The slog of tallying up votes in California continued Friday as some races hang in the ballots.
Here is where we stand:
So how many ballots are left to be counted?
There are an estimated 3.6 million ballots remaining to be counted in California’s primary election, according to information provided by the secretary of state at 6 p.m. Thursday.
These millions of untallied ballots, made up primarily of vote-by-mail ballots, have the potential to shift the outcomes in several undecided races.
How many ballots have been processed?
So far, around 5.6 million ballots have been processed in the state. In L.A. County, around 1.4 million ballots have been counted, while some 700,000 still need to be processed, according to the secretary of state.
Vote-by-mail ballots postmarked on or before election day and received by the county elections official no later than seven days after the election will be counted.
When do we get information?
County election officials are required to provide the secretary of state with an updated tally of unprocessed ballots starting two days after election day and continuing every day until the count is complete.
What are experts saying?
Election watchdogs have urged patience for the results of this week’s primary, which includes tight races for governor and Los Angeles mayor, and they have stressed that the slow count points not to problems or fraud, but to an accurate tally.
“We allow people lots of different avenues to vote, and as a result it takes longer to count up all the votes,” said Jessica Levinson, a law professor at Loyola Marymount University. “And that’s how it should be. … It’s an argument in favor of making sure the process runs correctly — not quickly.”
The process has been particularly slow in L.A. County, though experts say that is mostly a result of the county’s massive voter base. Mail-in ballots are also heavily scrutinized with workers verifying signatures and giving voters a chance to remedy the situation if their signature doesn’t match, a process that takes time.
“They’re using that level of care because they’re supposed to — that’s their protocol — and also because it could make a big difference,” said Kamy Akhavan, the managing director at the USC Dornsife Center for the Political Future. “We’ve seen some elections in Southern California decided by single digits. And that just means this is going to take time. That can be very frustrating, even annoying, to Angelenos.”