Why It Takes So Long to Count Votes in CA!

Added: 2026-05-13

[00:00:00]Since 2020, it has taken nearly a month to count the votes in California elections. And now, Gavin Newsome is trying to pin the blame on Donald Trump.

[00:00:12]Coming up, we'll tell you why it takes so long to count the votes in California and how the California Voter ID Initiative will help solve that. All that and more coming up.

[00:00:30]Third world countries can do this in literally one day. Why can't California?

[00:00:35]I'm Carl Deayo, chairman of Reform California and a California state representative. And you know uh the frustration of um watching TV on election night and seeing the vote tallies in California races and then having people saying at midnight, "But it's not over." Yes. All of the votes have come back from polling stations for that day. But no, no, no, we can't declare winners in these races. Or they declare winners knowing that, get this, millions of votes are still left uncounted on election night and that millions more will continue to roll in the door after the election is over. and that in many races the vote winner, the leading candidate will be overtaken by someone else, typically a Democrat, and that the election results may not be finalized in many races until after Thanksgiving, 4 weeks after the election day.

[00:01:42]This has led to uh justified anger, doubt, frustration amongst California voters, whether they're Democrats or Republicans.

[00:01:53]And it sews sews the the the uh the seeds of doubt uh so significantly that many people just give up voting. You want to know about voter suppression?

[00:02:04]I'll tell you that the way uh I see most uh voter suppression happening today is the party in power runs an election with such lack of integrity and internal control that people just say, "Well, why bother returning the ballot? The fix is in. You just give up returning your ballot." And that's awful for our democracy. We cannot allow that to happen. And that's not a partisan statement. That is just a a American statement. So in California, Gavin Newsome knows that this is a problem. And I'm going to tell you in a moment why it takes so long to uh count the votes. There are three reasons why it takes so long to count the votes. And you're actually part of the problem. So I'm going to get to that in just a moment. Um but Gavin Newsome is trying to get ahead of this scandal. uh he sent out a letter to all the 58 county registars of voters who actually process the ballots and count the ballots.

[00:03:02]Quote, "Nuome calls on election officials to count votes faster. We are being tested."

[00:03:08]And he basically issues this letter. I'm not going to read the whole thing to you. It basically says, "Orange man bad.

[00:03:15]Donald Trump bad. Donald Trump IS GOING TO TRY TO INTIMIDATE YOU. You've been victimized by attacks and threats of violence and interference and they're sending monitors from the DOJ in to monitor what we're doing. You have nothing to hide. Why do you care?

[00:03:33]The monitors aren't impeding the election. They're just there to say, "What are you guys doing? How is it being done? Is it being done properly?

[00:03:39]Are you complying with federal laws like the Help America Vote Act, a federal law, or the National Voter Registration Act, a federal law? They have every right to be there to kick the tires and monitor. It's a good thing to have better oversight. You should welcome it, Gavin. But no, no, no. He disparages it here. But he says this, quote, "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. Look, there's no way you can defend the fact that it takes four weeks after the election is over to count the votes and declare the winner.

[00:04:18]Third world countries can do this in literally one day. Why can't California?

[00:04:22]Isn't California the most innovative state and the best at everything except for when it comes to our elections.

[00:04:28]We're flat dead worst. But there are three reasons why it takes so long for the votes to be counted. And part of it is your problem. part of it is your your your issue.

[00:04:41]Number one, we have seen elections drag on since 2020. What happened in 2020?

[00:04:47]That's when the Democrats went to all mail-in ballot elections. Everyone got a mail-in ballot and as a result, people had the ability to return ballots four weeks out, but most people they wait till the last minute.

[00:05:01]In the election, 5% of ballots arrive in the first week. These are the eager beavers. They these are people who get that mail and ballot. They return it immediately. 5%.

[00:05:13]Then in the following two weeks, an additional 10%.

[00:05:20]15%. So by a week out of the election, 85% of the ballots that will ultimately be returned haven't been returned. Only 15% of people have voted. by a week out, 7 days out of the election, only 15% of Californians have have voted and they skew Democrat. A lot of Republicans don't like voting early. They vote on election day, which in a separate podcast, I told you why voting on election day actually puts your ballot at most risk of not counting and you should be voting early. Uh check out that podcast. We've got to change how conservatives vote. Now, by election night itself, those last minute voters, some of them do get it in, they walk it into polling stations, they drop it off at polling uh locations or they mail it. And so by the time election day rolls around, only 70% of the vote uh sorry, only 30% of the vote has been submitted. Um 70% of the vote is still out. On election day, about 10% of the vote is delivered. So now at midnight, we have what? 40% of the vote is in and reflected in the numbers, but 60% of the vote is not in.

[00:06:43]These are ballots that were mailed in but not counted yet. These are ballots sitting in boxes at polling stations because people walked in with a mail in ballot and they just dropped it off or in one of the the the polling dropboxes.

[00:06:56]So, we're talking about 60% of the vote is still outstanding on election night.

[00:07:05]Do you know that they stop counting the mail-in ballots the Friday before the election because they're so busy with the polling stations that they stop processing mail-in ballots? They just let them pile up and that's when most of these ballots are arriving and they just put them in the the county buildings in secure areas.

