Here in UK all polls are done by with paper ballots. When polls close there is a big push to get the boxes in the right place and votes counted quick. If a recount is needed its done then an there, it causes a hold up but nothing major.
Polls close at 10pm and by midnight-ish the results start coming in. In some places like highlands & islands it takes longer (transport and weather) but usually by 4am–ish everything is fully counted and announced. Its unusual to still be going at it after 5/6 am. And yes - we’ve had some very close races lately.
My confusion is, its not really that different to how its done in Mississippi. How is it possible to still be counting votes 3 days later??
I’ve been keeping an eye on the news but I’m finding it difficult to get a clear answer. What the hell is taking so long???
The main delay is that Mississipi allows postal votes postmarked up to election day. They then allow 10 days for these to make it through the system and then they count. By contrast, in the UK, postal votes must arrive by 10pm on polling day so are counted at the same time as paper ballots.
Then there are provisional ballots, which are votes cast in person where their eligibility is in question. This may be because the voter did not produce ID or did not appear on the register for the polling station they attended, or if their details on the database were inaccurate. Each of these ballots then needs investigation to check the validity of the vote, and may come down to litigation.
Why this is noticeable now is because usually postal votes are somewhat moot, and by the time in-person votes have been cast a clear winner can be provisionally announced. This time in Mississippi the in-person voting was so close that postal ballots or even provisional ballots will be decisive.
Wait… How does that work? Is a vote not anonymous when it’s provisional?
Not sure about Mississippi, but a common method in other states and for postal votes is 2 envelopes. The outer one includes the voter’s full info to be verified. The inner envelope contains their ballot. The outer envelope must be fully verified or rejected, then the inner envelope is sent to either the pile of votes to be counted, or the pile to be destroyed unopened.
Yes, a bad actor could skip process and identify how a person votes, but it would be obvious to everyone else in the room (and there are many people in the room watching for exactly this type of behavior).
Ohhh, provisional mail votes! That makes more sense. We have that system in the Netherlands too, with double envelopes
There can be provisional in person ballots too. You give the voter an envelope to put the ballot in until the provisional status is resolved that hides the votes of the voter.
They’re two different concepts, but there’s a lot of overlap in the details. Each one must be fully verified before it can be accepted. Provisional usually means their eligibility couldn’t be verified at the polling station on election day, for a variety of reasons, but this lets them cast a vote before the deadline while the rest gets sorted out later.
We have to prove we’re a legal citizen and reside in the district (precinct) where we cast our votes.
But if you’re not a legal citizen or don’t reside in that district, why would they even send you a voter pass?
People move, die, get married/legally change their names, or simply can’t afford the cost of or travel to obtain a RealID. OTOH, immigrants do need a RealID.
Computer glitches and human error occur. Bureaucracies aren’t designed for efficiency.
ETA, a percentage of immigrants don’t have visas but do need to work. Identity theft occurs, but it’s not as overblown as some media and politicians make it. In a country with the population as large as the USA, a small percentage can translate into bureaucratic tangles that are frustrating to unknot. I don’t blame the immigrants as much as policy, both in wrecking immigrants’ nation of origin, as well as nigh-impossible to navigate labyrinths of bureaucracy.
All things that are already registered in the government’s basic citizen administration (or whatever it’s called in your country). Deaths and moving to a new address are both things you are required to register with the government ASAP. Marriage and legal name changes are performed by the government (it’s kind of the entire point).
No, but a person’s whereabouts and legal status are necessary for taxes, and if there’s something governments are very good at it’s collecting taxes.
This actually sounds like a science fiction to me. You obviously don’t realize how antiquated and disconnected governmental bureaucracy is here in the U.S.
Very few systems can access data gathered by other systems. Job applications and other processes often require “background checks” to verify our identity by cross referencing several disparate databases and searching local and federal data for criminal histories, evidence of name change, etc. Meaning before someone will trust you with employment or a loan, they will pay a service to verify who you are because it’s such a difficult process to do.
The affidavit vote counting process is essentially doing that background check on each voter to verify their identity and eligibility to vote. And the Mississippi count at issue here is happening in one of the poorest, most understaffed, and most technology unadvanced states in the country.
