ATTENTION, CALIFORNIA. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. THIS IS A LUNCH BREAK.

Repeat: the people counting your votes are allowed to go home. Under state rules reported by CalMatters, counties only have to count ballots six hours a day, and not on weekends or holidays. Six hours. That's not a shift. That's a dentist appointment with a nap after.

As of Wednesday night, the Associated Press estimated about 61% of California's vote had been counted. Sixty-one percent. A full day after the polls closed. Somewhere in Fresno, a frozen pizza has gone from box to belly faster than a ballot has gone from envelope to total.

The Secretary of State has reported 7,923,401 ballots so far. That is a lot of envelopes. That is also, if we're being honest, a lot of envelopes sitting next to a sign that says BACK MONDAY.

DO NOT ADJUST YOUR TELEVISION. ADJUST YOUR CALENDAR.

Ballots postmarked by Election Day can keep arriving through Nov. 10. Voters whose signatures don't match get until the day before Thanksgiving to fix them. Counties then get 30 days to certify. California isn't counting an election. It's slow-roasting one, and the turkey will be done first.

We are now receiving word, and by word we mean a calendar, that this Saturday is a Saturday. Counties are not required to count on it. Neither is Sunday. Then Veterans Day lands on Wednesday, Nov. 11, also a holiday. Millions of ballots will sit in the dark, unopened, listening to the air conditioning hum, waiting for someone named Gary to finish his long weekend.

STAY CALM. Actually, no. Do not stay calm.

Lawmakers already handed counties $29 million for machines and workers. Twenty-nine million dollars, and the count still keeps banker's hours. The machines get weekends. The machines get holidays. The machines are one bad Tuesday away from asking about dental.

Here is what makes the sirens go louder. The same state that can't finish counting in a week will be the first to tell you exactly how the rest of the country should run its elections. It's the guy who never finishes his own homework offering to grade yours, then leaving at noon on Friday.

And you, the Californian, don't get the six-hour plan. You don't get to pump gas six hours a day and leave the rest for Monday. Your rent doesn't skip weekends. Your utility bill has never once observed Veterans Day. Only your vote gets the gentle, unhurried, spa-day treatment, wrapped in a warm towel and left in a tray marked LATER.

We are told this is all perfectly normal. And it is. That's the emergency. Nobody in Sacramento thinks a count measured in weeks is strange. It's tradition, like earthquakes and parking tickets.

So brace yourselves. Hug your loved ones. Stock up on canned goods. The results are coming, eventually, at a rate of six hours a day, conditions permitting, weather and lunch allowing.

THIS HAS BEEN AN EMERGENCY BROADCAST. We will return with updates in six hours. Not on the weekend.

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The Demorat is a satire publication. This article is parody and commentary based on real news reports; jokes, exaggerations and fictional elements are not factual claims. Quotes attributed to real people are drawn from published reporting.

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