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>But it takes so long to aggregate the votes if done with paper ballots. This one was alway wierd to me. Other countries always manage to count the votes in on

>But it takes so long to aggregate the votes if done with paper ballots. This one was alway wierd to me. Other countries always manage to count the votes in one night, and while the USA is very big, you'd think there would be that many more people counting the ballots available to make up for it. I guess it doesn't scale that easily.

masklinn 9y ago
Maybe the (low) number of voting locations is a problem? Around here, it's recommended to have a polling location for every 800~1000 voter and a booth per ~300 voters. When the polling location closes, staff (volunteers) start counting very publicly: anyone can watch and the procedure is legally specified such that overseers can trivially keep track and count of everything, the results are certified, displayed at the polling location and (if necessary e.g. for non-local elections) sent up to the next administrative division. Unless there are improprieties, it doesn't take very long to count a thousand votes.
- croon 9y ago
  Bingo. Too few voting places, and voting days are not holidays (or on sundays) like in other countries. There are very obvious steps that could be taken to solve both counting time and voter turnout as well as suppression.
  - cr0sh 9y ago
    > There are very obvious steps that could be taken to solve both counting time and voter turnout as well as suppression. But when the party in power counts on that low turnout due to suppression in order to remain in power, do you really think they will do anything about it during their time in power?
- iainmerrick 9y ago
  As a UK citizen, some of the voting practices I see in the US seem really mind-boggling: - Not enough polling stations - Long lines as the norm in many places - Polling stations closing early -- I've seen 8pm - Exit polls released before voting closes I guess these are generally due to the US being a large country spanning several time zones, with low population density. But they seem fixable, especially if you care enough about the integrity of the vote to commit enough staff and money to the process. Given the ridiculous amount of money that gets ploughed into campaigning in the US, it seems bizarre that you can't spare a fraction of that to improve the process. But it seems like what little money is available is captured by hucksters selling electronic voting machines. (Not that the UK system is perfect! Our voting system is pretty bad. Both countries could really use PR.)
  - maxerickson 9y ago
    The simple explanation is that those things are often done with purpose. Lack of resources can also be an issue, voting is generally administered at the county level and state/federal funding is pretty limited.
    - iainmerrick 9y ago
      Yeah, the targeted voter suppression is terrifying (and apparently legal! But hopefully that can be remedied in the courts. The recent progress on gerrymandering seems promising.)
    - tomkat0789 9y ago
      Anecdote: the small city I used to live in once scheduled polls on the same weekend night as three popular local sports events. Can any system work with arbitrarily rotten politicians?
  - tjoff 9y ago
    That voting is a regular workday seems unworthy of a democracy.
    - iainmerrick 9y ago
      The UK votes on a weekday too! Though I think it's the combination of weekday voting and short polling station hours that's bad. Weekend voting would feel weird to me, but you're probably right that it's better.
      - jharger 9y ago
        I feel like weekend voting would help for those who work "regular 9-5 jobs" but those who are young, and say still in college/university and working weekends, would now have a more difficult time voting. The weekend type jobs usually won't let you have time off to vote, they schedule you that time because they're busy, so it might be much more difficult for those people. At least the weekday election day somewhat levels the playing field, at least as I see it.
- ouid 9y ago
  I've volunteered to count votes before. It's finished within an hour of the polls closing.
zimbatm 9y ago
Vote count could also be optimised with machines. Each party can bring it's own OCR machine to count the votes. If there is a disagreement, fallback on humans. The issue is with having a single machine that we have to trust end-to-end.
- masklinn 9y ago
  > Each party can bring it's own OCR machine to count the votes. There are 5 digits voting precincts in the US, give or take.
  - sqeaky 9y ago
    It would not need to be done for each poll place or precinct. Each party could pick high population or high risk precincts. I think a larger issue is proving that the machine's the parties brought are not tampering with the ballots.
    - vowelless 9y ago
      Would you be okay with Republicans targeting largely black polling places ?
      - sqeaky 9y ago
        Why wouldn't I be? They are just performing another count. If one party brought machines to a poll place and managed to make trouble it is likely that the other party will show up too. Eventually it would just be part of the political landscape and the results would be better vetting all around.
  - zimbatm 9y ago
    Do Diebold machines still cost 3k a pop[1]? You can get 3 high-end scanners at that price. And generally more than one Diebold would be deployed per location right? Let's say the scanner costs $500 and there are 9999 locations. That's 50M of investment per party that can be re-used. It's a lot of money but it's an order of magnitude less than their campaign cost[2] [1]: https://www.wired.com/2008/04/the-cost-of-e-v/ https://www.wired.com/2008/04/the-cost-of-e-v/ [2]: https://www.opensecrets.org/overview/ https://www.opensecrets.org/overview/

