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. 

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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).

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Some candidates nationwide have indicated they will not necessarily accept the results of the 2022 midterm races, and election officials are dealing with harassment. Between 1000-1500 threats have been reported to the Department of Justice in the last year. 

“All of this has been a political manipulation,” says Mindy Romero, founder and director of the Center for Inclusive Democracy at the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy. “It started in 2016 in earnest … we saw the president of the United States at the time, and many others since, who’ve really used this for political gain.”

Romero also points to increased political polarization as a cause — seeing people of the other political party as “really just absolutely counter to who we are, and potentially evil.”

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Voters across Greater Sacramento have been turning in their ballots for the midterm elections before and on Election Day across several fronts — mail-in ballots, in-person voting and early votes — and may not be solidified for weeks. 

Although California has aimed to make the voting process more accessible — most recently by passing legislation that sends every registered voter a vote-by-mail ballot in 2021 — there are still several barriers complicating participation. 

Take vote-by-mail, which Kim Alexander with the California Voter Foundation says favors older homeowner voters over others, regardless of their registered party, because not everyone is comfortable using the mail and not everyone has a reliable address.

That can disproportionately affect those with unstable housing — like college students, who may move around a lot.