Election day is more than two weeks away, but more than 1 million Californians have already returned their mail-in ballots, according to the state, an amount that marks the most ballots collected by mail at this point in any state election.

Nearly half of the mail-in ballots come from Los Angeles County, where more than 435,000 voters have already responded, according to the L.A. County registrar-recorder’s office.

The flood of ballots announced by Secretary of State Alex Padilla still represents only a fraction of the 21 million sent to California voters under a new state mandate prompted by pandemic safety efforts, and it’s unclear whether the state’s turnout will ultimately eclipse past elections.

The huge numbers of mail-in ballots could make counting the votes more complicated and mean longer waits to determine the outcome of close races. This was the case in 2018, when it took weeks to call some key congressional races that ended up tipping the U.S. House back into Democratic control.

Read the full story on LATimes.com.