Excerpt:

For more than a week after the Nov. 8 election, control of the U.S. House of Representatives remained undetermined. All eyes had turned to more than half a dozen uncalled races in California when, on Wednesday, the Associated Press projected victory for Rep. Mike Garcia in his Los Angeles-area district, finally handing Republicans a slim majority in the new Congress.

As tense days ticked by without resolution, political pundits across the country once again lamented why the vote count takes so long in California, while conservatives resurfaced concerns that late-arriving ballots and slow results exposed Democratic efforts to steal close races.

In reality, the extended count, which will take a month to finish, is a consequence of California’s shift to overwhelmingly voting by mail, a convenience that requires several additional steps of verification by local officials once ballots arrive.

Excerpt:

California delivered Republicans the seat they needed Wednesday to take control of the U.S. House, but just how much of an edge the GOP will have in the chamber remains uncertain as the state’s seemingly drawn-out vote count continues.

After the balance of power in Washington sat in limbo for days, Republican incumbent Mike Garcia's victory in the 27th Congressional District finally won the party its 218th seat. Five of the seven other races The Associated Press has yet to call are in California, though one is between two Democrats.

In some of those races, ballots are coming in at a trickle.

Placer County in California's 3rd Congressional District, for example, reports that it has more than 105,000 outstanding ballots. The county added just 490 votes to its totals in the district Tuesday, and it doesn't expect to report results again until Friday.

Excerpt:

An adage known as the election administrator’s prayer goes something like this: “Dear Lord, let this election not be close.”

When results are overwhelmingly clear, there are far fewer doubts about the integrity of the election process or frustrations with the procedures. 

But in Tuesday’s hotly contested Los Angeles mayor’s race between Rick Caruso and Karen Bass, as well as some down-ballot contests, the results are not overwhelmingly clear. In fact, it could take weeks to determine a winner in some races.

California’s shift to mail-in balloting means that voting begins weeks before election day and tabulation continues for weeks after, meaning results can remain murky in all but the most lopsided races immediately following an election. 

Excerpts:

Noncitizens are not eligible to vote in California congressional elections, despite the claim resurfacing online ahead of November’s midterm elections.

Social media users shared a graphic online with text that reads: “Now that California is registering non-citizens to vote and has refused to cooperate with the Federal Election Integrity Program, all votes from California should be nullified and Federal Representatives from the state be removed from Congress.”

Examples of the claim shared online can be found (here), (here), (here).