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Would this speed up counting process? One party continues to prepare people with "Please be patience" The other party continues to sow doubt in the election i

Would this speed up counting process? One party continues to prepare people with "Please be patience" The other party continues to sow doubt in the election integrity with "We can't even count ballots like Brazil, Japan and Australia" on the same day. Why don't we solve this problem? Seems like it sows more division and doubts, whether legitimate or not and threatens democracy. Why don't we also ask voters for IDs like many other nations? We need to work for solutions, not gas lighting each other and make progress. Solution here should be that we have a common understanding of 1 person = 1 ballot = 1 ID. MIB should have a postmark date 4 days prior to election day, not on election day like in California. Elections need to run like clockwork and with precision. Give no excuses to anyone sowing doubts.

philips 4y ago
Oregon has been state wide mail in voting only for decades and they allow post mark date of election day. I honestly think we all need to reset expectations that voting day means we get the result. It puts too much pressure on speed over accuracy. I want election workers to focus in getting it right and to feel they have the space to do that if they have hardware failures or other issues. As part of my work on the SF Open Source Voting Technical Advisory Commission I learned a bit about how all the media companies scrape various non standard tabulation formats from all municipalities big and small all over the country. And I was simply frightened. As citizens we have enabled media companies to “call” elections via these scrapers and statistical methods instead of waiting for certified results from the municipalities. It is error prone and calling it wrong because a parser had a bug or because a random government web server was hacked seems like a silly unnecessary risk.
- systemvoltage 4y ago
  Doesn't matter. Argument you're presenting is fine for a small number of people who live in Oregon but someone living in Nebraska has no idea what the hell is going on. We need a standardized process that doesn't take 7 days to count ballots. That's ridiculous regardless of the historical significance. Again, we're not engaging in solutions, but presenting excuses (your point is reasonable to people who live in Oregon, but still some people will always complain). The idea is to stop all complaining. Other nations seems to do just fine and better than us. Shameful.
  - quadrifoliate 4y ago
    It is a feature of US elections that they are far more decentralized than any other country. To your point, the people conducting the elections in Oregon and Nebraska do so as employees of their respective state governments and not as Federal representatives. I suggest that you and other commentators in this thread read the Elections Clause [1] and historical background on it. You can't just address flaws in a system that has been running for 200+ years with a flippant "stop complaining". It would require Congress to pass a bipartisan voting law, and recent efforts to that effect have failed because of lack of bipartisan support [2]. ---------------------------------------- [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/article-1/section-4/clause-1 https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/article-1/sec... [2] https://www.vox.com/22736509/freedom-to-vote-act https://www.vox.com/22736509/freedom-to-vote-act
- sidlls 4y ago
  Other developed nations have no problem providing same-day (or near) tallies of all votes. The fact that it can take weeks to get a complete tally is a symptom of huge dysfunction.
- specialist 4y ago
  > reset expectations Voters want accurate results. The recurring tantrums over speed come from media and candidates.
mikeyouse 4y ago
The party that sows doubt does so intentionally because it helps them politically. In many states that are controlled by that party, they’ve passed legislation preventing the government from even opening envelopes before polls close on Election Day, much less processing the ballots or counting the votes.
- systemvoltage 4y ago
  These things are not provable but hypotheses, the same thing is accused of our immigration policy that it helps to recruit voters. You can't really prove that and this level of discussion goes nowhere. No progress is made. We should stay rational and just fix the bugs. Edit: I meant the open-border policy and migrants flowing in. I am not stating my own opinion here, I am trying to say that these are the things thrown around in the debates and there is no way to prove one way or the other.
  - bediger4000 4y ago
    Oh, come on. Nobody here is as born yesterday.
  - mikeyouse 4y ago
    It’s not some unprovable hypothesis, rather very plain facts. Many politicians who screech about the suspicious nature of delayed vote counting were in the majority legislatures that passed laws to ensure slow vote counting. Pretending otherwise is so silly. There is literally no other reason to craft laws in this way except to later give credence to dishonest “voter irregularity” claims. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/why-does-it-take-so-long-count-mail-ballots-key-states-blame-legislatures https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/why-...
geysersam 4y ago
You have been duped by hysterics. The US certainly has problems. Election integrity isn't one of them. Read here about the Australian election. The official result can take up to ten days. https://www.ecq.qld.gov.au/elections/how-are-the-votes-counted https://www.ecq.qld.gov.au/elections/how-are-the-votes-count... That doesn't mean it will always take long before a winner is clear. But it's certainly not a one day process! Have you seen the distribution of seats in the Japanese parlament? No wonder the counting process is not exactly nail bitingly exciting. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Japanese_general_election https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Japanese_general_electi... Brazil have an electronic ballot counting system. That comes with its own set of tradeoffs. > One id, one vote If a significant portion of the electorate do not have an id this is a non-starter.
- systemvoltage 4y ago
  I am just giving you the typical tagline toed by the party in question, I literally just made up the list of countries as I was writing it. It does not matter what names I list there. That's not the point in the slightest, see quotation marks. The point would still stand if no other nation out there were better than US election system. The idea is that election counting process should be quick and the results should be evident on the same day. If no one else is doing it, we should be the first ones to build a system that can count votes in the same day.
  - geysersam 4y ago
    That would be great. I certainly hope you'll achieve it. But it seems unlikely to succeed given that parts of the Republican party actively undermines the process and the faith in the system, with the intent of limiting access to voting for poor people and minorities. Cure the cause and not the symptom! How transparent, accurate and fast do a ballot counting system have to be for Trump and his gang not to question it?
    - systemvoltage 4y ago
      They had 2 years to make sure tabulators work, this is happening right now in Maricopa County: https://twitter.com/charliekirk11/status/1589987833846333440 https://twitter.com/charliekirk11/status/1589987833846333440 This is why people lose faith in the election system. Katie Hobbs being the Secretary of State.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Izkata 4y ago
> The other party continues to sow doubt in the election integrity with "We can't even count ballots like Brazil, Japan and Australia" on the same day. That comparison isn't even the problem, the problem is that we used to be able to. Does no one else remember staying up late on election night to see the result?

