As of midnight in Los Angeles, Karen Bass held a lead of just 4,000 votes over challenger Nithya Raman, with 600,000 votes counted and 580,000 remaining. That razor-thin margin, separated by fewer votes than some film productions lose in craft services budgets, has set the stage for an agonizing wait. The report comparing this race to a mid-season show that won't be canceled is cute, but there's nothing entertaining about leaving Los Angeles's mayoral race unresolved for potentially three weeks or more.
Here's what's genuinely troubling: the counting infrastructure. The report notes that any mail-in ballot postmarked today would still count in the next week, which means a full three weeks of uncertainty before Los Angeles knows who its mayor will be. This isn't acceptable for a city of this size and importance. While it's technically accurate that mail-in ballots deserve to be counted—and they absolutely do—there's a systemic problem worth examining when a major American city cannot deliver results in a reasonable timeframe.
What makes this even more frustrating is that this situation isn't unprecedented. Nithya Raman was here just last June when she initially trailed Spencer Pratt in the primary for the second spot behind Bass, then clawed her way back to take it a week later. Bass faced her own nail-biter four years ago against Rick Caruso, eventually winning by nearly ten points after three weeks. The pattern suggests this is becoming routine, not exceptional. For a city and its media industries that thrive on efficiency and deadlines, our electoral process moves at glacial speed.
Both Bass and Raman, both Democrats with Raman positioned to Bass's left, have pledged significant support for the film industry—which, as the report dryly notes, is exactly what any mayoral candidate in Los Angeles would say. But beyond their industry promises, Angelenos need to know who will actually be running their city. Three weeks is an eternity in modern politics, and voters deserve clarity well before then.
The comparison to Mississippi's Senate race, where Scott Colom leads by just 28 votes out of nearly a million cast, underscores that close races happen everywhere. But that doesn't mean we should accept them as inevitable or tolerate the sluggish counting processes that make them stretch into procedural nightmares. Los Angeles needs to modernize its ballot counting infrastructure. Until it does, expect plenty of post-credit scenes—and a very impatient city watching the clock.