California certifies election results over five weeks after election

(The Center Square) - California Secretary of State Shirley Weber has certified the results of the state’s elections 38 days after the November election.

Overall turnout of 16.1 million voters was down from 2020, when 17.7 million Californians voted, but above that of 2012 and 2016. The turnout rate declined due to the state’s growing share of registered voters from the state’s automatic voter registration system.

President-elect Donald Trump won 38.3% of the presidential vote, compared to Vice President Kamala Harris’s 58.5%, while Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff won 58.9% of the U.S. Senate vote, compared to Republican candidate Steve Garvey’s 41.1%.

The closest statewide contest was for Proposition 34, which narrowly passed with just 50.9% of voter support. Prop. 34 will limit how the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, a Los Angeles nonprofit, uses its profits from buying drugs with federal discounts and selling the drugs to other government agencies for a higher price. The organization uses much of its money to promote various ballot initiatives across California, such as efforts to expand rent control.

AIDS Healthcare Foundation funded this year’s Prop. 33, which would have allowed governments to enact more rent control ordinances. That measure failed, gaining the support of only 40% of voters.

The most lopsided statewide measure was the landslide support for Prop. 36, the anti-crime measure which passed with 68.4% of voters’ support, and was supported by the majority of voters in every county.

Prop. 36 allows prosecutors to file felony charges for serial theft and major drug crimes, and upends Prop. 47, a 2015 measure that turned many drug and theft crimes into rarely-prosecuted misdemeanors. It also creates a “treatment-mandated felony” crime class, aimed at the state’s at-risk homeless population, that would allow individuals to complete mental health or substance abuse treatment instead of prison.

More than a week after the election, Weber told a news conference the state’s long election certification timeline allows as many eligible people to vote as possible, and that being able to take extra time is a benefit, not a drawback.

“We take pride in the fact we are not rushed,” said California Secretary of State Shirley Weber at a press conference. “We make sure every person who is eligible to vote gets a chance to vote.”

Republicans countered that the long, drawn-out process reduces faith in the election system.

“This glacial pace is a national embarrassment that erodes trust in democracy,” said Congressman Kevin Kiley, R-CA, on X.

Others compared the California ballot-counting timeline to that of other states and countries. Florida, for example, certified its election results on Nov. 19, but had nearly all ballots counted within hours of polls closing on Election Day.