This article is actually a compilation of information I’ve gleaned from several different reports the last couple of days, but they’re all ingredients of the same stew. Why watching the returns come in on election night this year should be more entertaining, more informative, less stressful, and more indicative of a result than the Covid debacle of 2020.
We’ll start here. Despite the media mass hysteria of potential mass shortages of election and poll workers in 2024 due to the threatening atmosphere, many battleground states used the dead zone of 2022-2023 when the election fraud hysteria had died down to recruit and train more election and poll workers than they had in 2020. This also makes perfect sense since 2024 doesn’t hold any of the Covid fears that 2020 did. So the return and tabulation process should run smoother this year.
Next. After all of the sturm und drang of the 2020 voting tabulation process, when multiple battleground state counting centers were subject to near riot conditions after Traitor Tot got the Big Steal band back together, most of the battleground states spent the last four years upgrading their election machines, ballot tabulators and software. Also, security has been increased and improved, with the counting center in Maricopa County, Arizona now looking more like a forward operating base in Afghanistan than a public government office in a metropolitan area. Counting should be quicker this year.
Let’s move on. Some states have streamlined and improved the vote tally process. For instance, in 2020 Michigan state law prohibited early or mail in ballots from being touched until the polls opened on election day morning. This clogged the drain. With Democratic leadership, they passed a law allowing early mail in votes to be pre-processed up to nine days before election day. As a result, the Michigan head of the Election Board is predicting that the state should be reporting 95-98% of their returns by Midnight on Election night. At least one battleground state may be called by the time we go to bed on Tuesday night.
Pennsylvania was even worse. Their state law prohibits early mail in ballots being touched before polls close on election night. This misguided law led to the Drain Clog of the Gods, delaying the final tally for like four days. The PA legislature had a chance to do a Michigan, but the GOP blocked it. But they did speed things up in PA by announcing that the counting centers will operate 24/7 until they have a final tally, instead of shutting down at like Midnight and reopening the next morning. Not an ideal fix, but every little bit helps.
And now for the 500 pound gorilla in the room. As steve Kornacki of MSNBC explained yesterday, in 2020, the Covid year, more than 103 million early votes were cast, and the majority of them were mail in ballots. Even under ideal circumstances they simply swamped the system, slowing the entire process to a crawl.
Just to give you a graphic example. When an in person ballot is processed, they’re removed from the machine or downloaded to disk, secured and taken to the counting station, then fed into tabulators or slotted into a computer for tabulation. Quick and clean. Every mail in ballot has to be removed from the mailing envelope, hand checked to verify that the signature and whatever security code is being used is on the security envelope, then the security envelope is opened, and the ballot spread open and hand smoothed to be collected and fed into the tabulator. Little wonder 2020 was such a nightmare.
Kornacki reported that while early voting may be through the roof this year, mail in ballots are drastically down. That one simple fact alone should largely clear the roadblock, and speed up the process for expediting the returns of all the ballots, since once workers complete the mail in ballot process, they can be used for something else.
Look, the race is still razor close, but with the changes I’ve just outlined, the 2024 returns coming in on election night should be quicker, more entertaining, and more informative than what we had to suffer through with the clogs and roadblocks of 2020. One caveat. In the battleground states end up within each states different recount margin, then as in 2020, the results will be delayed for days while the mandatory or requested recounts are conducted. But we’ll slay that dragon when it pops up. 3 more days. Keep punching and keep the faith.
I thank you for the privilege of your time.
I, being a southern white man, was at a party with a dozen black folks,(family), when Obama won. It was like we won the lottery because none of us, especially the black folks, could believe it. Several had family in slavery that the older folks had memories/historical knowledge of. I’m going to another one with many of the same folks. I expect the disbelief will rain down when Kamala wins. Can’t wait. Drinks and blunts in celebration will be passed around. LET FREEDOM RING!!!