Excerpts:

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. 

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Celebratory confetti blanketed the Grove on primary night, as developer Rick Caruso — then sporting a multipoint lead in the Los Angeles mayor’s race — declared his to be a “victory story.”

Across town in Highland Park, an exhausted Eunisses Hernandez had already headed home from her election night party at a local bar. Her opponent, incumbent Councilmember Gil Cedillo, was leading by more than 10 percentage points. Hernandez remained hopeful, though some supporters had begun mourning what they thought to be a loss.

Hi Folks,

The November 8th Election Day is rapidly approaching. Millions of Californians have already voted and millions more will return ballots or vote in person in the coming days, with many ballots returned via secure drop boxes operated by county election offices. 

This shift to the widespread use of vote-by-mail ballots has led to increasingly longer vote counts. In this newsletter, we share some new CVF research findings that illustrate just how much longer vote counting now takes as the number of ballots cast as vote-by-mail ballots has ballooned. 

Excerpts:

Marin County elections officials disqualified 1,405 mail ballots in the June primary election, according to data recently released by the California Secretary of State’s office.

That accounts for 1.7% of the 82,502 ballots submitted. Most of the rejected ballots — 1,212 — arrived late. By comparison, California disqualified 1.6% of its vote-by-mail ballots, or 105,818. Of those, 70,000 were late.