(updated with LA Data below)
It’s one of the realities of modern elections: the growing reliance on mail-voting means more and more late ballots are uncounted.
After the 2012 General Election Kim Alexander of the California Voter Foundation tweeted a sobering image of hundreds of ballots that were unceremoniously boxed up – probably without those voters ever realizing that their ballot didn’t get there in time.
PDI has obtained data from 18 counties and tagged the voters from the 2012 General that had their ballot invalidated because it was was too late. Not all counties are able to process this data, so we had to extrapolate from these 18 counties, representing 15% of the electorate, to come up with some statewide projections.
As can be seen in the table below, the sample used allowed us to develop a “Late per Thousand” calculation showing how many ballots were too late by subgroup. Younger voters lead the field with 18 per thousand absentee ballots mailed being disqualified for being late. These are followed by New and Online registrants in the teens, and then non-partisans at seven per thousand.
From these per-thousand calculations we can determine a statewide average of 4.68 per thousand, suggesting that the statewide total is 31,666 ballots uncounted because they are too late. Using two different calculations driven by ethnic or age breakdowns gives a similar figure, just north of 31,000.
The rate for late ballots is highest for younger voters. While young people are just 12% of the absentee voters in these counties, they are 48% of those that were too late.
Looking at partisanship, the rate of late ballots for Democrats is about average, but Republicans are much less likely to have a late ballot, and Non-Partisans are significantly over-represented.
The ethnic breakdown can be seen by county and state totals in the following chart. These show that Asians have a slightly higher rate of late ballots, and Latinos are close to the state average. Data from more ethnically diverse counties could provide greater enlightenment on these factors.
Age by County reinforces the pie charts above, showing massive over-representation by younger voters in the pool of late ballots.
We will continue to watch this and post any updates if more data from counties or local elections becomes available.
UPDATE APRIL 17, 10:30 PM
PDI Staff has just completed an exhaustive process to collect LA City Election Data, tagging ever voter in the database that voted in the March primary. Though this process we are able to identify 1,542 voters that mailed their ballots too late – invalidating their votes.
This rate of late ballots per thousand is nearly twice that of the statewide average from the 2012 General. As can be seen in the table below, it also extends beyond the 18-29 group and well into the 40-50 year-olds and in double-digits for most groups
