A thing I have learned about voting in US elections in California is that you should do vote by mail, but be sure to return the ballot before 1st November
If you instead of drop off your pre-filled ballot on 5th of November it doesn't get counted for several more days (still waiting here)
This is particularly frustrating when one of your hyper-local elections only attracts a few thousand votes total and two of the candidates are within 100 votes of each other!