Other developed countries have, for decades, reliably given results within hours of polls closing, without "automation or obscure technology". Time to results is a factor in the credibility of the results, just as auditability and transparency.
International election observers regularly raise concerns about protracted and drawn out election counts in less developed parts of the world. I wonder how they would report on US elections.
How do these other countries handle mail-in ballots? In most (maybe all) US states, a ballot postmarked on election day is valid as long as it is received by some specific point (usually Friday) after election day. Thus, in the US there are an undetermined number of valid votes that have not even been received by election officials yet.
I suspect they have a way to mandate how local governments handle the voting. The US does not. That's the barrier.
This narrative is pushed by tradition, news media, and the politicians themselves (if it's in their interest). I think we need to separate this narrative in two separate days; one day is Voting Day, the day on which everyone who wants to participate in voting must have their ballot mailed or submitted, and Election Day, which should be a month later, after all votes are counted, where the official results are published, and we accept a new president.
This is good for the American people, in that it's reliable and clearly defined, good for the media, because now they can have a month long headline where they hem and haw and speculate about who will win, and good for the politicians, in that there's time for a smooth transition.
Certainly not perfect but I think we can all be glad there aren't any "hanging chad" punchcards or un-auditable lever machines to worry about this election.
Apparently other locations had some problems with paper jams from the ballots, but at least my operation had 3 machines and could have easily handled our voters with just 2 active without resorting to hand-filled ballots.
The only real difficulty is the absentee ballots which were obviously a new effort (at this scale) lacking infrastructure. And they were prevented from processing any ahead of time. I think calling this "dangerous" or a "disgrace" is, in fact, blatantly disgraceful and dangerous.
I'd call it a disgrace that the self-proclaimed bastion of democracy could legally delay results for most of this month. It can be poor organization or regulation, but even if it's done for a good reason, it erodes the credibility of your elections.
That's kind of Greenwald's schtick, particularly recently.
It seems that there's something wrong with the polls themselves, how the models interpret the polls, or both.
There's lots of talk about "stealing the election" coming from both sides. Lopsided predictions from polls and models can increase the perception that the election was "stolen" if the vote defies the predictions.
Canada is no less of a federal country with devolved decision-making powers, perhaps even more so. And yet we have one system of casting and tallying votes, presided over by one federal electoral commission, which reports to the parliament and not to the government. It was set up in 1920 and worked out very well for us, delivering 100 years of bullshit-free elections.
Sometimes countries adopt different laws and you cannot unequivocally say one is better than the other. But sometimes, like here, one way is clearly, unequivocally superior. This is too important to leave to amateur hour and should be done right, Canada's way.
What's really dangerous is that the same people who said that mail-in votes couldn't be counted early in states like PA are now saying they shouldn't be counted after election day. It's disenfranchisement, plain and simple.
Him joining the circus of self-interested assholes sowing unnecessary doubt in our democracy is just one more nail.
How do you know that?
You can determine to some extent whether postal votes have been tampered with after they have been cast. Or whether more results were returned than were issued.
But you can never realistically know what happened at the time of casting. Coercion is invisible with postal voting.
And it's bizarre to indict our vote counting system based on the fact that it's hard for the media to guess the winner from incomplete data. Nobody wins any electoral college votes until the Secretary of State certifies the results. It takes a while because they make sure all the votes are counted first. This is a feature not a bug.
There are some real issues in election administration in the US, but this ain't it. If it were up to me, I'd ban the release of uncertified election results, at least for a few days. The problem he identifies is one of expectations.
If you allow mail in votes that are accepted as long as they are postmarked by election day, you can't certify the counts on election day unless a majority of registered voters' ballots have arrived by election day. It's as simple as that.
The contention is mostly in a small number of states where the Republican party has engineered electoral corruption in order to retain control, combined with the winner-take-all nature of electoral votes in most states. Most states conduct elections with few problems and little drama.
If the president were elected by popular vote at the national level there would be far less contention because the margin in any given local election would be much less meaningful.
Also, this article is a prime spot for us to have a discussion about potential improvements and tech solutions or oversight regarding the election and voting. Overall, I'd say a good topic to discuss here.
I'm not going after this individual, but this kind of journalism needs to be considered. ( Flagged or not? You tell me? )
Before moving to the US, I voted a few times in a different country where the rules were simple: one election day and absolutely no polls/estimations/etc communicated in the media during the last 48 hours before the election day.
Letting people vote is the foundation of democracy.
> votes can be counted and communicated
Where does this happen?
> absolutely no polls/estimations/etc communicated in the media during the last 48 hours before the election day.
For what benefit?
People are acting like this is the end of the world or some horrible crisis that we don't know the outcome instantly. Patience goes a long way.
His point stripped of the vitriol is the trust in the system is eroded when there is substantial delays in declaring the result.
It is important in a fragile democracy to declare the results without delay, it is also why countries like Brazil do it fast.
Sadly America is a fragile democracy today, the sitting President inability to commit to peaceful transfer of power , prematurely claiming victory, trying to stop counting , or constant attacks on the integrity of the election and fraudulent votes , if it is any other country you would agree without question.
It is by design that each state has heterogeneous voting system , However while nation thinks it votes for the president it is just voting a guidance to their legislature on who the electors should be,there is no constitutional protection otherwise. Just this election 15$/hour minimum wage and other policy items have been passed by same people who have voted for trump , clearly policy is not deciding factor to elect the president.
It is important to align the system to what people think they are voting for,
