Timeline for Why is vote counting made so laborious in the US?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
18 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Dec 28, 2021 at 18:19 | comment | added | user36423 | @user1937198 'In the case of a majority win, it is a matter of hours between the majority of constituencies being declared for a party (even if not all have declared yet), and a new government being formed.' Specifically, after the 1997 general election, Tony Blair stepped out of Buckingham Palace as Prime Minister while 24 constituencies (including, IIRC, all 18 in Northern Ireland) were still counting. But a repeat of this is less likely since section 48(3) of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 forced all constituencies to start counting on the night. | |
| Nov 9, 2020 at 17:04 | comment | added | gormadoc | @erickson There aren't any US elections "in general" and each state does its own. My state (and city) determined everything not-presidential the day after. I imagine other states did as well; almost all congressional outcomes were clear the night of the election. | |
| Nov 8, 2020 at 10:12 | comment | added | MaxW | What the US public has been anxiously awaiting is the projections. The votes in each state aren't really legal until they are certified by each state which have always been much slower. It is a slow process. So electron day was Nov 3, but the incoming president doesn't take office until Jan 20. Plenty of time for the process to work. | |
| Nov 7, 2020 at 16:19 | comment | added | erickson | This answer is specific to the presidential election, while the question is about US elections in general. Even if the question were about presidential elections, this answer doesn't explain what can make counting take a long time, it simply justifies the delay. | |
| Nov 7, 2020 at 5:30 | comment | added | user | This answer seems wrong. If one wants to ask for a recount, etc., there are deadlines to do so before the electoral college meeting date. And in many cases, there's probably a threshold of votes counted before asking for that. If states, counties, etc.. wanted to / could be slow, they wouldn't be counting ballots all day and night; they could just pay a few guys to count for a month and save money... | |
| Nov 6, 2020 at 23:35 | comment | added | gormadoc | @Luaan your premise is wrong. The process, while it originates in the days of horse-carriages, was changed to its current setup (early November->mid December->early January) with the 20th amendment in 1933. If you actually have that question, you should ask that in a question instead of in the ephemeral comment section. | |
| Nov 6, 2020 at 15:53 | comment | added | user4012 | @Luaan - this is politics.SE, so my practical definition of broken is "causes enough seious problems that enough people exert enough political pressure to pass a constitutional amendment (if it's something on federal level) or a state/local level law (if that level). Clearly, it's not broken enough for people to care, for example as much as they care about legalizing Marihuana or prohibiting then permitting alcohol :) Whether that highlights lack of problems or lack of proper prioretization in humans is debatable :) | |
| Nov 6, 2020 at 13:06 | comment | added | Luaan | @user4012 YMMV, but you'll find plenty of people who think it's pretty obviously broken, and not because of the time it takes. It's not like there's an objective measure of what "broken" means, even if you have reasonable understanding of the context (e.g. "runs as an overnight batch process"). | |
| Nov 6, 2020 at 11:52 | comment | added | user4012 | @Luaan - IIABDFI. First thing you should learn if you want to be a good software engineer in an actual company (as opposed to what they teach someone in college). This applies to real life too. "Ugly code" does not mean "Broken". "Doesn't run faster than 10 minutes" does not mean "Broken" for an overnight batch process. etc... | |
| Nov 6, 2020 at 9:12 | comment | added | Luaan | Okay, but that just goes back to the underlying issue - why is the US still using a voting system that was designed for people on horseback carrying a stack of papers to the capital? Do the parties really consider all those unnecessary complications to be worth the political leverage (that tends to alternatively favor one party or the other)? It looks as if the two main parties were cooperating to keep the other parties from being serious contenders. | |
| Nov 5, 2020 at 22:43 | comment | added | Martin Argerami | This answer tries to make it sound obvious; it's not. I grew up in Argentina, a country that is definitely not an example of nice politics. System is similar to American: elections every two years, president every other election, house members every election, senators on a 2/3 cycle; on top of that elections often include provincial governors, provincial house and senate, city mayor, city council. Everything on paper ballots. And voting is compulsory. Even then, election results are always known within a few hours of polls closing | |
| Nov 5, 2020 at 21:18 | history | edited | gormadoc | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Nov 5, 2020 at 21:02 | comment | added | gormadoc | @WS2 It simply isn't how it works in the US. The UK has a separate political system structured much differently. The national vote happens on a decided Tuesday in early November. The electoral college meets on a decided Wednesday in mid December to cast the real vote. Congress then announces the results in January. There is no way for the process to go faster or slower with regards to vote counting. Perhaps if the national vote were scheduled in December then comparisons between the US and UK could be meaningful. | |
| Nov 5, 2020 at 20:58 | comment | added | gormadoc | @CaptainMan good point. | |
| Nov 5, 2020 at 20:53 | comment | added | WS2 | The only elections, since WW2, that I can think of where a PM was not installed by the week-end, following a Thursday vote were in 1945 and 2010. In 1945 so many of the electorate were still in the armed forces, serving overseas. that there was a three-week delay between voting and counting. In 2010 the hung parliament meant that Gordon Brown remained as caretaker while Cameron and Clegg hammered out a coalition compromise. (The only other one was possibly Feb 1974 - I was living overseas- but I think Heath first attempted to form a minority government, then had to give way to Wilson). | |
| Nov 5, 2020 at 20:26 | comment | added | user1937198 | For the comparison point of the UK system, the point the vote is declared for a constituency is the point at which that MP becomes an MP for the purposes of forming a government. In the case of a majority win, it is a matter of hours between the majority of constituencies being declared for a party (even if not all have declared yet), and a new government being formed. How long it takes to count votes significantly impacts when a new government will take office. | |
| Nov 5, 2020 at 19:54 | comment | added | Captain Man | You hinted at it but I think explicitly mentioning that the presidential election is an indirect vote and that the electors of the electoral college are real people who really do go and cast the vote would help make this more clear. | |
| Nov 5, 2020 at 17:57 | history | answered | gormadoc | CC BY-SA 4.0 |