3 ms·

The overall counting process in the UK scales horizontally rather well (it's a great example of map-reduce!), and it's close to unthinkable that the results aff

by jen20 6y ago

The overall counting process in the UK scales horizontally rather well (it's a great example of map-reduce!), and it's close to unthinkable that the results affected by any given count would not be known on the evening of an election day, even if the shape of the resulting government were not known as in 2010. What is not reflected however is the sheer number of votes that people tend to cast in the US - often voting on dozens of different measures. The UK process does not have this aspect - at worst there may be a Westminster, country-specific parliament and city or town council on the same election day, and they are handled via separate ballot papers.

godelski 6y ago
You also have to consider that polling stations are not uniform in their ratio of people to workers/machines. Some places you can just walk right in and other places you wait all day to vote. Assuming symmetry in this aspect is ignoring the fundamental problem here. If you watched the graphs update you'd notice that the small counties typically got their results quickly but the large counties took a lot longer. There is also the gather step where you gather the county votes from the polling station. Larger cities have a more difficult gather operation that smaller areas. Again, this all can be observed if you watch the votes over time.
- majewsky 6y ago
  I don't know what's going on in the US system, but what you describe sounds rather broken. In Germany (where I live and regularly volunteer as a polling worker), a larger county does not report slower than a smaller county. "Larger county" would just mean "more polling places" so that each polling place maps to about the same number of voters, therefore the load is distributed smoothly. The longest line I've ever seen in a polling station was 10 people who showed up in a group, and it took only 5 minutes to serve all of them.
  - godelski 6y ago
    Is this true or are you just guessing? If it is true I'd like some reference to back it up because to me this doesn't even make sense logistically. Like the same effect is true in distributed computing so it would be extra weird for humans to be far superior in this manner.

by jen20 6y ago

godelski 6y ago

You also have to consider that polling stations are not uniform in their ratio of people to workers/machines. Some places you can just walk right in and other places you wait all day to vote. Assuming symmetry in this aspect is ignoring the fundamental problem here. If you watched the graphs update you'd notice that the small counties typically got their results quickly but the large counties took a lot longer. There is also the gather step where you gather the county votes from the polling station. Larger cities have a more difficult gather operation that smaller areas. Again, this all can be observed if you watch the votes over time.

majewsky 6y ago
I don't know what's going on in the US system, but what you describe sounds rather broken. In Germany (where I live and regularly volunteer as a polling worker), a larger county does not report slower than a smaller county. "Larger county" would just mean "more polling places" so that each polling place maps to about the same number of voters, therefore the load is distributed smoothly. The longest line I've ever seen in a polling station was 10 people who showed up in a group, and it took only 5 minutes to serve all of them.
- godelski 6y ago
  Is this true or are you just guessing? If it is true I'd like some reference to back it up because to me this doesn't even make sense logistically. Like the same effect is true in distributed computing so it would be extra weird for humans to be far superior in this manner.