Yet again, California has America rolling its eyebrows: By midday Wednesday — more than a week after Election Day — it had still failed to count enough votes in six House races to determine winners.
That left open the question of which party, officially, would control the body.
Hey, bud, what’s the rush? seems to be Golden State officials’ work ethic: In races for three of the seats, just a bit over 80% of the ballots had been counted.
In the other three, even less was in, with as little as 57% reported in the 13th Congressional District.
At one point it seemed the next national elections would arrive before Cali’s 2024 tallies were done.
What gives?
Hmm: California was among the first states to legalize weed, and lefty officials post-election might’ve sought comfort in it, given the GOP’s run of victories nationwide.
Perhaps that slowed them down?
But the rest of the country needed to get on with its business.
That’s why the 49 other states managed to complete vote counts in 377 of their 383 House races by that point.
Think about it: Before California had even processed tens of thousands of votes in key races, President-elect Donald Trump had already filled multiple major posts in the new administration, and Republicans had chosen a new Senate leader, John Thune of South Dakota.
Nor can the state justify its lateness by claiming its laws require officials to accept mail-in ballots as late as a week after the election.
If voters are going to send in that many ballots at the last minute, and it takes a full week to reach election staffers, they might want to rethink that law.
To be sure, we’re not pushing for a nationwide requirement for speedier vote-counting; every state has the right to make its own election rules — subject to the Constitution’s requirement that their presidential electors meet on the first Tuesday after the second Wednesday of December.
But Americans have an understandably strong desire — and need — to know results sooner.
The right answer: Heap scorn on the Golden State.
Mock it for its ineptness.
Ridicule it for its tardiness.
Californians’ high rates of crime, drug-abuse, homelessness and public lawlessness, not to mention insane taxes, already have the nation looking on in shock and horror; do they really need more humiliation?
Florida cleaned up its act after becoming a national piñata for the way it handled the 2000 Bush-Gore election.
(Who can forget The Nightmare of the Hanging Chad?)
California can fix itself too. For the sake of the nation, it needs to get results faster (weed can wait).
If it doesn’t, let it face Americans’ wrath.
