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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis fired off a string of posts on X this week ripping California’s slow post‑election counting in the middle of the Los Angeles mayoral primary. He called the process “pathetic — and it’s corrosive to our civic culture,” warned about “post‑election vote dumps,” and even asked, “Count until you get the result you want?” The jabs landed while large batches of ballots were still being processed and prediction markets noted only about 54 percent of LA ballots had been reported.
DeSantis calls out California vote counting — bluntly
DeSantis didn’t soften his words. He repeated that “Florida processes more than 10 million votes in a matter of hours,” then contrasted that with counties in California that take days or weeks to finish counting. He reacted to a Polymarket post about slow LA counts with a single, telling word: “Absurd!” For conservatives watching from Florida, it reads less like a partisan rant and more like a demand for accountability and speed in how ballots are handled.
Why California takes so long to tally votes
There are real, technical reasons ballots in California can trickle in: heavy use of mail‑in ballots, signature verification and cure processes, provisional ballots and county‑by‑county administration that varies across the state. Those safeguards aim to prevent mistakes, but they also create late batches that can shift early returns. Voters deserve accuracy, but they also deserve timely results that don’t leave the public wondering overnight how the process could be improved.
Politics, trust and the “post‑election dump” worry
DeSantis and other critics frame the delays as more than bureaucracy — they see a political effect, where late batches tend to favor left‑of‑center candidates and fuel accusations of unfairness. Data wonks like Nate Silver have slammed the weeks‑long waits as unacceptable and called the pattern “learned helplessness.” If citizens lose faith in results because counting is slow and opaque, that’s bad for election integrity regardless of which party benefits.
Fix the process or live with the doubt
The simplest answer is transparency and speed without sacrificing accuracy. California should explain what remains to be counted, invest in modern, consistent processing practices across counties, and give voters confidence the result is both right and timely. Meanwhile, DeSantis’s rant does more than rile the left — it spotlights a problem that should concern every American who wants clean, quick, and credible elections. If nothing changes, expect more headlines about “vote dumps” and less trust in the system — and that’s not funny for anyone except late‑night comedians.
