California deserves all the scorn it gets for holding up House election results

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.Morning Report and Evening Update: Your source for today's top stories Please provide a valid email address.

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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...