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“We just need to have eyes on things after everything that’s been going on,” Hicks said as he rushed to his SUV to tail officials down dark farmland back roads to more drop boxes where ballots were waiting to be collected, all part of his duties as a self-appointed election observer.

Hicks, a real estate agent from Lodi, believes California’s universal vote-by-mail process is fraught with fraud risks, echoing unfounded messaging from the far right that election officials nationwide have worked to combat since Donald Trump and his allies began blaming his 2020 presidential loss on claims of fraud that have been shot down by numerous courts. 

That paranoia is difficult to dismiss in this part of California’s Central Valley, though, after a local politician was arrested on allegations of a slew of crimes involving election fraud.

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CLAIM: California is still counting votes more than a week after the March 5 primary, a sign the election was rigged.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. It is not unusual for California’s vote count to extend long past Election Day and there has been no indication of widespread fraud in this year’s primaries, experts told The Associated Press. Factors that contribute to this lengthy process include the large number of people who vote by mail, provisional ballots and signature verification.

THE FACTS: More than a week since Super Tuesday, social media users are erroneously claiming that California’s ongoing vote count is a sign of nefarious activities related to its March 5 primaries.

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When voters in California head to the polls on Tuesday they will find two U.S. Senate races on their primary ballots.

The races are for the same Senate seat held for three decades by Dianne Feinstein (D), who died in September. After her death, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) appointed Laphonza Butler to fill the seat until a special election could be held.

A few days after Butler was appointed to the seat, she announced she would not run for a full Senate term. That helped set off races for a rare open Senate seat in the heavily Democratic-leaning state. Dozens of people jumped at the chance to run.

Under a California law enacted in 2022, if a senator vacates their seat more than 148 days before the next regularly scheduled statewide primary, the state is required to hold a special election on the same day as the regularly scheduled primary election.

Excerpt:

Forget election night. Election season has been upon us for weeks, and it won’t be over anytime soon.

California’s prodigious adoption of vote-by-mail balloting has done more than fundamentally alter how we engage in the democratic process. The shift has also necessitated a cultural reconfiguration about election night results, and recast the timeline for learning outcomes in many races.

Definitive answers will likely only be clear in the most lopsided of contests by late Tuesday night. And conclusive results could take days or weeks to emerge in some of the tightest races.

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Think of it this way: When a Californian shows up at a vote center and casts a ballot in person, as was once commonplace, all the verification is done up front at the vote center. When that ballot arrives for tabulation, no extra steps are needed.