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Almost a full day after polls closed, counties across the Bay Area still had hundreds of thousands of ballots to count — almost half of the number cast in a couple of cases.

And that’s to be expected as more and more California voters turn to mail-in ballots, which take longer to count, elections staff and experts say.

“This is the new normal,” said Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation. “We vote for a month and count ballots for a month in California.”

What’s also lengthened the tallying time is a state law that went into effect in 2015, which allows vote-by-mail ballots postmarked by Election Day and received up to three days later to be counted. Such ballots previously had to be received by Election Day.

As a result, many of the ballots sent close to Election Day don’t get into the hands of counters until later.

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SACRAMENTO — An election night blue wave Tuesday could slow down considerably by the time it reaches the California coast, making the rest of America wait to see who will control the House in 2019.

Forget staying up all night to find out who won congressional seats here: Strategists and campaign experts say it could take days — if not weeks — to determine victors in a series of tight and closely watched midterm races in Southern California.

The potential long wait is the product of generous provisions for California voters backed by the state's governing Democratic majority, and the continued abandonment of polling places in favor of mail-in ballots, which require more time to count and verify.

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On Election Eve, CVF President Kim Alexander joined KCRA TV News anchor Gulstan Dart on Facebook Live to answer last-minute voting questions. (Video) 

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It's scary how much each candidate in the upcoming midterm elections knows about you. And it's all information you've willingly given up over time.

The trove of data goes beyond voter registration information like your name, home address and date of birth. Thanks to an army of data crunchers who marry that information with data you drop at a clothing or automobile site, many candidates often have intimate knowledge of who you are and whether you're likely to support them. 

The increasingly effective use of big data to create targeted political ads is one of the main causes for the climbing costs of running a campaign.