Days after California’s June 2 primary, the primary race for governor remains unresolved. The Los Angeles mayoral contest was unresolved for days after the primary. Several congressional races are unresolved. And by California law, they may stay that way for weeks.

We’ve seen this before. We saw it coming. And frankly, so did everyone else.

In February, the New York Times editorial board – – published a piece headlined “California Slow Vote Counting Is a Gift to Republicans.” The board made the case plainly: California’s drawn-out counting process damages public trust in government, provides oxygen to misinformation, and produces no meaningful benefit in voter access that couldn’t be preserved through smarter design. Our colleague Jan Brewer, former governor and secretary of state of Arizona, responded in those same pages reinforcing the point. Through our work together at Right Count, a nonpartisan election confidence initiative, she wrote that voters across the political spectrum want the same thing: “elections that are accurate, transparent and resolved promptly. Prolonged uncertainty fuels distrust and gives oxygen to misinformation and conspiracy theories.”

She was right then. California’s primary just proved it again. (RELATED: Gavin Newsom’s Newest Election Law Could Open The Door To Major Voter Fraud)

Let’s be direct about something: the fact that California counts slowly does not mean votes are being stolen. It does not mean there is rampant election fraud. Anyone making those claims should be held to the evidence, and the evidence isn’t there.

But, and this matters enormously, a process that is genuinely dysfunctional invites exactly that kind of charge. And California’s leaders had every opportunity to fix it before this moment arrived.

We come from battleground states – Pennsylvania and Arizona – that have systems that offer mail-voting access while maintaining basic, common-sense rules. In Arizona, mail ballots must be received by 7 p.m. on Election Day to be counted. Ballot-by-mail has been available in Arizona for over two decades, and in the 2020 general election, approximately 89% of ballots cast were early ballots, so no one can argue that a hard receipt deadline suppresses participation. Pennsylvania offers no-excuse mail-in voting to every registered voter, with ballots due by 8 p.m. on Election Day. In counties with a notice-and-cure policy, voters are notified of fixable errors and given the opportunity to correct them, and in the 2024 general election, just 0.57% of mail ballots in Pennsylvania faced rejections because of common voting errors. Both states produce timely results. Neither state hands a recurring gift to those who want to sow distrust.

California, by contrast, allows mail ballots to be counted if they arrive up to seven days after Election Day, a policy that guarantees a flood of unprocessed ballots after election night and weeks of uncertainty. The delay it produces affects everyone. (RELATED: California Faces Election Fraud Investigations Amid Major Vote Count Delays)

Governor Newsom signed legislation last year requiring counties to count most ballots within 13 days rather than 30. But he also sent a letter to county election officials weeks before this primary essentially pleading with them to count faster — while acknowledging the state hadn’t given them the funding to do so. He told reporters: “Get your act together.” That’s not a reform. That’s a press release.

The Constitution reserves election administration to the states. We don’t believe in federal mandates telling California how to run its elections, and we’re not here to write Sacramento’s legislation. But we do believe that one-party governance comes with accountability, and the voters of California deserve leaders that are willing to look honestly at what isn’t working rather than defending the status quo as an expression of virtue.

The integrity of elections isn’t a partisan issue. At RightCount, we are working to make the case that accuracy, transparency, and timely results are goods every American should demand of their election system, red state, blue state, or anything in between. The proof is already out there: battleground states, under genuine political pressure from both sides, are working to figure it out. California’s leaders should start demanding the same of themselves.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller.