Maria Valadez wants everyone to relax.
Every election, Lake County’s prickly clerk follows California’s litany of voting laws and certifies thousands of ballots by the time she’s required to do so. And every year people still complain.
“The state has given us a deadline, we’re going to meet the deadline,” an exasperated Valadez said from her small office in Lakeport, as a handful of staffers sat at computers verifying signatures more than two weeks after Election Day when they received less than the half of the votes had been counted. the votes. “I just don’t understand, why do we have to rush?”
In a state known for its slow processing of election results, Lake County, with only about 38,000 voters, is often the slowest of all.
Ballots ready for processing at the Lake County Registrar’s Office in Lakeport.
For years, the rural Northern California county — known for local disputes over marijuana cultivation and several brutal wildfires — was one of the last states in the state to announce votes after elections, often frustrating candidates and political pundits.
The reason appears to be a combination of factors, including under-resourced elections in one of California’s smaller, lower-income districts and a desire to maintain a rigorous, stable process that was established decades ago by trusted staff. was introduced even as technology continues to develop. .
“Elections bring a lot of security, transparency and accountability. That’s what we do here. And it’s been that way all the years I’ve been here,” said Valadez, who was hired in 1995 and trained by the prior clerk, who was hired in 1977. ‘We have a lot of checks and balances. We do them as we go.”
She reiterated, “We have a deadline, we will meet the deadline.”
State law requires counties to finalize their official results 30 days after the election, this year by Dec. 5. Although Valadez is confident she will make it, the pace of progress is surprising compared to most of the country. Shortly before midnight on election night, Lake County reported only 5,784 ballots. Since then, several thousand more have been counted. But as of Thursday — 16 days after the election — Lake County still had more than 10,000 ballots to count, according to the secretary of state’s office.
Workers process ballots at the Lake County registrar’s office, which is slower than many others in filing final election results.
“I am not unsympathetic to the challenges that come with unfunded top-down mandates from Sacramento, but there has been a pattern of sheer awfulness at Lake County in particular that goes back at least a decade and they have earned every scorn heaped upon them came off. says Rob Pyers, who runs the election guide California Target Book on social media last week.
He said Lake County is “in the running for the slowest election district in the world.”
This year that might not matter so much. Unlike some other California counties, where daily counts continue to result in close races for the House of Representatives that will determine the size of Washington’s Republican majority, Lake County did not see many close elections.
Still, the slow count means residents are waiting to find out who will serve on local school boards, the Clear Lake City Council and the county Board of Supervisors.
Lake County’s delay has delayed statewide outcomes before.
In the 2014 primaries, the race for state comptroller was razor-thin. California voters had to wait a month to find out who would run in the general election, while Lake County officials took their time with the final vote even as they were bombarded with calls from politicians feverishly refreshing their browsers for updates.
Lakeport is the county seat of Lake County, which is often the slowest of all California counties to report election results.
It was Lake County that declared Betty Yee had defeated fellow Democrat John Perez by fewer than 500 votes and would advance. The province has met its deadline. Democracy lived on.
Now it’s a different world than when Valadez first started working on elections thirty years ago, and her department’s speed — or lack thereof — has fueled conspiracy theories like Donald Trump’s when he won the election. 2020 lost.
As Valadez and her staff quietly processed the ballots Wednesday, an angry man from North Dakota called to inquire about why it was taking so long.
Conservatives have singled out Lake County on social media as evidence that deep blue California is aiming to rig elections. The man who lives 1,600 miles east and can’t vote in Lake County suggested something nefarious was going on.
Valadez invited him to visit her office on the shore of Clear Lake, in her close-knit community where the security guard at the courthouse next door calls the newcomers “kiddo.” She has nothing to hide, she said.
“We take our work very seriously,” Valadez said of her small staff. “The integrity of my work is very important to me.”
Lake County Clerk Maria Valadez at work in her office in Lakeport.
California is one of the slowest states to call elections, not only because of its huge population, but also because of voting laws designed to increase voter participation, including sending a ballot to all registered voters by mail, which can take longer if certain races are held there.
“California deserves all the scorn it gets for blocking the election results in the House of Representatives,” read the headline in the New York Post last week. The article continued:
“Hey, buddy, what’s the rush? It seems to be the work ethic of Golden State officials.”
Derek Tisler, who focuses on elections as counsel for the Brennan Center for Justice, confirmed that Lake County is among the slowest polling places in the U.S. this year. But that’s OK, he said.
“We’re getting impatient, but I think everyone would agree that ultimately we want things to be right,” Tisler said. “That’s what election officials are going to prioritize. It makes sense that they do things in a way that they are confident in.”
As a wall of rain poured down on most of Lake County this week, a place struggling with meth and opioid abuse where 73% of public school students qualify for free, reduced-price meals, Valadez said she’s doing her best does “within staffing levels and limited resources.”
Jim Emenegger processes ballots at the Lake County Registrar of Voters office.
The Lake County Recorder’s Office has five full-time employees, and one is currently on leave. A few retirees have been added as temporary help. The province – population: 67,000 – does not have a fast vote counting machine, but verifies everything by hand.
Kim Alexander, president of the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation, said places like Lake County don’t get the same resources as larger tourist destinations with urban centers and higher property taxes. The state isn’t helping counties pay election workers or voting equipment even as it issues more mandates, she said, making local officials’ jobs more difficult and unequal depending on where they live.
“I get really frustrated when I hear legislators complaining about how long it’s taking to count, because they can actually do something about it,” Alexander said. “If elections weren’t a chronically underfunded government service, we could get results faster.”
Valadez also pointed to voting preferences as a possible reason for the timing of the county’s results. Unlike a growing number of counties, Lake County does not offer vote centers, a hybrid model that allows voters to return their ballots several days before the election.
Voters here prefer to vote in person at their neighborhood polling place, and some are still getting used to receiving a ballot in the mail, Valadez said.
But even if Lake County were to get a financial boost and more voters mailed their ballots early, it’s unclear whether election officials would change much of their decades-old strategy.
Diane Fridley and Jim Emenegger process ballots at the Lake County registration office.
Diane Fridley, 71, wearing a bright red pixie cut and a Carhartt flannel, worked to verify votes on a computer at the Lakeport polling place this week, scrolling her mouse across the screen to identify any problems with the ballots. identify.
For more than forty years, Fridley served as Lake County Clerk. When she retired in 2019, she passed the torch to Valadez. But in between babysitting her grandchildren, Fridley comes to help with the elections.
Fridley, a Lake County native, remembers when voters had to bring their birth certificates to their polling place. She has lived through the days of hanging chads. As someone who likes to eat the same breakfast every morning – a slice of apple pie – and is hyper-vigilant while counting ballots, all the changes have been difficult, but exciting.
“Yes, it’s taking a little longer, but we’re dotting our I’s and crossing our T’s,” she said. “We’re confident that the totals we have are accurate. I’m not saying other counties don’t do that, but we’re trying to be perfect.”
Fridley and Valadez exchanged a knowing look.
“There’s a deadline for a reason,” Fridley said, echoing Valadez. “We always meet the deadline.”
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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
