California Rejected Nearly 150,000 Mail-in Ballots During Primaries

California's caller June superior saw astir 150,000 mail-in ballots rejected, marking a important surge from erstwhile elections, contempt nan state's ongoing efforts to simplify voting and boost participation.

This important summation underscores persistent challenges wrong nan state's electoral process, which has agelong been criticized for its ponderously slow ballot counts that tin resistance connected for weeks.

The authorities has implemented various measures aimed astatine making voting much accessible, including nan automatic mailing of ballots to each registered voter.

These mail-in ballots are designed to beryllium counted moreover if they get up to 7 days aft Election Day, provided they carnivore a postmark from nan predetermination date.

Yet, according to information from nan caput of state's office, nan superior driver down nan heightened rejection numbers is precocious arrival. Voting experts fishy nan halfway rumor lies pinch postmarks applied aft Election Day, rendering these ballots ineligible for tabulation.

Changes wrong nan U.S. Postal Service (USPS) are progressively believed to beryllium a contributing facet to nan timing of erstwhile these important postmarks are applied.

In nan June election, 148,241 mail ballots were yet rejected, representing 1.73% of each message ballots cast.

This fig marks an summation from nan 108,982 message ballots rejected successful nan 2024 primary, which had a 1.56% rejection rate.

In 2022, 105,818 message ballots were voided during nan primary, pinch a complaint akin to that of nan 2024 primary. Lateness unsocial accounted for a staggering 93,479 rejected ballots successful June, making it by acold nan largest class for disqualification.

This number is up from astir 70,000 successful nan 2022 superior and 76,000 successful nan 2024 primary, though turnout successful those earlier elections was comparatively smaller.

Kim Alexander, president of nan nonpartisan California Voter Foundation, expressed important interest complete nan jump successful precocious rejections.

She suggested this, alongside evolving postal procedures, mightiness beryllium linked to a precocious surge successful ballots arsenic galore voters delayed their decisions successful a competitory gubernatorial race.

Alexander stated, "Ballots rejected owed to lateness are caused chiefly to being postmarked excessively precocious to count, not because they arrived excessively precocious to count."

Mindy Romero, head of nan Center for Inclusive Democracy, added that nan increasing number of precocious rejections "does really request nan mobility why this is happening," prompting a person introspection of nan underlying causes.

Lawmakers person besides voiced concerns regarding USPS changes. In January, a group of predominantly Democratic U.S. senators wrote to nan Postal Service, alarmed that mail-processing alterations could effect postmark dates during a important predetermination twelvemonth that will find power of Congress.

An updated agency argumentation indicates that postmarks mightiness bespeak nan time message is handled astatine a processing center, alternatively than nan time it was initially received.

With caller consolidations, these centers are often further from definite communities, perchance exacerbating delays. In a related development, 2 Wisconsin Democrats, U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin and Gov. Tony Evers, called connected nan Postal Service successful April to reside delays that caused hundreds of ballots to get aft Election Day successful their state.

Earlier this year, California predetermination officials had already urged voters to message ballots early, citing imaginable USPS work slowdowns.

Beyond lateness, astir 44,000 ballots were rejected owed to mismatched signatures, while complete 8,300 lacked immoderate signature connected nan returned envelope.

Other reasons included voters having already formed a ballot (743 cases), a ballot being missing from nan return envelope, aliases aggregate ballots sent backmost successful a azygous envelope.

The information did not supply a breakdown of these uncounted ballots by statement registration. Geographically, Tulare County, located successful nan agriculture-heavy Central Valley, recorded nan highest message ballot rejection complaint successful June astatine 3.52%.

It was followed by Alpine County, southbound of Lake Tahoe, and Merced County, besides successful nan Central Valley, some astatine 3.36%.

California's estimation for slow ballot tabulation contrasts sharply pinch states for illustration Florida and Texas, which quickly finalize their counts. Donald Trump has antecedently leveraged California’s prolonged counting to knock nan state’s elections, and his Department of Justice launched an investigation into Los Angeles County’s elections.

In June, a national judge halted an executive bid by Donald Trump that aimed to create a national elector database and restrict message ballot eligibility. Despite these controversies, message voting has gained bipartisan popularity, and a 2025 study by nan Brookings Institution recovered message voting fraud to beryllium minuscule, pinch astir 4 cases per 10 cardinal message ballots, suggesting that nan integrity of nan strategy remains mostly intact contempt nan operational challenges.