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California vote count is slow, that doesn't mean it's 'rigged' | Fact check

Chris Mueller   Paste BN
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The claim: California counting ballots two weeks after Election Day is evidence it was ‘rigged’

A Nov. 19 Instagram post (direct link, archive link) claims one state’s lengthy vote-counting process is evidence of fraud.

“Two weeks since the election and California is still counting ballots,” reads the text in a screenshot of a post on X, formerly Twitter. “It is totally rigged and corrupt.”

The caption of the Instagram post reads, “California elections are a total disaster. So much opportunity for fraud and abuse.”

It was liked more than 1,500 times in a week.

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Our rating: False

There is no evidence California’s vote count is fraudulent. Experts say the state’s election laws result in many mail-in ballots, which take much longer to count.

California is one of several states that mail ballots to all active voters

Vice President Kamala Harris won California and its 54 electoral votes by 20 percentage points, with The Associated Press calling it for her as polls closed at 8 p.m. Pacific time on Election Day. It wasn’t nearly enough for Harris, though, as President-elect Donald Trump swept the swing states on his way to retaking the presidency.

While the outcome of the presidential race isn’t in doubt, California – the country’s most populous state – still had tens of thousands of ballots left to process as of Nov. 25, according to the California Secretary of State’s Office. However, that isn’t evidence that the state’s elections were “totally rigged and corrupt,” as the post claims.  

Fact check: Harris won some states that require voter ID, contrary to online claims

California is one of several states that mails a ballot to every active registered voter, and it counts any ballots returned up to a week late as long they were postmarked by Election Day.

Those mail-in ballots take longer to process due to “anti-fraud measures that are applied before they may be counted,” Rick Hasen, a political science professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, told Paste BN.

“California has a late deadline for receipt of mailed ballots and many ballots, which is why the counting takes so long,” Hasen said.

To process mail-in ballots, election officials must match the signature on the envelope to a signature on file, said Eric Schickler, a political science professor at the University of California, Berkeley. If there are any issues, election officials contact voters and allow them to “cure,” or fix, their ballots.

“With election office staffing limited, this takes several weeks to complete, Schickler said.

The state has favored Democratic presidential candidates for decades. The last time a Republican candidate for president won California was in 1988 when George H.W. Bush captured the state.

Paste BN reached out to the social media user who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

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