Republican Steve Hilton blames Democrats for California's slow ballot-counting process

Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton, who has repeatedly criticized California's slow ballot count, said Friday that he thinks Gov. Gavin Newsom should mobilize state resources to deliver verified election results by June 11.

By Thursday evening, 5.6 million ballots had been processed in the state, with an estimated 3.6 million ballots remaining, according to information provided by the secretary of state.

Hilton and Democratic candidate Xavier Becerra are leading the race for governor, but the election remains too close to declare them winners. Under California's primary system, only the first and second place finishers in the primary advance to the November general election, regardless of their party affiliation. Billionaire progressive Tom Steyer trails in third place

"This shambles is absolutely shameful for our state," Hilton said at a press conference Friday morning. "India counts over 640 million votes in a day. California cannot count less than 10 million votes in a month."

In his remarks, Hilton blamed Democrats for turning California into a "national and international laughingstock."

The governor's office dismissed Hilton's comments, saying he lacks an understanding of how California elections are conducted.

"It's concerning that a candidate for Governor doesn't know the Governor has nothing to do with counting ballots," Brandon Richards, Newsom's deputy director for rapid response, said in a statement.

Under state law, local elections officials are responsible for administering elections and counting ballots. Elections are overseen by the secretary of state, California's top elections official.

"Governor Newsom wishes the vote count moved faster, too," Richards said.

California's vote count is slow because voters have many avenues to cast ballots, the Los Angeles Times has reported. California allows voters to cast ballots by mail up until election day - and then has to count those ballots, which can number in the millions and are subject to manual signature verification. Under state law, election officials must give voters a chance to fix signature issues, further slowing down the process.

On Wednesday, Hilton told a crowd of supporters at the California Republican Party headquarters that he was waiting for races to be called, but expects to move on to the November general election.

"(Just) looking at the numbers, we're very confident that at this point it's not going to be possible, certainly in my race, for two Democrats to overtake our vote," Hilton said Wednesday.

President Donald Trump claimed without evidence that Democrats are "cheating" to win California's primary elections on posts on his social media platform Truth Social late Wednesday.

"Why the vote counting DELAY???," Trump wrote.

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli, a Trump loyalist, said Friday morning his office "has multiple fraud investigations underway" in coordination with the FBI in Los Angeles.

Copyright 2026 Tribune Content Agency. All Rights Reserved.

This story was originally published June 5, 2026 at 6:31 PM.