{"id":411104,"date":"2026-07-24T19:16:41","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T19:16:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/411104\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T19:16:41","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T19:16:41","slug":"california-rejects-nearly-150000-mail-ballots-in-primary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/411104\/","title":{"rendered":"California rejects nearly 150,000 mail ballots in primary"},"content":{"rendered":"

LOS ANGELES \u2014 Nearly 150,000 California voters\u2019 mail-in ballots were rejected<\/a>\u00a0for the state\u2019s June primary, a spike from recent elections even as the state tries to make voting easier to boost participation and by counting every ballot.<\/p>\n

California has become notorious for its\u00a0slow vote counts<\/a>\u00a0that can drag on for weeks and sometimes longer, largely the result of multiple changes over the years intended to increase turnout but have\u00a0done little<\/a>\u00a0to achieve that. Among the changes: Every voter receives a mail-in ballot that can arrive at an election office seven days late and still be counted, provided the envelope is postmarked by Election Day.<\/p>\n

Yet even with that weeklong window, the primary driver of the higher rejection numbers is late-arriving ballots, according to data compiled by the secretary of state\u2019s office. Voting experts suspect the main problem is postmarks on ballots that came after Election Day, making them ineligible to be counted. The problem may be U.S. Postal Service changes that might affect the timing of when postmarks are applied.<\/p>\n

Late-arriving ballots drove the rejections<\/p>\n

According to state data,\u00a0148,241 mail ballots were rejected<\/a>\u00a0in the June election, or a rate of 1.7% of all mail ballots.<\/p>\n

In raw numbers, that\u2019s up from the 2024 primary, when 108,982 mail ballots were rejected, or a 1.56% rate. In 2022, 105,818 mail ballots were voided during the primary, or a rate similar to 2024.<\/p>\n

Lateness accounted for 93,479 rejected ballots in June, by far the largest category for disqualifying a ballot. That was up from about 70,000 in the 2022 primary and about 76,000 in the 2024 primary, though turnout in those elections was smaller compared to last June.<\/p>\n

Kim Alexander, president of the nonpartisan\u00a0California Voter Foundation,<\/a>\u00a0said the jump in rejected ballots because of lateness is a major concern that \u2014 along with postal procedures \u2014 might also be connected to a late surge in ballots in June. Many voters waited until the final days to make a decision in a wide-open and chaotic race for governor.<\/p>\n

\u201cBallots rejected due to lateness are caused primarily to being postmarked too late to count, not because they arrived too late to count,\u201d Alexander wrote in an email.<\/p>\n

Rejection rates\u00a0have fluctuated over time<\/a>, but the growing number of those set aside for lateness compared to recent elections \u201cdoes really demand the question why this is happening,\u201d said Mindy Romero, director of the Center for Inclusive Democracy, a nonpartisan research group.<\/p>\n

Lawmakers concerned about USPS postmark changes<\/p>\n

In January, a group of mostly Democratic U.S. senators\u00a0sent a letter<\/a>\u00a0to the\u00a0U.S. Postal Service<\/a>, alarmed that mail-processing changes might affect postmark dates for\u00a0mail-in ballots during an election year<\/a>\u00a0that will determine control of Congress.<\/p>\n

\tRecommended<\/p>\n

\"MS<\/p>\n

\u00a9\u00a02026 Versant Media, LLC<\/p>\n

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