We tracked the undecided races of the 2024 election

If you're reading this blog, you probably know that we are still waiting for all the ballots to be counted in a couple of unresolved U.S. House races in California. But one thing you might not know is why California takes so long to count all its votes.

California isn't alone in this regard. Every state waits at least some period of time after Election Day to count certain types of ballots, such as overseas and military absentees (which take time to arrive) and provisional ballots (which must be double-checked to make sure the voter is eligible).

But there are some reasons why California takes especially long. First of all, California conducts its elections predominantly by mail, and mail-in ballots take longer to process and count because their signatures have to be verified, they have to be removed from envelopes, etc. This is also the reason other predominantly vote-by-mail states, like Nevada, take a long time to count. But one issue California has that Nevada doesn't is sheer size. The largest state in the union casts literally millions of votes, and it simply takes time to count them all.

California law also encourages a leisurely counting pace. The state allows mail ballots to arrive as late as one week after Election Day and still count (as long as they are postmarked by Election Day), which creates the opportunity for more people's votes to count, but also means results will take longer. California also doesn't require counties to finalize their results until 30 days after the election, and some counties take full advantage of that window — there was an excellent article in the Los Angeles Times last week about Lake County, California, and why officials there don't feel a sense of urgency to finish counting.

Of course, another part of the story is that if election officials had more resources (such as more advanced machines and more staffers), they would be able to count more quickly. According to a poll earlier this year by the pro-voting-rights Brennan Center for Justice, 83% of election officials said they needed more resources to keep up with administrative and security needs, and overall, election officials received $1 billion less in federal funding this year than in the 2020 election.

Election Day may have been 20 days ago, but we at 538 are still tracking a handful of unresolved races across the country! Over the weekend, ballot counting continued in California, but little changed in the 13th and 45th Districts — the two California districts where a winner has still not been projected. Republican Rep. John Duarte and Democrat Derek Tran are both clinging to small leads.

The only other House race that is still TBD is Iowa's 1st District, where a recount is currently underway. It's not expected to reverse Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks's lead, but we'll know for sure by Monday, Dec. 2. A few other downballot races are also being recounted: Today, there will be a hand recount of a Minnesota state House district that could decide control of the chamber, and the North Carolina Supreme Court recount must be concluded by Wednesday. We are also waiting to see if recounts will be requested in two extremely tight ballot-measure campaigns, over the legalization of sports betting in Missouri and the repeal of ranked-choice voting in Alaska.

Last night, California counties updated their vote tallies, and the margin in the state's 13th District U.S. House race is now just 0.1 percentage points. Republican Rep. John Duarte leads Democrat Adam Gray 50.05% to 49.95%, a raw vote margin of only 194 votes. It appears that there are roughly 5,000 unprocessed ballots left to count in the district, around half of which will come from Gray's home base of Merced County. But as Nathaniel pointed out last night, the race is so close that it could come down to "uncured ballots," which are ballots that have a signature issue that voters need to go and fix in order for their vote to count. There may be around 4,000 of those in the district, too. How this race will pan out is really anyone's guess at this point.

They're still counting ballots in California's 45th District, one of three U.S. House districts where a winner hasn't yet been projected. Last night, the two counties that are (partially) covered by the 45th District, Los Angeles and Orange, both reported new results, and they extended Democrat Derek Tran's lead over Republican Rep. Michelle Steel from 397 votes to 480 votes. There hasn't been a day that has resulted in more new ballots counted for Steel than for Tran since Nov. 6, so the trends here are favorable for Tran. However, there's no guarantee that those trends will continue, and with about 6,000 ballots left to process (according to my rough calculations), this race is still up in the air.