Excerpt:

Some critics say the state’s slow vote counting process leads to distrust, while supporters say there are several laws that county officials need to follow to make sure every vote counts.

“The key difference is that a lot of these places that people compare us to have just a one-day option to vote, where we have multiple days which is an advantage that others don’t have,” said Yolo County Registrar Jesse Salinas.

California is one of eight states that mails a ballot to every eligible voter.

“A lot of voters will wait until the last day on Election Day to cast their ballot and they will vote by mail or they will do it through this conditional process. So, what that means is we have to wait until after Election Day to start processing all of those ballots and that does take time,” Salinas explained.

Salinas is also the president of the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials.

“I think the most critical part is that the integrity of the election process is upheld. In this case, I’m making sure nobody is voting that shouldn’t be and that at the end of the day, even if it takes a little bit longer, we just want to make sure we get it right.”

California is also one of twenty states that allows voters to register on Election Day, which in turn extends the time to count every ballot.

“For example, here in Yolo County, we have over 5,000 people that submitted a conditional voter registration package. If we didn’t have same day voter registration, those 5,000 folks wouldn’t have been able to vote in this election,” adds Salinas.

In Los Angeles County, there were more than 100,000 people that turned in a conditional ballot.

Kim Alexander, with the California Voter foundation, says there are ways to speed up the vote counting process while preserving voting rights.

“One thing that counties have found to be effective is getting more equipment, which we cannot overlook the fact that elections are a chronically underfunded government service that both the state and federal government do not pay their fair share of the cost for conducting,” said Alexander.

As part of an effort to increase transparency in the election results, the California Voter foundation launched a tracking tool that provides daily updates on the most competitive races.

“We’re hoping that by providing this data and capturing these results each day and preserving them, we create this narrative that helps people understand how we got from election night when one party was doing well to different outcomes by the time all the ballots are counted.”

As of Wednesday afternoon, there was still one congressional race that had not been called by the AP. (Full Story)