Why California Wants Faster Election Results

[This column was reported for Political Breakdown, a bi-monthly newsletter offering analysis and context on Bay Area and California political news. Click here to subscribe.]

Gov. Gavin Newsom sent a letter to election officials in California’s 58 counties this week with a simple request: count votes faster.

Newsom and state lawmakers have spent years building a vote-by-mail system that maximizes convenience and accessibility for California voters. The tradeoff: a longer vote count that President Donald Trump and Republicans have seized on to spread false claims of voter fraud.

“We must acknowledge that the longer the voting count takes, the more mis- and disinformation spreads,” Newsom wrote. “That means we must do all that we can to tabulate votes quickly and accurately. Time is of the essence in preventing election lies from taking hold.”

More than 80% of California voters cast ballots by mail in the November 2024 election. Unlike in-person voting, where verification happens upfront, mail-in ballots often arrive in bulk just before or after Election Day. This surge creates a backlog of ballots that must be inspected and have their signatures verified before they can be counted.

“Before, you went and you signed it right there at the desk and you voted and that was it, that was all the verification,” said California Secretary of State Shirley Weber at a press conference Tuesday. “Now you have, obviously, vote-by-mail…they take your ballots in, they have to verify every signature on that ballot.”

That process has led to notable delays. In 2024, one county reported results for less than a third of its ballots 10 days after the election — and three other counties had less than three-quarters of their ballots counted, according to an analysis by state legislative staff. In the 2025 special election for Oakland mayor, Alameda County did not report an updated count for three days after Election Day.

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson claimed California’s vote-counting process is to blame for Republican leads that “magically whittled away” after Election Day. Trump echoed those conspiracy theories when he pushed for a federal takeover of vote-by-mail — an action met with a legal challenge from California Attorney General Rob Bonta.

The balance between speed and accuracy has been a delicate one for California leaders.

In previous years, Weber and many election advocates were hesitant to call for a faster count — fearing they would be playing into conservative claims about Democrats being advantaged in a prolonged count.

In a now-deleted post on X last year, Weber’s office wrote “Faster counting doesn’t increase accuracy — it only makes it more costly.”

But that stance appears to be shifting, ever so slightly.

On Tuesday, Weber called Newsom’s letter a “good thing.”

“We want to count fast, we want to be effective and efficient,” she said. “But at the same time we want to make sure that we’re accurate.”

The state Legislature is also taking some steps to speed up ballot processing. A new law signed by Newsom last year requires counties to report results for all ballots by the 13th day after the election — with notable exceptions for ballots that arrive late or have a mismatched signature. Another new law allows counties that send out ballots more than a month before the election to begin processing returned ballots immediately.

“It is critical that we take full advantage of these tools to accurately count every lawfully cast ballot as quickly as possible to mitigate what are likely to be unprecedented and misleading attempts to undermine faith in the integrity of our election,” Newsom wrote.

But those changes may only make a difference around the edges. Election officials argue they need a major investment in workers, machines and larger spaces to handle a voting system their offices were never designed to accommodate.

“One of my top priorities in budget talks is to try to get more funding for our counties to be able to buy the equipment they need or get the space that they need or hire the temporary staff that they need to try to count ballots as quickly as possible,” Assemblymember Marc Berman, D-Palo Alto, told me.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court is weighing a case that could also result in a faster vote count — at the price of ballot access. Justices are considering a challenge to a Mississippi election law that, like California’s, allows ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted if they arrive days later.

A decision is expected in the coming weeks — as California’s primary election is already underway.