I’m not sure you understand me. What could and should be are not always what actually is. Additionally, the USA has nearly 350 mn people, each state uses their own tech, own rules unless otherwise federally mandated, and DOGE went into federal systems and deleted and destroyed a lot. Moreover, individual counties and municipalities have their own systems. Rural areas don’t have the funding populous areas do, and people who can afford higher taxes simply don’t want to pay them and fight against them. Small towns here don’t even have websites, but FB pages.
not in the US
Wondered about this. Wild. Sounds like the whole system is fiddled to ensure the republican norm.
Some of it is mail in ballots but that’s normal in most states. The 1 week delay in Mississippi right now are the affidavit (provisional) ballots where someone didn’t have the right ID, had just changed their name, or otherwise couldn’t match their registered voter identity.
Those folks sign a temporary vote (affidavit or provisional) and then have a week to follow up with the proper ID and otherwise sort out their information to ensure their vote is counted.
Remember that NONE of the results in any state are certified yet. Everything at this point is just projected wins based on statistical probability. Until all votes are counted, and potentially recounted depending on each state’s voting laws, there are no official winners yet anywhere. Some states have mandatory recounts if results are within a certain range. Some the candidates can request recounts if within certain ranges. That sort of thing.
Most states allow mail in votes as long as they are postmarked by election day. Usually the race isn’t close enough to where the likelihood of ballots arriving more than a day or so after would change the outcome. Mississippi is unusually close, it is extremely rare for any election to be this close.
It’s not a big deal really, the entire electoral system timeframe in the US is still based on needing to travel by horse to deliver notifications of counts and things like that. It was never updated for modern technology so there is plenty of time built into the system to count and adjudicate normally.
To be honest it sounds incredibly backward to someone from a country where (in a general election) you vote one day, results announced by the time you wake up the next, and new head of govt in power by 2pm that day 😅
In general, its as if rules and procedures in US are chiseled on a stone tablet and cannot ever be modified or removed.
Keep in mind when this election system spanning what was effectively over a dozen separate countries was developed, much of the world were still governing Monarchies.
Useful when you have to change the head of government 2-3 times a year.
It sounds surprisingly fair to me. Many people who have to use postal voting work long hours or multiple jobs and they’re unlikely to vote R.
Or are very poor and rural, without transportation.
Better ways to handle it though i.e. send ballots out x weeks beforehand and demand they are returned by polling day.
I’m not a fan of postal ballots tbh and people in places with mandatory voting (e. G. Oz) work just as hard and manage to do their duty.
because each State sets how their elections are handled. Many states do this, but mail-in voting isn’t universal. Some states as soon as you register they’re automatically going to send you a ballot you can mail back or drop off, others you can register for permanent early ballots. I bet you can guess which States those tend to be, and which political party tends to govern them. There are states that don’t allow it at all, and some only allow you to request an early ballot if you can prove you’re going to be out of the city/county/state on election day. And that requires that you weren’t purged from the voter rolls without being notified after the registration deadline (which can be months before election day).
That requires that voting is made easily and readily available. Something not true across much of the US since there is a party that historically does better when fewer people vote. So they do everything they can to prevent people from voting as much as possible (legally or not). Things like shortening hours the polls are open, or removing polling locations entirely, even making it so there’s only 1 location for an entire county with millions of people. Or not allowing people to vote after the polls close, even if they are already in line. And purging voter rolls days before the election so people have no idea they’re no longer registered to vote.
Not to mention that while employers are usually required to give you time to vote, the requirement is often only an hour or two, while the lines at the polls can be multiple hours long. And that doesn’t take into account people having to work multiple part-time jobs where neither is required to give that time because there should be off hours to vote, but with the other job/jobs that time doesn’t actually exist.
And? Our bureaucracy is the way it is by design, to favor slavers.
Ok I do my job and mail it back early. But the postal system doesn’t drive it over quickly enough and it doesn’t get there in time. So my vote doesn’t count? I did my job. So why should my vote not count? As long as I do my job and it’s postmarked by a certain date, my vote should count.
we have postal votes in Australia and the closing date for them to be received is 2 weeks after polls close.