Targeted by Trump, L.A. County took action to speed up counting votes. Officials say it worked
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Set us as preferred After President Trump’s unfounded claim that California’s slow vote count during the June primary indicated cheating by Democrats, state and local elections officials made changes to speed things up — in part to dispel any questions about this month’s crucial midterm elections.The state of California allocated $29 million for new equipment, election staffing and voter awareness campaigns statewide, about $6 million of which went to Los Angeles County.The county, which opened a massive new ballot processing center in 2024, announced it would shift to around-the-clock ballot counting in the days after the Nov.
3 election and used some of its state funding to purchase a third mail ballot processing machine.A full analysis of the impacts of those efforts statewide has not been completed, and ballot counting is still underway.But one week after the polls closed, officials in L.A.
County and independent election observers say the efforts clearly paid off.A statewide report on unprocessed ballots as of 5:41 p.m.Tuesday found that L.A.
County had processed about 99% of nearly 3.2 million ballots cast in the county, with just 37,800 ballots still to process.That’s well ahead of where it was at the same point after other recent elections.Kim Alexander, president of the nonprofit, nonpartisan California Voter Foundation, which has for years tracked ballot processing, said that compared to L.A.
County having processed 96.9% of ballots a week after the 2024 general election and just 73.3% of ballots a week after the 2022 general election.She said a similar 99.3% of ballots had been counted by the county a week after the June primary — but nearly a million fewer people voted in that election.Alexander said L.A.
County was also well ahead of the state average for ballots processed seven days after an elect...