> I don’t see why it should have to take longer than a few days to count ballots.
To snap back with an equally uniformed answer, I don't see why anyone could think something as complicated as certifying the vote of a country the size of the USA could only take a few days!
But, in seriousness, this is how the system has always worked and just saying that you, an outsider, doesn't understand it and wants to make demands on the timescale doesn't invalidate it. There's like a bazillion moving parts behind the scenes and stuff like waiting on mail in ballots takes time. That's the cost of having an election with integrity. Read more on it here [1].
Because you don't certify the vote of the USA. You certify votes in precincts that get a couple hundred, maybe a couple thousand votes. Then you aggregate up and up to each state and start assigning electoral votes. I was a poll watcher for many years, for both the state party and individual candidates. Our polls closed at 8PM local and by 8:10 we had certified counts sent to the county office, unofficial results taped to the door and we were headed home.
There is honestly very little reason to have election counting take days unless there are irregularities and the vote tally is very close.
Please contact your local election administrator and observe the central count. It's open and public and absolutely needs to more independent eyeballs.
receive ballots in bins (1-400 per)
sort ballots by precinct (hopefully)
verify signatures (huge task)
open outer envelope
remove ballots
archive outer envelopes
scan ballots
archive ballots
Each and every step has numerous error conditions which must be handled. Adds a lot of overhead.
Plus training of legions of workers. Plus care and feeding of the gear (it breaks). Plus normal workplace safety and security.
Ad nauseam.
Again, please tour your jurisdiction's central count, and bonus points for observing during the actual election. Legendary points for attending the election canvasing board meetings, which adjudicate all the problems that arise and eventually certify the results.
I would like to hire you/your company to do vote counting.
How fast can you count the votes?
And no mistakes are allowed or there will be serious repercussions, and you have to prepare to be inspected by 3rd parties that ensure count is legal and correct.
It's not the counting that takes a long time necessarily, but adjudicating the legal challenges in close elections over what ballots are valid.
Also, there are the inevitable delays caused by malfunctions in poorly designed and maintained equipment being handled by non-technical officials not competent to deal with them.
Not to say anything about your point about drawing out an election is perhaps not optimal. But this is standard for the U.S is it not?
States have until before December 14th to certify and choose electors. Then congress will make the final certification and make the result official in January.
To snap back with an equally uniformed answer, I don't see why anyone could think something as complicated as certifying the vote of a country the size of the USA could only take a few days!
But, in seriousness, this is how the system has always worked and just saying that you, an outsider, doesn't understand it and wants to make demands on the timescale doesn't invalidate it. There's like a bazillion moving parts behind the scenes and stuff like waiting on mail in ballots takes time. That's the cost of having an election with integrity. Read more on it here [1].
[1] https://www.vox.com/2018/11/6/18066350/midterm-elections-201...