Overview
- California’s secretary of state reported that 148,241 mail ballots were rejected in the June primary, equal to 1.73% of all mail ballots cast.
- Lateness was the largest cause, with 93,479 ballots tossed mainly because envelopes carried postmarks dated after Election Day under the state’s postmark rule.
- Signature issues accounted for nearly 44,000 rejections and over 8,300 ballots were rejected for missing signatures on return envelopes.
- Rejection rates varied widely by county, with Tulare at 3.52% and Alpine and Merced at 3.36%, and the spike has led lawmakers and voting experts to press the USPS for clarity on processing and postmarking.
- Federal scrutiny has followed the release of the data: the Department of Justice opened an investigation into Los Angeles County procedures, while analysts note documented mail-vote fraud remains vanishingly rare and that these problems point to operational and procedural gaps rather than widespread fraud.