4 ms·

In the US, we used to be able to tabulate votes in 1 day, fairly correctly, with little corruption. Where there were problems, we could manually audit quickly a

In the US, we used to be able to tabulate votes in 1 day, fairly correctly, with little corruption. Where there were problems, we could manually audit quickly and effectively. Then we switched away from paper ballots to e-voting.

the_snooze 3y ago
>In the US, we used to be able to tabulate votes in 1 day Have we? Do you have a particular state in mind? As far as I know, all states have a post-election canvassing period of at least a week or two (if not longer) before official results are certified. Some states like California and New York are notoriously slow to certify. Election night results are always preliminary and subject to shifts, especially as mail and provisional ballots get processed.
- ASalazarMX 3y ago
  Voting is a massively parallel process. Officials can count ballots, fill acts and seal the urns in the same day. In fact, elections in other countries, like Mexico, usually have at least 95% of votes certified by the next day, even if the last few percent drags their feet for some reason. There's no sensible reason to wait weeks for voting results, just put more people to the task, for the sake of transparency and promptness.
  - the_snooze 3y ago
    >In fact, elections in other countries, like Mexico, usually have at least 95% of votes certified by the next day, even if the last few percent drags their feet for some reason. I don't know what this means. "Certification" is when a state finalizes the official legally-binding results for elections. Votes aren't certified, election results are. It's when a state says "Coca-Cola got 832,992 votes and Pepsi got 902,311 votes" and enters it into its legal and historical record. All US states take time to certify results precisely to make sure the process is carried out correctly. They do things like archiving paper ballots, electronic records, and signed affidavits in case of legal challenges, processing provisional ballots and same-day registrations, and cross-checking the number of registered voters who showed up with the number of ballots cast at each precinct.
    - ASalazarMX 3y ago
      As soon as the election closes, every urn is opened in front of the randomly-selected citizen officials, and voluntary party witnesses. Votes are counted, including invalid/nulled votes, an electoral "acta" (a written record) is filled, everything is sealed and delivered to the National Electoral Institute (INE) local office. This happens mere hours after elections closed, and it is simultaneous in all urns. The INE gives preliminary results when they're statistically certain, usually the same night around 10-11pm. Even if the last percent of urns is delayed, they aren't enough numbers to affect the results, but anyway, the records get certified as they arrive, and the next day 100% of votes are accounted and the election is closed. The system is pretty amazing, mainly becaue the INE is an independent civil institution. Unfortunately, our current president is making every effort to subvert it and return to the times where the government ran the elections in opacity.
whoiskevin 3y ago
This false claim needs to stop. Was never true.
runako 3y ago
> In the US, we used to be able to tabulate votes in 1 day, fairly correctly, with little corruption. For your consideration, a high-profile paper ballot counting case you may have missed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_v._Gore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_v._Gore A brief summary of the timeline is that the vote counts took weeks (much longer than "1 day"), ultimately resulting in state and national Supreme Courts to get involved.
- labcomputer 3y ago
  That summary is a bit revisionist, so the snark is a bit misplaced. The initial vote count was reported November 8th (the day after voting, which was November 7th). Since the margin of victory was less than 0.5%, an automatic recount was triggered, which resulted in an even smaller margin. That, in turn, resulted in a month-long lawsuit, while both major parties challenged individual ballots during a manual recount. Challenging individual ballots and the legal process are what drew out final certification of the election. It's not really fair to cite that case an example where either the votes were not counted in 1 day, not counted with little corruption, or not counted fairly accurately (the disputes were over fractions of fractions of a percent of all ballots cast in Florida).
  - runako 3y ago
    > The initial vote count was reported November 8th (the day after voting, which was November 7th). This is immaterial. The State did not consider that number as official, even though it had been widely reported. The official numbers are the only thing that matters. > It's not really fair to cite that case an example where either the votes were not counted in 1 day, not counted with little corruption, or not counted fairly accurately When talking about a legal process, it's pointless to ignore the statutes that govern the certification process (including automatic recounts and challenge windows), or the inevitable legal process around voting. These things happen. That's why election certification is not the day after voting in any state. Certified results are the only results that matter. If it was reasonable to get final results in a day, then certainly there is a state that statutorily requires certification by (say) Thursday or Friday after the Tuesday vote? So which state is it? Keep in mind that the country was much less polarized in 2000 than it is now, so it's entirely likely that paper ballots used in 2024 would see multiple state outcomes that looked like Florida in 2000. In particular, close races like FL in 2000 may depend on ballots from e.g. overseas service members. Those are not required to be received by states until days after Election Day. Without changing the dates service members have to mail their ballots, there's no way to count all the votes until days after the election. > That summary is a bit revisionist, so the snark is a bit misplaced. The "snark" is warranted because the fiasco with paper ballots highlighted in Bush v Gore is a key reason we abandoned paper ballots. EDIT: Also Bush v Gore would not have been "current events" for anybody younger than 35-40, so the reminder is important. (YMMV but I definitely was not following politics when I was in elementary school.)
red_admiral 3y ago
Was there an "e-" component in the Bush/Florida saga? I thought the "hanging chads" thing was from _mechanical_ voting machines, and electronic ones were introduced to stop that from happening again, or have I misremembered?
jcrawfordor 3y ago
First, final returns have never been available in one day. Results reported the night of and day after are preliminary, and the canvassing process (essentially the routine audit and resolution of abnormal ballots like provisionals) routinely takes weeks. Second, the US has not switched away from paper ballots. Only a minority of states use DRE (direct-recording electronic) voting today, and a minority of those use DRE without paper trail (the number of these systems is decreasing with time as well). The most common voting system in the US is precinct tabulation, in which paper ballots are cast and counted on site, then retained for audit. DRE voting was only really introduced to the US as a result of the short-timeline requirements of the Help America Vote Act of 2002, which required disability-accessible voting be available in all precincts. At the time, DRE machines without paper trail were the most affordable option that met accessibility requirements, and most states have very little money to spend on their voting equipment. In large part because of controversy around DRE machines, DRE machines with voter verifiable paper audit trail (DRE/VVPAT) and paper ballots with accessible ballot marking devices (BMDs) are now the norm for new systems. States still using DRE without VVPAT are generally only using it because they have not been able to afford to replace equipment.

