Nearly a month after the June 7 primary, California still is tallying ballots, a task that regularly dumbfounds the uninitiated with its snail-like immunity to speed. “Yes, They’re Still Counting the Presidential Primary Votes,” The New York Times carped last week, wondering how the cradle of high tech could have such inefficient elections. A week before, The Washington Post quoted Sen. Bernie Sanders supporters speculating that Sanders actually had won the Democratic primary but no one knew because of the slow vote count. In fact, California election results are the way they are because this state bends over backwards not to disenfranchise voters. This year, some in the Sanders camp actually worsened matters by switching parties at the last minute and casting provisional ballots, which have to be individually verified.
The tactic appears to have failed, by the way. At last count, Sanders still was trailing Clinton by a healthy margin, with the presidential tallies due Tuesday. But critics are correct in their sense that elections in this state have room for improvement. Even Californians, who have come to accept drawn-out vote counts as the price of inclusion, yearn for a better way. To that end, Senate Bill 450 last week cleared the Assembly Elections and Redistricting Committee, offering to add a bit more efficiency.
Sponsored by Secretary of State Alex Padilla and authored by Los Angeles-area Democratic Sens. Ben Allen and Bob Hertzberg, the bill would give every voter a mail-in ballot 28 days before an election that could be dropped at a vote center, drop-off location or mailbox on or – better yet, before – election day.
Full Article: Toward a more perfect vote count in future California campaigns | The Sacramento Bee.