Why Can’t California Count?

Eli McKown-Dawson (Silver Bulletin) writes (introduced by Nate Silver):

California is notoriously slow at counting its ballots. In 2024, it took California until November 8 (three days after Election Day) to get just 70 percent of its ballots counted. Across all 50 states, the average share of the vote counted by that date was more than 95 percent, putting California squarely in last place. Rest assured, The Golden State did eventually hit that 95 percent mark … a full 10 days later….

Florida now manages to count 99 percent of its ballots within a few hours of polls closing, in part because election officials can process ballots before the polls close. And they are able to accomplish this feat of incredible speed with a sizable proportion of mail votes — about 27 percent in 2024…. Colombia held a presidential election on Sunday, and 99.98 percent of the result was in on Monday morning. Japan also counts most of its votes overnight. And in the UK (not exactly a poster child for state capacity), you can generally expect to have calls for all 650 parliamentary seats the morning after the election….

Nor is the problem inherent in California’s choice to promote mail voting:

Mail-voting states such as Oregon, Washington, and Colorado count slowly relative to the US average, but they’re all faster than California…. [And y]ou can make voting accessible without bending over backward to accommodate the tiny share of people affected by extending the mail ballot receipt deadline [to one week after the election, as California has]….

And slowness doesn’t seem to be the price one needs to pay for accuracy:

There’s no evidence that voter fraud or other election administration issues are any less prevalent in California than in faster counting states. Based on the Elections Performance Index — a project that compares election administration quality across states — California ranked 41st in 2024. So the state isn’t slower and better: it’s slower and (often) worse….

If you want people to be confident in your electoral system, a good first step is to build one that works properly instead of adding yet another example to the “California is a failed state” pile.