the_snooze 3y ago

>In the US, we used to be able to tabulate votes in 1 day Have we? Do you have a particular state in mind? As far as I know, all states have a post-election canvassing period of at least a week or two (if not longer) before official results are certified. Some states like California and New York are notoriously slow to certify. Election night results are always preliminary and subject to shifts, especially as mail and provisional ballots get processed.

ASalazarMX 3y ago
Voting is a massively parallel process. Officials can count ballots, fill acts and seal the urns in the same day. In fact, elections in other countries, like Mexico, usually have at least 95% of votes certified by the next day, even if the last few percent drags their feet for some reason. There's no sensible reason to wait weeks for voting results, just put more people to the task, for the sake of transparency and promptness.
- the_snooze 3y ago
  >In fact, elections in other countries, like Mexico, usually have at least 95% of votes certified by the next day, even if the last few percent drags their feet for some reason. I don't know what this means. "Certification" is when a state finalizes the official legally-binding results for elections. Votes aren't certified, election results are. It's when a state says "Coca-Cola got 832,992 votes and Pepsi got 902,311 votes" and enters it into its legal and historical record. All US states take time to certify results precisely to make sure the process is carried out correctly. They do things like archiving paper ballots, electronic records, and signed affidavits in case of legal challenges, processing provisional ballots and same-day registrations, and cross-checking the number of registered voters who showed up with the number of ballots cast at each precinct.
  - ASalazarMX 3y ago
    As soon as the election closes, every urn is opened in front of the randomly-selected citizen officials, and voluntary party witnesses. Votes are counted, including invalid/nulled votes, an electoral "acta" (a written record) is filled, everything is sealed and delivered to the National Electoral Institute (INE) local office. This happens mere hours after elections closed, and it is simultaneous in all urns. The INE gives preliminary results when they're statistically certain, usually the same night around 10-11pm. Even if the last percent of urns is delayed, they aren't enough numbers to affect the results, but anyway, the records get certified as they arrive, and the next day 100% of votes are accounted and the election is closed. The system is pretty amazing, mainly becaue the INE is an independent civil institution. Unfortunately, our current president is making every effort to subvert it and return to the times where the government ran the elections in opacity.

