Elon Musk criticizes the USA's sluggish process, saying, "California is still..." and commends India for tallying 640 million votes in a single day.

Elon Musk criticized California's delayed results, which were still being counted weeks after the election, while applauding India's rapid vote counting in a single day.

Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, commended India's voting system on Saturday for its exceptional capacity to produce outcomes in a single day. Musk's remarks followed an X post that featured a news story titled "How India Counted 640 Million Votes in a Day." Musk expressed his opinions on social media in response to the image, which also included the phrase, "Meanwhile in India, where cheating isn't the primary goal of their elections."

India's quick vote-counting
Citing the post, Musk's answer was direct but incisive: "India counted 640 million votes in 1 day." Votes are still being counted in California. His statement, which highlighted the disparity in vote-counting speeds between India and the US state, was a direct shot at the postponed election results in California.

The post generated more discussion, and Musk replied to a different comment that pointed out that California was still counting votes eighteen days later.

Why is the election in California taking so long?
With about 39 million citizens, California is the most populated state in the US and is well-known for its protracted voting process. Over 300,000 ballots have not yet been counted in the state, which had almost 16 million voters in the election held on November 5. More than 570,000 ballots are still uncounted statewide, according to reports from the Los Angeles Times.

California's strong reliance on mail-in voting is the main cause of these delays. Each mail-in ballot needs to be validated and processed separately, which causes major delays in comparison to in-person voting, which is faster to count.

This problem has plagued California for a number of years, and slower counting times are a result of both the state's size and the volume of mail-in votes. In spite of this, states continue to have a significant influence on election outcomes in the US, which has increased dissatisfaction with the delays in determining results.