The U.S. Inability to Count Votes Is a National Disgrace. and Dangerous(greenwald.substack.com) |
The U.S. Inability to Count Votes Is a National Disgrace. and Dangerous(greenwald.substack.com) |
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,
(I really don't know how that system works.)
Let me repeat that: you can have quick and accurate elections, and your current process gives others the impression that it has margin for under-the-table negotiation.
Yes, it does.
It does for federal legislative elections because while the Constitution gives power to run those elections to the State in the first instance, it also gives Congress the power to jump in and regulate anything it wants about "the times, places and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives, [...] except as to the places of choosing Senators".
And, while it doesn't have truly mandatory federal direction for Presidential elections (for which voting by the people isn't even Constitutionally required), it does in practice for them the same way much of what is done in Presidential elections is already fixed: safe harbor laws defining what states must do to protect their electoral votes from being subject to challenge when counted by Congress.
The US chooses not to exercise the tools it has to mandate how local government handles the voting, and where it does exercise those tools doesn't do it well, and that's the problem, not the absence of the tools.
There's nothing magic about holding election, that prevents Florida from doing it trustworthily and would permit the USA do achieve the same feat. A great many states do it, some federal. It requires coordination and reliability, in much the same way as delivering the mail, supplying everyone with fresh milk, handling vaccines, etc.
Those "rights" (there's a problem with applying that term to states and not people, but its a side issue here) do not include the "right" to run federal elections without oversight by Congress, which has both direct and explicit regulatory power for federal legislative elections under the Constitution, and the Constitutional role of assessing whether electoral votes are properly given when counting them, and has, in fact, has acted based on the latter power to direct states as to what they must do in federal Presidential elections to shield their votes from potential challenge.
Some German states even partly devolve elections further. There was a minor scandal regarding that last year, when one city chose to deploy some software that broke (and as a result, some votes weren't tallied until many hours later than expected, perhaps >24h). That's the kind of scandal federally devolved elections can have, the kind the Americans should aspire to having.
Every registered voter gets a letter some time before the election and if you want to vote by mail you have to send the letter back for free and they'll send everything over. The ballots have to be received by the end of the day of election. There's a lot of time so you won't miss that date. The letter you get to remind you of voting also contains information about where you have to be to vote in person.
There's very little last minute changes in Germany. The election is not decided in the last couple of weeks before the election, people have made up their minds at that point.
I think the crucial part is that there's absolutely no effort involved. You basically show up at the polling place on the Sunday of the election and you're good to go. If you're too lazy for that you can to everything by mail. If you decide to vote by mail and then forget to send it via the post you can just drop it off at the polling station as well.
The argument here is: why should someone who voted on election day, or even a day or two before have their vote thrown out because their ballot doesnt arrive to be counted until the day after the election?
I think the argument that there is plenty of time is reasonable, but many elections in the US can be very, very close, so it does matter. Throwing out valid ballots that were mailed on or before election day effectively disenfranchises people (keep in mind some people cant go to polls to vote or drop off ballots, and in some places it is illegal to have anyone besides the registered voter drop off the ballot, so it must be mailed).
If you do not mail your ballot on time, there is another simple solution, you go to the (lineless) polls on election day.
When they check everyone in they confirm that they have not already received a mail-in-ballot from that individual before allowing you to the booth.
With enough time allocated for mail-in-ballots, I feel that it doesn't matter that the deadline is earlier. Deadlines are fairly arbitrary either way and at some point you need to select a winner.
If you have plenty of opportunity to vote and you do not vote by the deadline, your vote is not counted regardless of the method you have chosen.
In the UK at least, it needs to be with your local authority by 10PM on polling day. If you fail to send it in time, you can just bring it down manually instead.
(aside: I am generally opposed to postal voting. Postal vote seems even more prone to abuse than remote electronic voting.)
I know right now it's all you have, and it sucks. It has somehow worked because the candidates have been polite, but it was only a matter of time before you got a shameless candidate trying to exploit every possible loophole to stay in power. Telling people your electoral system is flawed and it must be dragged screaming into the 21st century is not miseducation. Your electoral college doesn't reflect the will of your citizens.