What Is The Rush Of Calling The Election The Night Of?....

[global1]

Why is the election called so fast? Why should a candidate concede so fast?

Haven't we learned that all kinds of shennanigans go on around the country and polling is off that leads to all kinds of questions regarding the veracity of the results?

Shouldn't we take the time after election day to verify the results - maybe some standard audit - before the results are made official and a winner declared?

Wouldn't that be a sane way to deal with all the issues regarding rigging, fraud, hacking, etc.

I put this up for discussion here because it seems that after every election we run into these questions and issues.

An official audit of all results should be standard operating procedure before the results are certified and a winner declared.

And this should be for all elections - not only the presidency.

I think it would solve a lot of problems.

[HassleCat]

1. The media agreed too wait until the west coast polls closed.

After they called the 1980 election for Reagan, Carter conceded early, and this discouraged turnout in the western states. The media agreed to hold their projections until voting was complete in the west. Not sure when they dropped that policy. Probably about a week later.

[eppur_se_muova]

2. This phonied-up concern for the speed of the tally was all part of the Repug plan ...

it served to "justify" the drive to switch to untraceable, paperless, unverifiable, easily hackable electronic voting machines. No one expressed much concern for the fact that election tallies took a long time until the Repugs realized that if their guys owned the companies that made the machines (they do) that gave them a way to steal the elections. It has served its intended purpose, and never had any other.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

4. High time we exposed the Rethugs as the riggin cheaters they are... if we don't make a stand here, when will we ever?!

[eppur_se_muova]

6. People have been trying, ever since the Repugs tested the idea in Nebraska in 1996 ...

http://www.thomhartmann.com/articles/2003/01/if-you-want-win-election-just-control-voting-machines

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacking_Democracy is a good starting point.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_fraud is like a Christmas catalog for Repugs.

And don't forget the infamous Hack America's Vote Act: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help_America_Vote_Act#Criticisms_of_electronic_voting_machines

All this info is out there. You never see it discussed much in the media -- apparently, journos believe this sort of stuff just doesn't happen.

In a typical false-flag move, the Repugs have raised the specter of election fraud by suggesting that Dems control the voting machines -- an idea quickly debunked, thus (unjustifiably) de-legitimizing the whole topic in the minds of many:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/oct/31/sean-duffy/wisconsin-congressman-fuels-soros-voting-machine-r/
http://www.thecommonsenseshow.com/2016/07/22/clinton-could-win-because-she-controls-the-voting-machine-industry-and-these-six-groups-of-voters/

A **lot** of people have already done the heavy lifting needed to expose this fraud, but it just hasn't gotten the public's, or even the press's, attention adequately. What it's going to take, I don't know -- with the voting public remaining so obdurately uninformed, under-informed, and willingly misinformed, it doesn't seem very hopeful. Crime does pay, apparently, where electoral fraud is involved.

[tritsofme]

3. When there is no reasonable doubt to the election's outcome, further delay is pointless.

[global1]

7. It Seems Like There Is Always A Reasonable Doubt....

It just seems to me to be the smart thing to do - that is - take the time to verify election results and certify the winners and losers.

But we Americans want instant gratification - so I guess it will never happen.

[SickOfTheOnePct]

12. What good does it do to verify election results and certify winners

when the losers are going to cry that they were cheated and ask for a recount?

Not a single state was certified and finalized on election day or even the next day - that's been an ongoing process for the past 2+ weeks. They've taken the time carefully canvass the votes, correct tabulation errors, etc., and for what? So they can still be accused of cheating because they were open enough to publicly post those initial, unofficial results. They correct errors on unofficial results, and are accused of fraud.

Americans want instant gratification, but only if it results in the outcome they want; otherwise, Americans want to drag it out as long as they can.

[global1]

13. The Verification And Certification Process Would ....

eliminate the need for a recount as it essentially would be kind of a recount in and of itself.

Otherwise we'll always be questioning results of any election.

[SickOfTheOnePct]

14. Really?

What do you think WI, MI and PA have been doing for the past two weeks?

What needs to happen is for no precinct-level unofficial results to be released until they're certified as official - just release the unofficial results at the state level.

[Retrograde]

5. Ratings, which is to say, money

It's the media who are calling the elections. In many states - California, for one - the results aren't certified until all the final county tallies are rolled up: in our case that's 30 days after election day. We don't even have all the votes in on election day - mail ballots postmarked on or before the close of polls are accepted for 3 business days afterwards. And, yes, we do do audits.

Now if we could just get the media to act responsibly - well, we wouldn't have had Trump run in the first place.

[madokie]

8. Paper ballots

Hand counted is the way it should be done. That would pretty much takes all questions out of the picture

ETA: it wouldn't bother me if we didn't know the winner for days. As it is I'm a little skeptical of this system as it is now, Hell, LITTLE, a whole fucking lot is more like it.

Fair and honest elections is what Democracy is all about, without that its not truly a democracy. IMO

[SickOfTheOnePct]

15. No thanks on the hand count

I'd rather have a dispassionate optical scan tabulator than a partisan poll worker counting my vote.

[AngryAmish]

9. I would not be surprised if the Russians are hacking and rigging this thread.

They are sinister.

[Generator]

10. Is that sarcasm or not?

I don't even know what to believe anymore. God help us all.

[librechik]

11. Iron-clad Republican Strategy

stand up, Democrats! (sigh) won't happen