California’s November general election is on track to deliver run-offs in two closely watched races. But the slow-moving count, combined with the fading prospects for Republicans Steve Hilton and Spencer Pratt in the gubernatorial and Los Angeles mayoral contests, respectively, has fuelled suspicion about electoral fraud.

Election night ended with Hilton and Pratt each heading for a run-off. But the latest numbers, with about 75% of votes counted, show those margins narrowing sharply. Hilton now leads Tom Steyer by 4.8 points, while Pratt holds a slender 1.1-point advantage over Nithya Raman. Hilton likely will still make the run-off. Pratt is in deep trouble.

As a result, many critics have asked: where did these votes come from? How did candidate percentages change so profoundly? And why is it taking so long to count the votes? If Pratt doesn’t make the run-off, his disillusioned supporters likely will cry foul. And LA voters in November will choose between a failed progressive mayor and a reactionary Democratic Socialist of America (DSA) challenger.

Late vote-by-mail (VBM) ballots may be breaking more heavily for Democrats than earlier VBM ballots, as Democratic voters may have made up their minds later in the governor’s race. This trend appears to have impacted Democratic voting in Los Angeles. Pratt, who excelled at imaginative social media ads that attracted national attention, may have fallen short in the ground game needed to win over the crucial mail-voting electorate, much of it influenced by public-sector unions that effectively sit on both sides of the bargaining table. Republican voters in LA remain an endangered species.

Yet it is also true that mail voting is more vulnerable to fraud and manipulation, whether through outdated voter rolls that include people who have died or moved away, or through ballot-harvesting operations carried out by paid canvassers. Critics argue that such practices can create opportunities for someone other than the voter to complete a ballot before it is signed. Without whistleblowers or direct evidence, however, proving such abuses is often difficult. That mail ballots are processed by government employees whose unions have opposed both Hilton and Pratt only adds to the suspicion.

The bigger issue, though, is how a state that gave birth to Silicon Valley can be so painfully slow at counting votes. The answer is structural.

More than four decades ago, California changed its absentee voting rules. Before that reform, voters needed a specific reason to vote absentee, and fewer than 5% of ballots were cast that way. Beginning with the 1982 election, however, any voter could request an absentee ballot. Republicans quickly capitalised on the change, investing in direct-mail campaigns to encourage absentee voting. In that year’s gubernatorial race, Democrat Tom Bradley “won” on election day, but ultimately lost after absentee ballots were counted, giving Republican George Deukmejian the victory.

That election became an early precursor to modern strategies of identifying and targeting “chasing” and “banking” absentee voters. In the years since, Democrats and their allied unions have steadily eroded the Republican advantage in absentee ballots, reshaping the competitive landscape around mail voting.

More recently, they used Covid to institutionalise VBM. When I ran a polling business, I differentiated between in-person and VBM voters to better model an evolving electorate and project outcomes more accurately as results unfolded. In a system where mail voting dominates, the old distinction between in-person and absentee voting is elusive.

Against that backdrop, Democrats likely had a VBM strategy in their endgame.

Uncertainty is compounded by the way election results are now reported. Years ago, “percent reporting” simply referred to the share of precincts counted. Today, it usually refers to the proportion of an estimated total ballot universe that has been processed, making early results far more fluid. In the era of widespread vote-by-mail, ballots cast later tend to reflect voters making decisions closer to election day, but they also take longer to count, delaying a clear final picture.

Voter reforms can have unintended, paradoxical effects. For example, California’s open primary, intended to encourage moderates in both parties, instead solidified one party “progressive” dominance. And VBM, intended to boost turnout, also led to earlier — and thus less informed — voting that could not reflect late-breaking campaign developments. All this is not good for democracy.

Beyond the multiple steps involved in opening, extracting, scanning, and sometimes “curing” damaged mail ballots, signature verification remains a core safeguard designed to protect electoral integrity. It is, however, time-consuming, and the delay it causes fuels distrust about the process. Reducing or removing signature checks would improve speed but risk lowering protections against fraud. AI signature verification would be more reliable and accelerate final results.

With roughly 80% of California ballots now cast by mail, the volume alone is substantial. Ballots that arrive on election day — as well as those merely postmarked by that date — are not reflected in election-night totals. Although counting continues late into election night, the process over ensuing days and weeks slows significantly, with remaining work handled under standard staffing and business-hour constraints.

It’s ironic: California has made it easier to vote, but harder for people to trust the results.