Election-Campaign Law

A delay in counting the “deluge” of mail in ballots in last Tuesday’s California primary has sparked calls for County Clerk Barbara Dunmore’s resignation.  Delays in counting ballots in California has been recognized for a long time.  One of the main causes is that California allows citizens to drop off their absentee ballots “in person” on election day at any local precinct.  Administratively, this means that, at the end of the day, all of these ballots need to be transported to the central counting location, validated, opened, and processed.

CA is also a voter-intent state, which only further slows the processing of vote by mail ballots, where citizens are more prone to make stray marks and errors that are not flagged by optical scanning readers.

I can’t imagine how this could be done in any large county by the next morning, as some state legislators apparently want.  There is a clear tension between a speedy final count and a very generous, vote anywhere and in any way system like currently exists in many California counties.

Full story here.