masklinn 9y ago

Maybe the (low) number of voting locations is a problem? Around here, it's recommended to have a polling location for every 800~1000 voter and a booth per ~300 voters. When the polling location closes, staff (volunteers) start counting very publicly: anyone can watch and the procedure is legally specified such that overseers can trivially keep track and count of everything, the results are certified, displayed at the polling location and (if necessary e.g. for non-local elections) sent up to the next administrative division. Unless there are improprieties, it doesn't take very long to count a thousand votes.

croon 9y ago
Bingo. Too few voting places, and voting days are not holidays (or on sundays) like in other countries. There are very obvious steps that could be taken to solve both counting time and voter turnout as well as suppression.
- cr0sh 9y ago
  > There are very obvious steps that could be taken to solve both counting time and voter turnout as well as suppression. But when the party in power counts on that low turnout due to suppression in order to remain in power, do you really think they will do anything about it during their time in power?
iainmerrick 9y ago
As a UK citizen, some of the voting practices I see in the US seem really mind-boggling: - Not enough polling stations - Long lines as the norm in many places - Polling stations closing early -- I've seen 8pm - Exit polls released before voting closes I guess these are generally due to the US being a large country spanning several time zones, with low population density. But they seem fixable, especially if you care enough about the integrity of the vote to commit enough staff and money to the process. Given the ridiculous amount of money that gets ploughed into campaigning in the US, it seems bizarre that you can't spare a fraction of that to improve the process. But it seems like what little money is available is captured by hucksters selling electronic voting machines. (Not that the UK system is perfect! Our voting system is pretty bad. Both countries could really use PR.)
- maxerickson 9y ago
  The simple explanation is that those things are often done with purpose. Lack of resources can also be an issue, voting is generally administered at the county level and state/federal funding is pretty limited.
  - iainmerrick 9y ago
    Yeah, the targeted voter suppression is terrifying (and apparently legal! But hopefully that can be remedied in the courts. The recent progress on gerrymandering seems promising.)
  - tomkat0789 9y ago
    Anecdote: the small city I used to live in once scheduled polls on the same weekend night as three popular local sports events. Can any system work with arbitrarily rotten politicians?
- tjoff 9y ago
  That voting is a regular workday seems unworthy of a democracy.
  - iainmerrick 9y ago
    The UK votes on a weekday too! Though I think it's the combination of weekday voting and short polling station hours that's bad. Weekend voting would feel weird to me, but you're probably right that it's better.
    - jharger 9y ago
      I feel like weekend voting would help for those who work "regular 9-5 jobs" but those who are young, and say still in college/university and working weekends, would now have a more difficult time voting. The weekend type jobs usually won't let you have time off to vote, they schedule you that time because they're busy, so it might be much more difficult for those people. At least the weekday election day somewhat levels the playing field, at least as I see it.
ouid 9y ago
I've volunteered to count votes before. It's finished within an hour of the polls closing.

zimbatm 9y ago

Vote count could also be optimised with machines. Each party can bring it's own OCR machine to count the votes. If there is a disagreement, fallback on humans. The issue is with having a single machine that we have to trust end-to-end.

masklinn 9y ago
> Each party can bring it's own OCR machine to count the votes. There are 5 digits voting precincts in the US, give or take.
- sqeaky 9y ago
  It would not need to be done for each poll place or precinct. Each party could pick high population or high risk precincts. I think a larger issue is proving that the machine's the parties brought are not tampering with the ballots.
  - vowelless 9y ago
    Would you be okay with Republicans targeting largely black polling places ?
    - sqeaky 9y ago
      Why wouldn't I be? They are just performing another count. If one party brought machines to a poll place and managed to make trouble it is likely that the other party will show up too. Eventually it would just be part of the political landscape and the results would be better vetting all around.
- zimbatm 9y ago
  Do Diebold machines still cost 3k a pop[1]? You can get 3 high-end scanners at that price. And generally more than one Diebold would be deployed per location right? Let's say the scanner costs $500 and there are 9999 locations. That's 50M of investment per party that can be re-used. It's a lot of money but it's an order of magnitude less than their campaign cost[2] [1]: https://www.wired.com/2008/04/the-cost-of-e-v/ https://www.wired.com/2008/04/the-cost-of-e-v/ [2]: https://www.opensecrets.org/overview/ https://www.opensecrets.org/overview/