California’s Excuses Are Damaging Faith in Government

Opinion|California’s Excuses Are Damaging Faith in Government

On Friday, three days after California’s primaries, the state had still failed to publicly report results for about 40 percent of ballots cast. By Tuesday afternoon, almost a week after polls closed, nearly 15 percent of ballots remained unreported, and the outcomes of several races were unclear. This slowness is a failure of governance, and it should help inspire the creation of a better system.

There is no good reason that California takes so long to count votes. Most democracies around the world count votes quickly. So do most other large U.S. states, including Texas, Florida, Michigan and Virginia. Until the past decade, California itself counted votes quickly.

California has since adopted an approach to election administration without meaningful benefit and with substantial downside. It makes the state government look incompetent. It fails to increase voter turnout. It creates needless uncertainty about results (as has been the case with several races this year). It confuses ordinary voters and serves the interest of conspiracists, including President Trump, who spread lies about election fraud that is in fact virtually nonexistent. Even Gov. Gavin Newsom of California has written, “We must acknowledge that the longer the voting count takes, the more mis- and disinformation spreads.”

With California refusing to change its system and a few other states having similar problems, the appropriate remedy is a federal law. That law should establish Election Day as the deadline for mail-in ballots to arrive and set basic standards for efficient vote counting. Congressional Democrats have long supported promising election reform bills, but they have generally opposed sensible deadlines for the arrival and counting of ballots. That is a mistake. Electoral reform is a natural issue for Democrats as they plan a legislative agenda for a possible House majority in 2027 and beyond.

Insisting on a rapid counting of votes is the right thing on the merits, and it would send a signal that Democrats care about government efficiency and transparency. It would present a contrast with Republicans, whose preferred election bill, known as the SAVE America Act, is mostly an effort to make it harder to vote by creating onerous identification standards. Democrats can instead be the party pushing for secure and accessible voting, followed by competent and fair counting.

In an era of skepticism about government, political leaders should look for ways to build confidence in it, and they should avoid practicing voluntary ineptitude.