philips 4y ago

Oregon has been state wide mail in voting only for decades and they allow post mark date of election day. I honestly think we all need to reset expectations that voting day means we get the result. It puts too much pressure on speed over accuracy. I want election workers to focus in getting it right and to feel they have the space to do that if they have hardware failures or other issues. As part of my work on the SF Open Source Voting Technical Advisory Commission I learned a bit about how all the media companies scrape various non standard tabulation formats from all municipalities big and small all over the country. And I was simply frightened. As citizens we have enabled media companies to “call” elections via these scrapers and statistical methods instead of waiting for certified results from the municipalities. It is error prone and calling it wrong because a parser had a bug or because a random government web server was hacked seems like a silly unnecessary risk.

systemvoltage 4y ago
Doesn't matter. Argument you're presenting is fine for a small number of people who live in Oregon but someone living in Nebraska has no idea what the hell is going on. We need a standardized process that doesn't take 7 days to count ballots. That's ridiculous regardless of the historical significance. Again, we're not engaging in solutions, but presenting excuses (your point is reasonable to people who live in Oregon, but still some people will always complain). The idea is to stop all complaining. Other nations seems to do just fine and better than us. Shameful.
- quadrifoliate 4y ago
  It is a feature of US elections that they are far more decentralized than any other country. To your point, the people conducting the elections in Oregon and Nebraska do so as employees of their respective state governments and not as Federal representatives. I suggest that you and other commentators in this thread read the Elections Clause [1] and historical background on it. You can't just address flaws in a system that has been running for 200+ years with a flippant "stop complaining". It would require Congress to pass a bipartisan voting law, and recent efforts to that effect have failed because of lack of bipartisan support [2]. ---------------------------------------- [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/article-1/section-4/clause-1 https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/article-1/sec... [2] https://www.vox.com/22736509/freedom-to-vote-act https://www.vox.com/22736509/freedom-to-vote-act
sidlls 4y ago
Other developed nations have no problem providing same-day (or near) tallies of all votes. The fact that it can take weeks to get a complete tally is a symptom of huge dysfunction.
specialist 4y ago
> reset expectations Voters want accurate results. The recurring tantrums over speed come from media and candidates.

mikeyouse 4y ago

The party that sows doubt does so intentionally because it helps them politically. In many states that are controlled by that party, they’ve passed legislation preventing the government from even opening envelopes before polls close on Election Day, much less processing the ballots or counting the votes.

systemvoltage 4y ago
These things are not provable but hypotheses, the same thing is accused of our immigration policy that it helps to recruit voters. You can't really prove that and this level of discussion goes nowhere. No progress is made. We should stay rational and just fix the bugs. Edit: I meant the open-border policy and migrants flowing in. I am not stating my own opinion here, I am trying to say that these are the things thrown around in the debates and there is no way to prove one way or the other.
- bediger4000 4y ago
  Oh, come on. Nobody here is as born yesterday.
- mikeyouse 4y ago
  It’s not some unprovable hypothesis, rather very plain facts. Many politicians who screech about the suspicious nature of delayed vote counting were in the majority legislatures that passed laws to ensure slow vote counting. Pretending otherwise is so silly. There is literally no other reason to craft laws in this way except to later give credence to dishonest “voter irregularity” claims. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/why-does-it-take-so-long-count-mail-ballots-key-states-blame-legislatures https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/why-...

geysersam 4y ago

You have been duped by hysterics. The US certainly has problems. Election integrity isn't one of them. Read here about the Australian election. The official result can take up to ten days. https://www.ecq.qld.gov.au/elections/how-are-the-votes-counted https://www.ecq.qld.gov.au/elections/how-are-the-votes-count... That doesn't mean it will always take long before a winner is clear. But it's certainly not a one day process! Have you seen the distribution of seats in the Japanese parlament? No wonder the counting process is not exactly nail bitingly exciting. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Japanese_general_election https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Japanese_general_electi... Brazil have an electronic ballot counting system. That comes with its own set of tradeoffs. > One id, one vote If a significant portion of the electorate do not have an id this is a non-starter.

systemvoltage 4y ago
I am just giving you the typical tagline toed by the party in question, I literally just made up the list of countries as I was writing it. It does not matter what names I list there. That's not the point in the slightest, see quotation marks. The point would still stand if no other nation out there were better than US election system. The idea is that election counting process should be quick and the results should be evident on the same day. If no one else is doing it, we should be the first ones to build a system that can count votes in the same day.
- geysersam 4y ago
  That would be great. I certainly hope you'll achieve it. But it seems unlikely to succeed given that parts of the Republican party actively undermines the process and the faith in the system, with the intent of limiting access to voting for poor people and minorities. Cure the cause and not the symptom! How transparent, accurate and fast do a ballot counting system have to be for Trump and his gang not to question it?
  - systemvoltage 4y ago
    They had 2 years to make sure tabulators work, this is happening right now in Maricopa County: https://twitter.com/charliekirk11/status/1589987833846333440 https://twitter.com/charliekirk11/status/1589987833846333440 This is why people lose faith in the election system. Katie Hobbs being the Secretary of State.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Izkata 4y ago

> The other party continues to sow doubt in the election integrity with "We can't even count ballots like Brazil, Japan and Australia" on the same day. That comparison isn't even the problem, the problem is that we used to be able to. Does no one else remember staying up late on election night to see the result?