Patience is a Virtue

29 October 2004


America’s Inability to Tally Votes Stems from National Impatience

After the state of Florida bungled its effort to count votes in 2000, American democracy was the butt of more than a few jokes. Now that there are already challenges in court to the count, days before Election Day, the same scenario threatens to play itself out in certain key states. Any jokes this time around won’t cause much laughter. A second botched election just won’t be funny. Impatience is the problem.

To non-Americans, it is completely baffling that the most technically advanced economy in the world can keep track of how many dollars and cents are in the various checking and savings accounts around the count while being unable to count votes. In most other countries, the counting is accomplished in a night, possibly a few close races going into the next afternoon.

Part of the explanation is the more complicated nature of American ballots. In a UK general election, voters get a ballot that lists all the candidates for parliament in their constituency. There are 20-30,000 voters in each constituency, so the count can’t take long. In the US, there are multiple races (from presidential electors to county sheriff) on the ballot. The counting is complicated.

However, that doesn’t explain the hurry. The media caused some of the 2000 idiocy by first announcing Florida for Mr. Gore, then recanting, then declaring it for Mr. Bush. All of which happened without a full count of the votes cast in Florida. Exit polls and other psephological predictors are not the same as getting the count done, but the media relied on them in a rush to get the news out, before the news actually happened. And so the new solution is to use computer touch-screen technology, familiar to anyone who’s used an automatic teller machine. But without the receipt. So there won’t be anyway to confirm that the numbers that were recorded were right in the first place. But it will make adding things up easier.

The mad dash to declare a winner gets in the way of an accurate count. Any first grader knows that a math test is easier if there’s more time to count on one’s fingers. Electors won’t meet to vote for president and vice-president until December 13. The votes don’t have to get to Congress until December 22. America has the entire month of November to count paper ballots by hand and get an accurate count, but it can’t wait that long, and so there will be problems again. Perhaps when Iraq’s democracy is up and running, Baghdad could send advisors to help America count its votes in 2008.

© Copyright 2004 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.

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