California’s slow vote count garnered national attention in the days following the June 2 primary — raising familiar questions about what can be done to speed up the tally. And while both state Democrats and Republicans say they would like results to be finalized faster, Democratic leaders aren’t likely to implement serious changes if it means disenfranchising voters in the process.
As CalMatters’ Maya C. Miller explains, it took about a week for enough ballots to be counted to call the California governor’s race. During that time, the vote count drew criticism from President Donald Trump, the popular election-data analyst Nate Silver and The New York Times’ editorial board, which contended that California’s delayed results were “damaging faith in government.”
State Democratic leaders say that because the slow count is mostly due to the high volume of mail-in ballots that come in on Election Day or the day before, speeding up the count could make voting harder for some Californians.
- Assemblymember Gail Pellerin, a Santa Cruz Democrat, chairperson of the election committee and former county registrar: “If you want results election night, you’re going to have to go back to in-person voting, way earlier deadlines for returning by mail and you’re going to end up disenfranchising voters.”
California’s secretary of state, Shirley Weber, also dismissed concerns about slow returns as a Trump talking point: “For me, accuracy is far more important,” Weber told CalMatters in April.
Mail-in ballots also require more time, labor and money to process compared to in-person ballots. But California counties do not receive enough funding to pay for more workers, according to the Public Policy Institute of California. Unlike some other states, California also does not contribute ongoing funds to counties for elections.
- Eric McGhee, a senior fellow at the PPIC, in regards to county registrars: “They’re kind of managing the best they can with the budget that they have. But it’s a lot to handle.”
As AI becomes a frontline tool in healthcare, what comes next? Join us Wednesday in Sacramento at the UC Student and Policy Center for a conversation on guardrails, patient care and innovation in healthcare. Register here.
Other Stories You Should Know
Taxes as a lifeline for CA healthcare?
A major California union and lawmakers are advancing two separate tax proposals to offset sweeping federal cuts to Medicaid that congressional Republicans approved through their 2025 spending bill and Trump signed into law.
The first proposal, backed by the state’s largest healthcare workers union, qualified for the November ballot last week. It would levy a one-time, 5% tax on the state’s billionaires, which proponents say would generate $100 billion for the state. Gov. Gavin Newsom, healthcare industry groups and California’s wealthy tech executives oppose the measure. The California Teachers Association also opposes it, putting forward its own ballot initiative to make permanent an existing surtax on wealthy Californians.
A second proposal approved by the Legislature would restructure the state’s managed care organization tax in a way that would shift more cost onto privately insured Californians. One health insurance lobby estimated that the change could result in consumers paying about $100 more in premiums each year.
Read more about the billionaire tax and MCO tax proposals from CalMatters’ Kristen Hwang and Ana B. Ibarra, respectively.
Cal State and union clash over AI
A bill that would ban California State University from replacing faculty with generative artificial intelligence tools highlights the growing tension between the university system and its faculty over Cal State’s use of AI, writes CalMatters’ Mikhail Zinshteyn.
Though few examples exist of Cal State attempting to replace faculty labor with AI, the role of the technology more broadly has sown fears among members of the California Faculty Association, the union of professors backing the bill.
In 2025, the union filed an unfair labor practices complaint against Sacramento State, accusing its then-chief AI officer, Alexander Sidorkin, of soliciting faculty for their course materials “to receive a customized AI tutoring bot for their classes.” The union also alleged that Sidorkin created a mental health chatbot for students, and linked the bot on a resources webpage. Cal State officials denied this.
The union ultimately withdrew its complaint after Cal State and the union settled the overall matter in March. Sidorkin, who had no knowledge that he was named in the complaint until CalMatters reached out to him, said he never created a bot. Rather, he wanted to recommend that students use ChatGPT during a mental health episode if counselors weren’t available.
And lastly: ‘Minor tweaks’ spark major backlash
To get proposed legislation out of the Assembly, Assemblymember Blanca Pacheco watered down a controversial bill that would reduce access to public records. Now the Downey Democrat has brought the contentious elements back, and they’re more restrictive than before. It’s “a virtual horror show of governmental nontransparency,” said one transparency advocate about Pacheco’s measure. Read more from CalMatters’ Yue Stella Yu.
California Voices
CalMatters columnist Dan Walters: Raising minimum wages to offset California’s rising living costs can lead to higher consumer costs, which then increases pressure for higher wages and pushes those caught in the middle to lower-cost states.
Deteriorating environmental conditions, droughts and proposed solar and mining projects threaten the Mojave Desert’s Joshua trees — potentially affecting the local economy that surrounds Joshua Tree National Park, writes Jacob Mull, a graduate student studying conservation leadership at Colorado State University.
California political and philanthropic leaders must do more to help preserve Black communities and histories so that they can withstand shifting political climates that are opposed to preserving Black spaces, writes Kaci Patterson, founder and chief architect of the Black Equity Collective.
Other things worth your time:
Arrests of immigrant parents create mental health crisis for children // KFF Health News
A solution to CA data center backlash? Put them in oil fields // Grist
In one of CA’s Trumpiest counties, the MAGA backlash has begun // San Francisco Chronicle
Showdown in the desert: The small town fending off a new CA gold rush // The Guardian
Ford sues LA lemon law firm alleging ‘utter fabrications’ inflated fees by 7,000% // Los Angeles Times
Santa Clara County will be first in region to fund legal aid for Bay Area ICE detainees // San José Spotlight
This startup wants to bring driverless freight trucks to CA’s roads, but drivers are pushing back // Los Angeles Times
