There are almost 5 million uncounted US election votes in California

Around 5 million votes are yet to be counted in California counties, in a presidential election that saw a surprise victory for Republican Donald Trump.

California, which carries 55 Electoral College votes, was won by Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 8 November election, along with fellow west coast states Oregon and Washington.

But 4.4 million votes are yet to be counted in California, the Secretary of State's office told Fox 40, with this figure including 1 million provisional ballots and 3.1 million postal votes that were postmarked by election day.

However, these figures exclude San Diego country, where there are an additional 595,000 votes yet to be counted, the LA Times reported.

And if all of the estimated ballots are valid, voter turnout in the state will be around 74%, which exceeds the number of votes cast in California in the 2012 election, but does not quite match the state's turnout in the 2008 election, in which Barack Obama was first elected president.

California has been won by a Democrat candidate in every election since 1992, and tends to be such a safe blue state that neither GOP nor Democrat candidates spend much time campaigning there.

Following the outcome of the election, there have been protests across the county, with some in the state calling for "Calexit", given California's size and difference in opinion between the state and the remainder of the country.

The fact that there are more than 4 million votes yet to be counted will not have an impact on the overall election results, given that Clinton has already won California's 55 EC votes, although the uncounted votes could increase her overall majority in the state.