California’s slow vote counting process — still underway and causing friction after last week’s primary — may be forced to change before November’s midterm elections, as the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to rule on whether mail ballots must be received by election day to count.

Whether those changes will speed things up — and help tamp down baseless claims from President Trump and others that the slow count is evidence of fraud — will depend on a variety of factors, election experts said, including how the high court rules, how state lawmakers and local elections officials respond, and whether they push any additional steps to quicken the count.

“We’re all on the edge of our seats, waiting to see what the Supreme Court does,” said Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation.

“We’re certainly planning for a bad Supreme Court decision in this case, but we don’t really know all of our options for how to respond until we see the court’s decision,” said Assemblymember Gail Pellerin (D-Santa Cruz), chair of the Assembly Elections Committee and a former top elections official in Santa Cruz County.

Pellerin said she has been working on contingency plans with other state officials — including some from the offices of Gov. Gavin Newsom, Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta — and has requested $35 million in state funds to educate voters on any new midterm deadlines, though that funding has not been appropriated.

Federal law has, since 1872, set “election day” as the first Tuesday following a Monday in November, and gives Congress oversight over elections for the president and members of Congress. However, most authority for running elections falls to the states.

California currently provides a grace period for ballots to be counted as long as they are postmarked by and received within seven days of election day. More than a dozen states have similar laws that allow for counting late-arriving ballots, and most states accept such mail ballots from members of the military who are stationed overseas.

In March, the nation’s high court heard arguments about a five-day grace period in Mississippi, with the court’s conservative majority appearing skeptical. Many observers expect from those arguments that the high court will rule, by the end of this month, that ballots — at least for federal races — must be received by election day to count.

That outcome — in the case Watson vs. Republican National Committee — is considered likely but not assured, and some elections experts believe the high court has little legal precedent to support such a conclusion.

“That is a bogus interpretation of the statute,” said Rick Hasen, an election law expert and director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project at UCLA Law. “It violates what the statute says as a matter of text and history, and just how it’s been understood since the Civil War basically.”

Hasen and others also doubt that such a change would have much impact on the speed of California’s vote counting process, given that huge volumes of mail ballots that are placed in ballot drop boxes or arrive at processing facilities on or just before election day would still count — and would still drag the counting process out for days after the election.

In 2024, California counted more than 406,000 late-arriving mail ballots, but they represented only about 2.5% of the statewide total.

“The main bottleneck is really not ballots that arrive after election day. The bottleneck is ballots arriving before or on election day,” Hasen said. “So I don’t think the Watson case — however it comes out — is going to appreciably change California’s timing on when they’ll get enough ballots counted in a close race for it to be able to be called by news organizations.”

Nonetheless, state and local elections officials are preparing for changes — and looking for other ways to speed up the vote count, which, as of Monday, had resulted in more than 7.7 million ballots counted from last week’s primary, but more than 1.7 million left to process.

State plans unclear

If the Supreme Court were to rule that votes cast in federal elections must be received by election day, California would need to respond quickly.

It would need to craft a messaging campaign to inform millions of voters of the new rules, and determine when to tell voters they must mail their ballots by in order for their votes to count, experts said. That calculation may be shaped in part by efforts by the Trump administration to assert federal control over the mail ballot process through the U.S. Postal Service, which California and other states are fighting in court.

California officials may also need to determine whether they will create a “bifurcated counting process” with different rules for primary and general elections and different rules for federal races and state and local races on the same ballots, Alexander said, as a narrow Supreme Court ruling may not apply to them all equally.

“That’s a big policy decision that lawmakers will need to make, and I’m not sure how that would go,” Alexander said, citing a lack of detailed public plans from state and local elections officials.

Weber — who urged voters to cast ballots early in last week’s election — did not respond to a request for comment.

Brandon Richards, a spokesperson for Newsom, said the governor’s office doesn’t comment on “hypotheticals,” but that Newsom “is planning for all eventualities, including but not limited to attacks on our democracy and disruptions in our elections.”

Bonta’s office said it is “in communication with election officials and actively preparing for the possibility that the U.S. Supreme Court could require changes to California’s election procedures,” but that it could not provide details.

Dean Logan, head of the L.A. County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s office, said he was “not in a position to discuss specific contingency planning details” given the high court has yet to rule, but that his office “is closely monitoring the case and has begun evaluating potential impacts to election administration.”

If changes are required by the court, Logan said his office “is prepared to undertake a comprehensive voter education and outreach effort to ensure voters understand any new requirements, deadlines, or voting options,” which would be “multilingual, multi-channel, and designed to reach voters directly across Los Angeles County, particularly in communities that rely heavily on voting by mail and those that have historically done so.”

Funds needed for faster count

Alexander’s group has backed Pellerin’s request for $35 million for a marketing campaign to encourage voters to send midterm ballots in early, and advocated for another $55 million in state funding to support county efforts to build up their vote processing capabilities.

H.D. Palmer, a spokesperson for the California Department of Finance, said it would be “premature” to comment on those requests, but “discussions have been underway and are continuing.”

Both Alexander and Hasen said California should be investing more in its ballot processing capabilities even if the current process is fair and secure and the claims of fraud are baseless, because those claims have succeeded in diminishing trust.

“On the one hand, this is a manufactured crisis. There is nothing that is intrinsically bad about a slow count for a race,” Hasen said. “On the other hand, we live in an era of profound distrust in institutions and in the integrity of elections, in no small part because of Donald Trump.”

In 2012, slightly over half of all California votes were cast via mail ballots. However, that number has increased dramatically since, thanks in part to an expansion during the COVID-19 pandemic, and nearly 89% of ballots were cast by mail in last year’s special election.

Alexander said that throughout that same period, California lawmakers have passed new laws to expand access to the ballot but have not provided counties with the necessary funding to keep up with the volume — meaning “counties are left holding the bag.”

Alexander said California should fix that by providing consistent state funding for new ballot counting machines, more modern and efficient county processing facilities, and an expansion of a program backed by Pellerin and available in some counties already that allows voters dropping off ballot envelopes in person to essentially convert those ballots into in-person votes on the spot — which Alexander called a “hybrid” option that saves counties a huge amount of processing time.

She said the state spent millions to educate voters on new COVID-related vote-by-mail protocols and deadlines in 2020, and it led to both record turnout and a faster count — proving access and speed are not mutually exclusive.

“We’re being asked to make a false choice,” Alexander said. “It is possible to have accessible, secure, reliable and verified elections, and also an accelerated vote count.”

Times staff writer David G. Savage in Washington contributed to this report.

Senate Republicans have struggled to move the ball on President Donald Trump’s voter ID and citizenship verification bill, but a late-night vote in the upper chamber breathed some life into an issue once thought dead. 

During the Senate’s marathon “vote-a-rama” to advance the GOP’s $70 billion immigration enforcement package, Republicans tried twice to attach the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act to the massive bill. 

They failed both times, with a cohort of Republicans joining Senate Democrats to stymie the effort, which was destined to fail either way given that the amendments from Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Mike Lee, R-Utah, had to break through the filibuster. 

REPUBLICANS FAIL TO ATTACH SAVE AMERICA ACT TO PARTY-LINE FUNDING PACKAGE

Graham’s attempt was to attach the modified version of the SAVE America Act, which included several policy additions, like barring men in women’s sports, that Trump demanded months ago.

Four Republicans, Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Thom Tillis, R-N.C., voted against it. Their defections prevented the bill from even getting 50 votes, a prerequisite for success if Republicans were to launch a talking filibuster. 

But Lee’s attempt did hit 50 votes, with Collins flipping her vote to support the original version of the SAVE America Act. 

