Kirstie Alley tweets:
Please tell me how they could call the house and senate winners early but not the president .. same ballets.. this is the one thing I can’t wrap my head around.. anyone? Anyone?
I'll take a stab at it.
Here in CA, the ballot (paper) is generally a multi-page affair. This election there were six "cards." The first "card" had presidential choices and US and state representatives on the first page and state assembly and judicial on the back, then the following cards had nonpartisan district offices, state propositions, city measures, then city nonpartisan offices.
I don't know how the votes are tabulated, but let's say someone decided to peel off page 1 of every stack of ballots, the presidential choices, and set them aside for "special processing." All the other pages get counted the normal way.