Leading California gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton is calling on Governor Gavin Newsom to form emergency rapid-response teams aimed at helping counties with significant ballot-counting delays.
In the wake of the June 2 primary, with hundreds of thousands of ballots still unprocessed, Hilton is proposing the creation of an “Emergency Election Count Accelerator Corps.” This state-led initiative would provide election offices with additional personnel and resources to expedite the counting process.
Hilton’s objective is to ensure that complete and verified election results are available by 8 p.m. on June 11, just 48 hours after the mail-in ballot deadline.
“California’s election reporting has become a national joke. We boast the world’s fourth-largest economy, the home of Silicon Valley and cutting-edge technology, yet it takes government bureaucrats a month to count fewer than 10 million ballots,” Hilton remarked.
He continued, “This situation is absurd. Each election cycle brings the same justifications, the same delays, and further erosion of public trust. Californians deserve a more efficient process.”
Hilton’s proposal comes amid growing frustration over the state’s protracted vote-counting system. Despite fewer than 10 million ballots being cast in the primary, California consistently takes weeks to finalize election outcomes.
Hilton has pointed to India’s ability to count hundreds of millions of votes in a single day as evidence that California’s prolonged counting process is unacceptable for a state that prides itself on technological innovation and economic power.
The issue has drawn particular attention in Los Angeles County, where The California Post recently toured a sprawling 144,000-square-foot ballot-processing center and observed numerous empty workstations despite a backlog of more than 700,000 ballots.
Large sections of desks sat unused, chairs remained vacant and areas designated for manual ballot review appeared idle. The county’s election operation receives nearly $336 million annually and has more than 1,100 budgeted positions.
Under Hilton’s plan, available state employees from non-essential administrative positions would be temporarily assigned to county election offices experiencing significant delays. Regional election “surge teams” would also be created to rapidly deploy to counties facing the largest backlogs.
An Election Count Accelerator Fund would reimburse counties for overtime, expanded shifts and weekend operations aimed at speeding up ballot processing. Hilton’s proposal stresses that no election laws, security procedures or vote-counting standards would change.
The emergency plan is intended as a short-term solution, but Hilton argues broader reforms are needed to restore confidence in California elections.
