IT’S TIME for California Secretary of State Debra Bowen and county election officials to stop perpetuating the election night myth of complete election returns.

The morning after every election, we open the newspaper, go to the Internet or turn on the television and look for results. We view the numbers and then look for the magic phrase, “100 percent of precincts reporting.” We walk away confident that we know the final numbers.

Or, sophisticated political observers might recognize that some absentee ballots remain to be counted. But, even for them, the assumption has been that the count is nearly complete.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

It turns out this year that about 24 percent of all the ballots had not been counted by the day after the election. In razor-close elections such as the race for attorney general and the balloting for the East Bay’s 11th Congressional District, that’s huge. And the outcomes of countless local races up and down the state remain unknown.