Nearly 150,000 California Mail Ballots Rejected In Primary
California election officials are examining why nearly 150,000 mail-in ballots were rejected during the state’s June primary, with late-arriving ballots accounting for most of the increase.
The higher rejection rate comes despite years of election law changes designed to make voting more accessible and ensure more ballots are ultimately counted.
According to data compiled by the California Secretary of State’s office, 148,241 mail-in ballots were rejected during the June primary, representing 1.73% of all mail ballots returned.
That marks an increase from the 2024 primary, when 108,982 ballots were rejected, or 1.56% of all mail ballots cast.
The largest reason for rejection was ballots arriving too late to qualify under California law.
State data shows that 93,479 ballots were rejected because they failed to meet the state’s deadline requirements.
California allows mail ballots to arrive up to seven days after Election Day, provided they are postmarked on or before Election Day.
Voting experts believe many of the rejected ballots received postmarks dated after Election Day, making them ineligible to be counted even if they arrived within the seven-day grace period.
Kim Alexander, president of the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation, said the timing of postal processing appears to be a significant concern.
“Ballots rejected due to lateness are caused primarily to being postmarked too late to count, not because they arrived too late to count,” Alexander said.
Election experts have questioned whether recent operational changes within the U.S. Postal Service may be contributing to delayed postmarks.
Earlier this year, a group of mostly Democratic U.S. senators wrote to the Postal Service expressing concern that mail-processing changes could affect ballot handling during federal elections.
Updated Postal Service procedures mean postmarks may reflect when mail is processed at regional facilities rather than when it first enters the mail system.
Because processing centers have been consolidated in some areas, election officials have warned that postmark timing could be affected.
Before the June primary, California election officials encouraged voters to mail ballots as early as possible because of potential postal delays.
The June election also featured a highly competitive race for governor, which some experts believe encouraged many voters to wait until the final days before casting ballots.
In addition to late-arriving ballots, approximately 44,000 ballots were rejected because election officials determined the voter’s signature did not match the signature on file.
Another 8,300 ballots were rejected because the return envelope did not contain a signature.
State records also show that 743 ballots were rejected because those voters had already cast another ballot.
Other rejected ballots involved missing ballots inside return envelopes or multiple ballots submitted in a single envelope.
The highest rejection rate in the state occurred in Tulare County, where 3.52% of returned mail ballots were rejected.
Alpine County and Merced County followed closely, each recording rejection rates of 3.36%.
California has frequently faced criticism for taking weeks to complete vote counting after major elections, largely because state law permits ballots meeting certain requirements to continue arriving after Election Day.
Following the June primary, President Donald Trump again criticized California’s election system, while the Department of Justice opened an investigation into election administration in Los Angeles County.
Election experts emphasize that the increase in rejected ballots should not be interpreted as evidence of widespread voter fraud.
A 2025 report by the Brookings Institution found documented cases of mail ballot fraud remained extremely rare, estimating roughly four cases for every 10 million mail ballots cast, The Associated Press reported.
State officials have not identified evidence of widespread fraud connected to the June primary, but the increase in rejected ballots is expected to receive additional scrutiny as election administrators evaluate whether changes in postal operations, voter behavior or election procedures contributed to the higher rejection rate.
Trump Says He Would ‘Absolutely’ Ban Sharia Law
President Donald Trump made headlines this week with massive remarks about Sharia Law.
The president delivered an emphatic message Wednesday on the place of Sharia law in America, saying he would “absolutely” support prohibiting attempts to establish the Islamic legal system in the United States and insisting that the country must remain governed by a single constitutional framework.
Trump made the remarks during a live interview with conservative radio host Glenn Beck, who pressed the president about ideological threats he believes are gaining ground inside the United States.
The exchange came as Sharia law has emerged as a flashpoint in national politics, including in the closely watched Michigan Senate race, where Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed has faced Republican criticism over previous remarks concerning Islamic law.
Beck raised what he described as a “Red-Green Alliance,” referring to an alleged convergence between far-left political movements and Islamist ideology.
He specifically cited the Democratic Socialists of America and Islam before asking Trump whether he would support federal action against Sharia law.
Trump left little doubt about where he stands.
“On Sharia law, I would absolutely say that’s not this country. There’s no Sharia law. And you do have pockets of it, as you know,” Trump replied.
The president then pointed overseas, arguing that developments in major European cities should serve as a warning for Americans.
“I would say no, and you go to London, you go to Paris. It’s almost like a second way of life. It is ridiculous,” Trump said.
“And I would absolutely be on your side on that, on a lot of other people’s side too, because, you know, you and I have people that, I think, we’re more based upon common sense than we are on ideology,” Trump added.
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Trump went on to make his position even clearer, telling Beck that he would support stopping any effort to establish Sharia as a competing legal authority inside the United States.
“Good politics is all about common sense anyway but i would absolutely prohibit the Sharia law thing and it is happening in this country a little bit and when we see it we take it out and you have to take it out,” he continued.
“You have one system, we have a great system, sometimes it’s very frustrating but it’s the best there is, that I can say,” the president concluded.
Trump’s remarks arrive amid a growing conservative debate over Islamic law and whether additional legislation is needed to ensure foreign or religious legal systems cannot supersede American constitutional protections.
Under the Constitution, federal law and constitutional protections already take precedence over religious codes.
Muslims, like Americans of other faiths, remain free to observe religious practices privately so long as those practices comply with U.S. law.
Any federal proposal specifically targeting religious practice would also face significant First Amendment questions.
But conservatives pushing anti-Sharia measures have argued their objective is not restricting private religious belief.
Instead, they say they want explicit safeguards to ensure that no religious or foreign legal code imposes itself when it conflicts with constitutional rights.
The issue has gained additional political attention because of El-Sayed’s campaign in Michigan.
Vice President JD Vance recently hammered the Democratic Senate nominee over remarks El-Sayed delivered during a 2022 Council on American-Islamic Relations banquet in Oklahoma.
“The same exact forces that drove native peoples from their land two centuries ago, destroyed Black Wall Street a century ago, bombed a building decades ago and tried to ban Sharia law not a decade ago, those forces are alive and well today,” El-Sayed said at the time.
“The reason I wanted to go all the way back to the 1830s is because you can’t understand a Sharia ban without understanding the Trail of Tears,” El-Sayed continued.
“You can’t understand the efforts to uproot Muslim Americans without understanding the Tulsa massacre. You cannot understand the challenges we face today without understanding White supremacy,” El-Sayed added.