Lee cheered the moment on X shortly after as the vote-a-rama still raged and noted that, with Vice President JD Vance serving as a possible 51st vote, the SAVE America Act could pass.

WATCH: HAWLEY FUMES AFTER 4 GOP SENATORS HELP SINK TRUMP-BACKED VOTER ID LAW

“That means that but for the Zombie Filibuster, the House-passed SAVE America Act would now be on its way to the White House for President Trump’s signature,” Lee said. 

The moment was a big victory for the legislation, which thus far has wallowed in the Senate for months.

Conservatives like Lee have pushed Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., to launch a talking filibuster to grind down Senate Democrats and pass the legislation at a simple majority threshold.

SEN LEE DARES DEMOCRATS TO REVIVE TALKING FILIBUSTER OVER SAVE ACT, SLAMMING CRITICISM AS ‘PARANOID FANTASY’

But Thune hasn’t pulled the trigger out of concern that Republicans wouldn’t stay together to bat down a deluge of Democratic amendments that could substantially change the legislation or target other elements of Trump’s agenda. 

Senate Republicans did launch a quasi-floor takeover to debate the SAVE America Act in March, but the steam behind that push has since fallen off substantially. 

The other option for Republicans would be to nuke the filibuster, something Trump has demanded they do sporadically throughout his second term.

Again, it’s an issue that Republicans aren’t unified on, and one that several fear could haunt them if and when Democrats regain control of the upper chamber. 

Trump has also shifted his ire to the Senate rules referee, Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth Macdonough, who ruled that the SAVE America Act didn’t pass muster to be a part of the immigration package at a 50-vote threshold. He’s called on Thune to fire her a handful of times in recent months. 

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

“We have every right to change her, and should do so, IMMEDIATELY,” Trump said on Truth Social. “As long as she’s there, we will never get our desperately needed, SAVE AMERICA ACT, approved, and put into full force and effect!”

But, like the talking filibuster or outright nuking of the filibuster, it’s a move Thune isn’t in a hurry to make. 

“That’s not a new request, as you all know, and as is typically the case, the parliamentarian, the rulings break both ways,” Thune said. “And, you know, we lose a few, we win a few, but that’s been true when Democrats have been in the majority, too.”

New surveillance footage and other evidence from Southern California Edison confirms that a century-old, idle transmission line that the utility failed to remove ignited last year’s deadly Eaton wildfire, lawyers for insurers said in a court filing.

Video obtained from a surveillance camera at Gerrish Swim & Tennis Club in Pasadena shows two bright flashes occurring in the location of the tower holding the idle line at 6:11 p.m. on Jan. 7, 2025.

The flashes correspond to the time that Edison recorded two faults, three seconds apart, on another transmission line more than five miles away, the lawyers said in the filing, citing new data provided by the utility.

Soon after the faults, residents nearby recorded videos of a fire burning at the base of the tower, which is known as M16T1.

“Southern California Edison has spent the last sixteen months attempting to forestall the inevitable legal consequences of razing a large swath of the communities of Altadena and Pasadena to the ground,” the lawyers wrote in the filing.

“The Eaton Fire could not have occurred if SCE had simply disassembled and removed Structure M16T1,” the lawyers added.

The lawyers filing the May 18 motion represent property insurers that paid tens of millions of dollars to residents who lost their homes. Their motion asks the judge to order a judgment in the insurers’ favor that would make Edison liable for the damage under inverse condemnation, a legal doctrine in the state constitution.

Courts have ruled that the doctrine requires private utilities such as Edison to pay for property they destroy, even if they haven’t been found to have acted negligently.

Kathleen Dunleavy, a spokeswoman for Edison, said the company did not learn about the existence of the swim club video until the lawyers submitted it in court with their filing.

“It’s very disappointing and inappropriate that this video was not produced in discovery,” she said. “We hope that video has been turned over to the appropriate authorities.”

Dunleavy said the company believes the lawyers’ motion “is wrong on the facts and the law.”

“We’ll respond more fully in our own court filing,” she said.

Attorneys for the insurers did not respond to requests for comment.

In a February 2025 letter to state regulators, Edison said it had detected a single fault on a line more than five miles away from Altadena about 6:11 p.m. on the night the fire ignited. It said the fault caused a brief surge of electricity on its four live transmission lines in Eaton Canyon.

The company said in the letter that it was looking into whether the power surge could have caused electricity to jump to the idle line that runs parallel to the live wires through a process called induction.

Pedro Pizarro, chief executive of Edison International, later said that a leading theory of the fire’s ignition was that the idle line became energized briefly through induction, sparking the fire.

At the same time, the company has not accepted blame for the fire, saying repeatedly that its own confidential investigation into the cause, as well as a separate inquiry by Los Angeles County and state fire officials, is continuing.

According to the court filing, evidence obtained by the lawyers shows that the company stopped using the transmission line in 1971 and designated it as “out-of-service.”

“The declaration of Out of Service shall only be used when the line … or piece of equipment is expected to remain permanently out of service,” Edison stated in an internal document known as a system operating bulletin, according to the filing.

Edison executives told The Times last year that they left the line in place because they believed it might be needed in the future.

“We have these inactive lines still available because there is a reasonable chance we’re going to use them in the future,” Shinjini Menon, Edison’s senior vice president of system planning and engineering, said then.

Dunleavy said Friday that the idle lines are kept in place for a variety of reasons, including to preserve the right of way Edison had obtained to construct them and to support future needs for more electricity as the state aims to meet its clean energy goals.

Last year, The Times reported that state regulators, knowing old electric lines posed hazards, proposed a rule in 2001 that would have forced Edison and other utilities to remove idle lines unless they could prove they would use them in the future.

Under pressure from Edison and the other companies, the rule was weakened to allow utilities to keep the unused lines in place until executives decided they were “permanently abandoned.”

In their May 18 filing, the lawyers said Edison executives had known about the risk of induction for more than 100 years. They cited a 1923 contract between Edison and Pacific Electric Railway Co. that said that “leakage of electricity or induction from or between” conductors was an inherent risk of operating multiple electrical circuits in proximity.

“That’s why SCE grounds idle lines and inspects them,” Dunleavy said of the risk.

Copies of Edison’s fault records from that night, its operating bulletin and thousands of other documents, including depositions, are sealed from public view under a protective order that Edison and lawyers for the victims asked the judge to approve last year.

The L.A. County district attorney is investigating whether Edison should be criminally prosecuted for its actions in the fire, the company said in an investor filing this year.

The fire killed at least 19 people and left thousands of families homeless.

A hearing on the lawyers’ motion is scheduled for Aug. 11 in L.A. County Superior Court.

Edison has offered to compensate victims of the fire who give up their right to sue the utility.

The company said last week that it had so far received more than 3,500 claims from about 10,000 people. It said it had extended nearly 1,900 offers to those people, totaling more than $650 million.

Many victims have refused the offers, saying they don’t fully cover their losses from the devastating blaze.

Edison has told its investors it expects to actually pay little or nothing for the fire because of a 2019 state law. The company anticipates that it will be reimbursed for its payments to victims by a $21-billion fund created by the law known as
Assembly Bill 1054.

The law shields utilities from the damages of fires sparked by their equipment as long as they follow certain requirements, including submitting a plan to state regulators for reducing the risk that their equipment sparks fires. Regulators review the plan and track whether the utilities are making progress in reducing the fire risk.

Since 2019, Edison has spent billions of dollars on making its lines safer, including by undergrounding them and installing insulated wires. Those costs continue to raise customer electric bills.

In the last 10 years, Edison’s rates increased by 101%, according to an April report by the public advocates office at the California Public Utilities Commission.

Despite the spending, Edison’s electric lines sparked more fires in 2024 than in 2019. The company blamed the increase on erratic weather that created more dried vegetation.