whoiskevin 3y ago

This false claim needs to stop. Was never true.

runako 3y ago

> In the US, we used to be able to tabulate votes in 1 day, fairly correctly, with little corruption. For your consideration, a high-profile paper ballot counting case you may have missed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_v._Gore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_v._Gore A brief summary of the timeline is that the vote counts took weeks (much longer than "1 day"), ultimately resulting in state and national Supreme Courts to get involved.

labcomputer 3y ago
That summary is a bit revisionist, so the snark is a bit misplaced. The initial vote count was reported November 8th (the day after voting, which was November 7th). Since the margin of victory was less than 0.5%, an automatic recount was triggered, which resulted in an even smaller margin. That, in turn, resulted in a month-long lawsuit, while both major parties challenged individual ballots during a manual recount. Challenging individual ballots and the legal process are what drew out final certification of the election. It's not really fair to cite that case an example where either the votes were not counted in 1 day, not counted with little corruption, or not counted fairly accurately (the disputes were over fractions of fractions of a percent of all ballots cast in Florida).
- runako 3y ago
  > The initial vote count was reported November 8th (the day after voting, which was November 7th). This is immaterial. The State did not consider that number as official, even though it had been widely reported. The official numbers are the only thing that matters. > It's not really fair to cite that case an example where either the votes were not counted in 1 day, not counted with little corruption, or not counted fairly accurately When talking about a legal process, it's pointless to ignore the statutes that govern the certification process (including automatic recounts and challenge windows), or the inevitable legal process around voting. These things happen. That's why election certification is not the day after voting in any state. Certified results are the only results that matter. If it was reasonable to get final results in a day, then certainly there is a state that statutorily requires certification by (say) Thursday or Friday after the Tuesday vote? So which state is it? Keep in mind that the country was much less polarized in 2000 than it is now, so it's entirely likely that paper ballots used in 2024 would see multiple state outcomes that looked like Florida in 2000. In particular, close races like FL in 2000 may depend on ballots from e.g. overseas service members. Those are not required to be received by states until days after Election Day. Without changing the dates service members have to mail their ballots, there's no way to count all the votes until days after the election. > That summary is a bit revisionist, so the snark is a bit misplaced. The "snark" is warranted because the fiasco with paper ballots highlighted in Bush v Gore is a key reason we abandoned paper ballots. EDIT: Also Bush v Gore would not have been "current events" for anybody younger than 35-40, so the reminder is important. (YMMV but I definitely was not following politics when I was in elementary school.)

red_admiral 3y ago

Was there an "e-" component in the Bush/Florida saga? I thought the "hanging chads" thing was from _mechanical_ voting machines, and electronic ones were introduced to stop that from happening again, or have I misremembered?

jcrawfordor 3y ago

First, final returns have never been available in one day. Results reported the night of and day after are preliminary, and the canvassing process (essentially the routine audit and resolution of abnormal ballots like provisionals) routinely takes weeks. Second, the US has not switched away from paper ballots. Only a minority of states use DRE (direct-recording electronic) voting today, and a minority of those use DRE without paper trail (the number of these systems is decreasing with time as well). The most common voting system in the US is precinct tabulation, in which paper ballots are cast and counted on site, then retained for audit. DRE voting was only really introduced to the US as a result of the short-timeline requirements of the Help America Vote Act of 2002, which required disability-accessible voting be available in all precincts. At the time, DRE machines without paper trail were the most affordable option that met accessibility requirements, and most states have very little money to spend on their voting equipment. In large part because of controversy around DRE machines, DRE machines with voter verifiable paper audit trail (DRE/VVPAT) and paper ballots with accessible ballot marking devices (BMDs) are now the norm for new systems. States still using DRE without VVPAT are generally only using it because they have not been able to afford to replace equipment.