night. In some of the more difficult races, conclusive results may take days or weeks to appear.
But don't worry, these relatively slow vote counts are a feature of a functioning democratic system, not a bug.
“I think a lot of times what people don't understand about the election process in California is that the Legislature, intentionally, has allowed voters to have every opportunity to cast their ballot and get their ballot received,” said Los Angeles County Recorder/County Clerk Dean Logan, who serves Position of chief election official for the county.
There have been decades-long efforts in the state to provide voters with more choices and protections, making voting more accessible here than almost anywhere else in the country. But the other side of this equation means more time-consuming work for election officials.
Think of it this way: When a Californian shows up at a voting center and casts a ballot in person, as was once common, all the verification is done upfront at the voting center. When this ballot reaches its tabulation, no additional steps will be needed.
However, each mail-in ballot must be verified and processed before it can be tabulated, which takes much longer. Now imagine hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots arriving at once on or immediately after Election Day.
Crushing ballots simultaneously creates what Kim Alexander of the California Voters Foundation calls a “pig in the snake” phenomenon, as this giant stack of ballots moves around during the process.
“The reason it takes us so long is because we check all the ballots and make sure only the correct votes are counted,” Alexander told The Times during the recent statewide election. “So that's a function of election security — election security itself [that] People who criticize the slow process of counting votes are demanding.”
When will the election results appear?
This is a deceptively complex question.
Let's start with the straightforward part: California is home to 58 counties, each of which has an election office that counts votes in federal, state and local races in their jurisdictions. In the last presidential primary in 2020, more than 9.6 million votes were cast in California.
In Los Angeles County, home to one in four California voters, the long-awaited first batch of results will be released by the Registrar and Recorder's Office between 8:30 and 8:45 p.m. on Election Night. This first wave will only include mail-in ballots received before Election Day.
The second set of results, which will add in-person ballots at polling places before Election Day, will be released between 8:45 and 9 p.m., according to the office.
Results for ballots cast in person on Election Day will begin being released sometime after 9 p.m., with updates arriving in the early hours of the morning. (After the polls close at 8 p.m., ballots cast at voting centers on Election Day must travel to the county facility in Industry City before any can be tabulated, so that takes some time.)
After Election Day, updates will be issued daily between 4 and 5 p.m. weekdays for the next two weeks, according to the Registrar's Office.
The Orange County Registrar of Voters will follow a similar schedule for the Election Night release, with daily updates continuing.
It should also be noted that mail-in ballots placed in mailboxes on or just before Election Day may take a few days to arrive in the mail. California law stipulates that ballots postmarked by Election Day must be accepted for up to seven days, meaning the total number of ballots will not be known until well into next week.
“Ultimately, we will certify our election results on March 29,” Logan, the Los Angeles County elections chief, said with a laugh. “Then we will know that every vote has been counted and what the final results are.”
Well, that's the literal timeline. But when will we get meaningful answers?
This really depends on the competition in question
Paul Mitchell, a Democratic strategist and political data expert, predicted that results in some of the larger races, such as the U.S. Senate race and Gov. Gavin Newsom's statewide ballot measure, Proposition 1, will already be known on election night.
The dynamics of the primaries – where the two candidates who receive the most votes advance to a general election runoff scheduled for November 5 rather than a clear winner being declared – may also mitigate “the perception of delayed election results.” Mitchell said.
Mitchell explained that the front-runner in many primary races will be clear on election night, even if it takes longer in some races to determine who will join him in the runoff.
Take, for example, the crowded Los Angeles County district attorney race. Incumbent Rep. George Gascón will almost certainly finish in first place, but it could be days or weeks before enough votes are counted to determine which of his 11 challengers he will face in a runoff in November.
Fernando Guerra, director of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University, also believes the results of the first proposal will be known on election night. But the political science professor predicted it could be a day or two before the second-place finisher in the Senate race is known for sure.
GOP House races are likely to be called soon where the two parties are already coalescing around a candidate — such as the 27th District in northern Los Angeles County, where incumbent Rep. Mike Garcia (R-Santa Clarita) faces Democratic challenger George Whitesides. After the polls close.
But results in the most competitive House primaries could take days or weeks.
Where does my ballot go to be processed and tabulated in Los Angeles County?
There is a sprawling, 144,000-square-foot facility adjacent to Interstate 60 in Industry City where hundreds of employees have already been working for weeks processing mail-in ballots. The building formerly housed Fry's Electronics store, although the huge decorative blue and red gears that once covered the facade have been removed since the county takeover.
Operations inside resemble something between a factory floor and a highly choreographed ballet for specific tasks, although the actual tabulation of votes will not begin until after 8pm on election night.
You can watch the action as it happens on many live broadcasts. (This is the first year the same facility will be used for both processing and tabulation. In the past, mail-in ballots had to be transported to a separate facility in Downey to be counted after they were processed in Industry City.)
Every ballot sent on or before Election Day 2024 will make a trip to Industry City where it will be scanned and counted.
In a county that spans more than 4,000 square miles, transporting ballots to the Industry City facility on Election Day is also a massive logistical undertaking. After the polls close, poll workers will bring ballots to designated check-in centers, where they will be collected by Sheriff's Department deputies, who will then deliver them to Industry City.
The Sheriff's Department will also operate helicopters from seven different locations, delivering ballots from remote corners of the county. A boat, helicopter or seaplane operated by the city's mayor will transport ballots from Catalina Island to the mainland, with the mode of transportation depending on weather conditions, Logan said.
More than 400 workers will also wait outside mail-in voting boxes across the county to close at 8 p.m., before a different group of workers transports those ballots to the industrial city facility, Logan said.