[00:07:25]Uh and it sits there. So then the day after the election is Wednesday. They're too tired because they stayed up until midnight processing election ballots.

[00:07:34]They what they just do is they do a a count a raw count of how many envelopes are sitting around. And then the Thursday after the election, they start processing mail and ballots. 60% of the vote is sitting there unprocessed. So Thursday after the election, they're starting to process.

[00:07:52]What do they have to do? The second reason why it takes so long. So the first reason why it takes so long is that 60% of the vote is sitting there in envelopes.

[00:08:00]We used to go into a polling station and show our ID proactively because people were asked to show their ID in California up until maybe 10 years ago.

[00:08:09]And it wasn't required by law, but it was customary. Who are you? Okay, sign the book in your local polling station.

[00:08:18]It wasn't perfect, but at least there was some sort of verification of who people were. and then the ballot was immediately presumed to be legitimate and it was counted that night. When 60% of the vote is sitting in mailing envelopes, you can't just verify based upon, oh, it was returned, let me count it. They have to look at the signature. Now, they don't do signature reviews very very well, but it does take time. And this is a second reason. Now, they have to process all those votes using signature reviews.

[00:08:48]um they don't do a good job of signature reviews, but they do have to go through and verify a signature is indeed there.

[00:08:54]And for some of them, they randomly look at them to see if there's a match. Not good enough in my book, but that takes time. Third, California allows ballots to arrive after the election day. And so, if you have a ballot that's not postmarked, they still count it. If ballots arrive days and days after the election, they still count it. And that's now the subject of a Supreme Court uh case. And I think the Supreme Court will say, "No, no, no. You have to have the ballot in the custody of the election office by midnight or by 8:00 p.m. on election night, or else it doesn't count." That might be changed in California, and that's a good thing. Um, but yes, ballots are arriving after election day. Not a lot, but still, it adds to why it takes so long to count ballots. Those are the three reasons.

[00:09:41]You're part of the problem because as a conservative, you wait until election day to walk your mail and ballot in, which means your mail and ballot is put at the last of the line and not counted for three or four weeks. Don't do that.

[00:09:54]Vote early. Vote the first week. Track your ballot. Verify it's counted. But Carl, I don't know if it will be counted AND IT MIGHT GET LOST IN THE MAIL. I just said vote early and track your ballot and verify it's counted. This is not hard, not rocket science. It's it's better to vote early than to vote on election day because your ballot is not processed until weeks after. So, you're part of the problem in holding on to that ballot. Please vote early. Now, voter ID solves this problem and solves a lot of other problems. Our California voter ID initiative, which we got put on the ballot. It's going to be on the November ballot. We're hoping that people will vote yes on it. Requires that we clean up our voter roles.

[00:10:35]Requires that we do citizenship verification. and requires that we verify identities. And instead of signature reviews on these ballots that are mailed in, we go to a last four digits of a government document that you get to decide your level of comfort, which whatever government document ID that you want to use, you use the last four digits. So, if you want to use your social security number, you can. I'm not going to do that. Most people won't.

[00:11:00]Driver's license, last four numbers, you you can do that. Last four digits. Um, do you don't want any of that information out there?

[00:11:07]on your envelope, you can request a free voter card to protect your identity if you would like, but it becomes a four-digit PIN. When you have a four-digit PIN, you don't have to do review of signatures. You just send them the ballots through the machine. They scan the four digits. It immediately verifies.

[00:11:28]Easy peasy. We can get these ballots processed literally within 48 hours of them coming back. Not a hard thing to do. when you do the four-digit approach of California voter ID. So, we'll get verification of citizenship, verification of identity, we'll get clean voter lists, and yes, we will get results quicker.

[00:11:50]I'm hoping that we uh again make additional reforms in elections so that we can enhance public trust and confidence at every level. This is not a partisan issue. It's not a Democrat or Republican issue. This is an American issue. It's a Californian issue. The health of our democracy is on the line.

[00:12:04]and sending this stupid letter Nome to the um registars or voters saying count quicker.

[00:12:12]Okay, Captain Obvious, you're the one making it so that we're not counting these uh uh ballots on time. And they oppose voter ID. They're going to try to defeat the solution that will solve all this. Go to our website, chip in a contribution, and sign up. Help us get this passed. If you don't do it, we're not going to win. They have more money than us. They have the liberal media on their side to lie. We need your help. A grassroots movement to get California voter ID passed this November. Go to the website voter IDinitiative.com. voter IDinitiative.com. Chip in a contribution. Sign up at the bottom of the website. We do not sell or share information. It is only for our campaigns. First name, last name, email, phone, and zip code. Sign up and you'll be informed as to when we're doing rallies, when we're doing our distribution of free lawn signs. our voter guide, our plain English voter guide with all the ballot measures, all the candidate races on it to make voting easy. Um, all of that happens if you sign up at that website. Uh, and again, please chip in a contribution so that you put fuel in the tank of this movement. Until next time, I'm Carl Deio, chairman of Reform California and a California state representative.

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