Not Just California: Where Vote Counts Drag On Beyond Election Day and Why SCOTUS Could End It

California is not the only state with trouble counting votes on time.

On Friday, New Jersey finished counting in the state’s 9th Congressional District Republican primary, and Clifton City Councilwoman Rosie Pino defeated Tiffany Burress to advance to a November faceoff against Democrat incumbent Rep. Nellie Pou, the Associated Press reported.

While California received national attention for slow-arriving mail votes that flipped the outcome of the Los Angeles mayoral primary election, New Jersey is among at least 17 states and the District of Columbia that keep counting mail ballots arriving after Election Day. At least two states allow ballots to arrive up to two weeks after Election Day.

Across the nation, in previous years, ballot counts have dragged out because of permissive state laws. However, a highly-anticipated Supreme Court ruling could change that.

What Will SCOTUS Decide?

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule this month in a case that could mitigate the likelihood of taking weeks to know who won an election. In the case of Republican National Committee v. Michael Watson, the Mississippi secretary of state, justices will essentially decide if Election Day is the final deadline for votes to arrive. Mississippi counts votes that arrive up to five days after Election Day.

A majority of justices seemed favorable to the RNC during the oral arguments in March.

“Nearly a week after the primary, it is completely unacceptable ballots are still being counted,” RNC Chairman Joe Gruters said in a public statement earlier this week, referring to California. “That’s why the RNC is aggressively fighting in the Supreme Court to stop ballots received after Election Day from being counted. Americans deserve timely election results they can trust.”

Interestingly, this week, even the New York Times editorial board called for Congress to impose a national deadline of Election Day for ballots to arrive but argued the Supreme Court should not fix it.

“With California refusing to change its system and a few other states having similar problems, the appropriate remedy is a federal law,” the Times said. “That law should establish Election Day as the deadline for mail-in ballots to arrive and set basic standards for efficient vote counting.”

The editorial, first published on the Times website on Wednesday, added, “The Supreme Court may act on this issue before Congress has a chance.” However, it adds, “In our view, current federal law does not provide a clear answer, which means that states would retain the freedom to decide. We believe both that the Supreme Court should not establish Election Day as the national deadline for ballot arrival and that Congress should.”

What About Other Jurisdictions?

California allows seven days post-Election Day for ballots to arrive for counting, while New Jersey allows for six days. Several other states allow straggler ballots to be counted if postmarked by Election Day.

Illinois and Utah count ballots arriving up to 14 days after Election Day, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, as long as the ballots are postmarked by Election Day. Alaska and Maryland allow ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted up to 10 days after the election. 

The District of Columbia, New York, and Oregon also count ballots arriving seven days after the election. West Virginia has a grace period of five days.

Nevada and Ohio count ballots received up to four days after Election Day, while Kansas, Massachusetts, and Virginia count ballots arriving up to three days after Election Day.

Washington state law says that ballots received after the election with postmarks before Election Day are counted; no deadline is specified for when they must be received, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Have Lengthy Counts Flipped Other Races?

In the last U.S. House race called in the 2024 election, Republican John Duarte led for more than a week after Election Day before Democrat Adam Gray eventually won the race for California’s 13th Congressional District by 187 votes after mail ballots and cures were processed.

In the 2024 election cycle, Republican incumbent Rep. Michelle Steel was leading on election night for California’s 45th Congressional District. However, Democrat Derek Tran won after weeks of additional mail-ballot counting.

In a 2024 Oregon state House of Representatives race, Republican Tracy Cramer led by about five points on election night, but Democrat Lesly Muñoz won after the counting of late-arriving ballots.

In the 2022 Nevada U.S. Senate race, Republican Adam Laxalt led on election night, but Democrat incumbent Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto won after days of mail-ballot counting. This secured a narrow Senate Democrat majority.

In the 2024 primary for Washington state lands commissioner, it appeared the Republican had advanced to the general election on the night of the vote. As additional ballots came in, the outcome changed.