Hey there, Michigan. 

If you’re a primary election follower, you’ve probably seen that the ballot count in California has been … quite slow. That’s relatively normal for them.

It’s a result of the state’s laws around ballots, not necessarily a sign that anything is wrong. Shirley Weber, California’s secretary of state, told CalMatters last month that to her, "accuracy is far more important" than getting results fast.

That can be frustrating, given that states have shown they don’t have to give up speed to be accurate. But California has a perfect storm of laws and voters that allows this to happen. 

To start, the state has more than 23 million registered voters. Even if only a quarter of those people cast a ballot, it would still be more to count than all of the Michigan voters in the 2024 presidential election (although it would be close).

And the whole speed problem is made worse when you consider that California’s laws around ballots are way more permissive than a lot of states. Absentee ballots can be counted in California as long as they’re postmarked by Election Day and arrive within a week, an allowance we don’t have here in Michigan. In 2024, for example, more than 80% of Californians chose to vote by mail.

That means that all the ballots aren’t even in yet! While media outlets can call winners based on the number of ballots returned and historical averages, and while candidates may claim victory or concede, the actual results won’t be finalized for a while yet. My colleague, Votebeat’s new national reporter Dion Nissenbaum, wrote about it in more depth here.

Michigan, though, is a great example of how we don’t necessarily need to go slow to be accurate. A lot of officials looked at the 2020 election as an egg-on-the-face situation: It took nearly 24 hours to call the state in an incredibly tight race that helped to determine the overall result. It could have gone faster, but laws at the time meant that absentee ballots could only begin to be processed on Election Day. In Detroit, for example, roughly two-thirds of all ballots cast were mail ballots in 2020.

The state fixed those laws ahead of the 2024 election, allowing for communities to process ballots (but not actually count them) the day before the election. In 2024, we had our finalized unofficial results by the early afternoon after Election Day — faster and more complete than 2020, even with fewer people working on it. (And, it should be noted: Those unofficial results were overwhelmingly accurate.)

We really can’t get a whole lot faster here in Michigan, as I wrote in the days after the 2024 election. We theoretically could, if we brought on a ton of extra pollworkers each cycle, but that’s a whole other problem, and not one clerks say needs addressing now that we have pre-processing laws.

When Michigan voters head to the polls in August for our own primaries, it’s likely we’ll have a good feel for the outcomes that day or early the next. There’s always something unexpected that may delay local results a bit — a poll worker crashing into a pole, for example — but for the most part, Michigan gets the job done quickly, efficiently, and well. 

I’d love to hear your thoughts on how Michigan’s elections can improve. You can reach me at [email protected], of course. And, if you know someone who might enjoy factual breakdowns on what many are saying is the best and most beautiful state in the nation, encourage them to subscribe to the Votebeat Michigan newsletter. We’re in for a big summer, and I don’t want you to miss a thing.

Until next time, here’s my sweet Honey, seeing how flat one bunny can get while sleeping in a fireplace.

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