California’s notoriously slow vote-counting process has led to a rare bipartisan realization in Sacramento — the state needs to dramatically pick up the pace in producing election results.
But Democrats and Republicans are nowhere near in agreement on how to make that happen. The divide on the issue played out today in the Assembly Elections Committee, which advanced a bill from Democratic Assemblymember Marc Berman to expedite the election process and voted down proposals from Republican Assemblymembers Carl DeMaio and Joe Patterson.
Berman’s bill would mandate that counties finish counting most votes 10 days after an election. It includes exceptions for provisional ballots and those that need to have signatures cured, which could take up to 30 days to process. The assemblymember even convinced the two Republicans on the committee, Alexandra Macedo and David Tangipa, to vote in favor of his bill.
The issue is important to Democrats because a lengthy election process allows Republicans to cry state incompetence. The lack of speedy results also creates an information vacuum that’s increasingly filled with lies and distortions.
Last year, these concerns came to a head when congressional vote counts — some of which were vital to determining the balance of power in Washington, D.C. — lagged in places like Orange County and the Central Valley, drawing national attention to California elections.
Some officials blamed delays on a previous Berman bill requiring counties to wait until 28 days after the election to certify their vote counts, which was meant to create a ballot-curing deadline.
At the time, Berman told Playbook it was “disappointing that counties are pointing to that bill as an excuse to count slower” and said he was already planning a fix.
“My hope is that by having some clear and transparent and achievable metrics for when certain ballots should be counted, that will help create more transparency for everybody throughout the process,” Berman said during today’s committee hearing.
The two GOP bills did not go over as well, with DeMaio’s effort prompting hostility from committee members.
Patterson’s legislation would reduce the state’s vote-processing timeline down to 21 days and require officials to count certain percentages of ballots within prescribed time periods after an election….