It happens in close races in almost every major election. Early California returns show Republicans winning or at least faring better than expected. Then, as votes are counted over the following days, the tallies shift in Democrats’ favor.
This “blue shift” or “red mirage” isn’t a result of California Democrats “finding votes” or rigging elections, as President Donald Trump and his supporters have repeatedly claimed.
Trump and his allies in the federal government are already laying the groundwork for questioning the election results as they embark on an unprecedented attack on California’s elections, setting up what could be a showdown over the fundamentals of American democracy.
Experts urge you not to be fooled by their claims of “rigged” elections based on early returns.
The shifts in early tallies, experts say, are merely the result of when and how Democrats and Republicans tend to vote and the length of time it takes California election officials to count millions of ballots.
Examples of the ‘blue shift’ and ‘red mirage’
The phenomenon has been described since at least 2013, but the terms gained traction around the contentious 2020 elections.
Six years ago, election night returns showed Trump leading Joe Biden in several key states, but as counties nationwide counted ballots over the coming days, Biden ended up winning in the states that put him over the top in the Electoral College.
In the final weeks of his first term, Trump made claims, which have been repeatedly debunked, that the race was stolen from him. Thousands of his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in the deadly riot on Jan. 6, 2021.
California has seen its own red mirages in congressional and local races over the years. In 2018, for instance, four Republican candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives appeared to be ahead on election night, but ended up losing to their Democratic opponents by the time all votes were counted.
In the primary this June, Spencer Pratt, a Republican former reality TV star, appeared to be beating progressive Los Angeles City Council member Nithya Raman in early returns in the race for LA mayor. Raman ended up pulling ahead and advanced to the general election to face incumbent Mayor Karen Bass.
The shift led Trump to call the results “rigged” and others on the MAGA right to declare Democratic shenanigans were at work.
Experts and elections officials say you shouldn’t believe such claims.
Why vote counts shift
First, let’s state the obvious: California is the most populous state. There are 23 million registered voters in California; that’s more voters than the entire populations of the 16 least-populated states combined.
Los Angeles County — the most populated in the country — alone has nearly 6 million registered voters.
There are also lots of Republicans in California, even though Democrats greatly outnumber them.
Want to blow some minds at your next cocktail party? Ask your friends to name which county in the U.S. had the most Trump voters, by raw numbers, in the 2020 election. The answer: deep-blue Los Angeles County, where Biden overwhelmingly won.
So how does that translate into a red mirage?
In the June LA mayor’s race, the city’s Republicans turned their ballots in earlier than Democrats did.
There was so much last-minute uncertainty over the crowded field of Democratic gubernatorial candidates who appeared on the same ballot that many liberal voters waited an especially long time to return them.
That meant more Republican votes were reported in the first wave of election returns, a red mirage that disappeared as Democratic votes were fully tabulated.
That could very well happen in the various partisan races on the ballot in California, including those that could determine which party controls Congress.
And, as usual, the rest of the country may end up waiting weeks for California’s results to get an answer.
Yes, California takes a long time to count votes
There’s no getting around it: California’s vote counting process is slow, and that gives more time for doubts about the election results to fester.
“It is undermining voter confidence. It’s opening the door to election mis- and disinformation,” Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation, said in a briefing last week. “It’s leading to threats and criticism of our election staff. …. And it shortens the time required for an orderly transition of power.”
But there are reasons why California counts so slowly.
During the pandemic, California began mailing every registered voter a ballot. Mail-in ballots require far more time to process than in-person ballots. Many voters also hang on to their ballots until Election Day.
Adding to the counting delays, California gives voters a seven-day grace period for ballots postmarked by Election Day to arrive and get counted.
California also has the longest period in the country to “cure” ballots that come in with problems such as mismatched signatures that require election officials to contact voters to fix them. This year, voters have until the day before Thanksgiving to cure their ballots, Alexander said.
The state only requires counties to count ballots for at least six hours a day, and they’re not required to count on weekends or holidays.
Alexander said many counties go beyond that, but it’s up to each election office. The decision is often dependent on whether the county has enough election workers, can pay them over time and has space for them to work, all of which depend on local budgets.
Recent changes to California law aim to speed up the count, and lawmakers this year provided $29 million for counties to buy more ballot-counting machines or hire more workers. Still, Alexander said some close races could remain undecided for weeks. Counties have 30 days to officially certify the results.
Ben Gips of Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to fighting authoritarianism, urged California voters not to be misled by those who would use such delays to sow doubt about an election that is working as intended, if slowly.
“These delays really can add fuel to that strategy, and it can make it much easier to do that deception,” Gips said.