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November 7

Declaring the result in the states

Why is the number of votes already counted in each state known and announced before the final result is officially announced? It seems that there is a running total of votes counted, thereby enabling one to say that one candidate is in the lead and the other one needs X amount of votes to catch up. It would be better if nothing was announced until all votes had been counted, as in UK parliamentary constituencies. --Viennese Waltz 09:38, 7 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Americans are impatient and don't like yielding to authority. A parallel would be American football vs. soccer, where Americans want to know exactly how much time is left on the clock, while soccer fans are content with only the officials knowing the exact remaining time. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:44, 7 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Even better, keep everything under wraps until Inauguration Day, with a big President-Reveal party: and your President for the next four years is – [presentator fumbles opening envelope and taking out card, followed by a suspenseful pause while presentator gazes at the card] .... --Lambiam 11:54, 7 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

And watch out, if the presenter is Steve Harvey. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:36, 7 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think especially in Commonwealth countries, it's actually fairly common that counting first happens in each voting place, and the results announced as they are completed. It makes it easier to spread the count around so it can happen faster, but also ensures you have a count before you move ballot boxes around. Indeed I'm fairly sure some recommend this as way to reduce fraud and instill confidence, see e.g. Electoral fraud#Transparency and [1]

If you do have to count in one place and if you can prepare some for counting before hand e.g. for postal ballots, I don't think it's that uncommon if you likewise announce initial results e.g. [2] and Elections in New Zealand#Vote-counting and announcement.

An additional issue is that allowing monitors/observers including representatives from the parties or candidates to observe the count is again one way to try and reduce fraud. If your counting is going on for days, this likely means the observers are going home etc. So either you forbid them from revealing anything about the ongoing count which can results in several concerns, especially in how it may restrict them discussing concerns about what they observed. Or you don't restrict them. This means they may be revealing unofficial counts which sources pick up.

But if this is all you have, this this can lead to false claims. If instead you publish ongoing preliminary information, you make it harder for such fake numbers to spread. Indeed getting back to the earlier point, the observers can compare what they observed to what you publish, and raise concerns if it's different, or be satisfied there doesn't seem to be anything untoward if it isn't. (Although [3] does suggest simply relying on the media or political parties but note this is of results you've at least written down in the voting place. Note it does suggest a minimum of once daily.)

There is the famous case of the 2019 Bolivian general election where their website suddenly stopped updating. While there's some dispute over whether there was definitive evidence of fraud, it seems clear that the decision to stop updating their website and for reasons which people found questionable (even if official results were beginning to be published, it still took 24 hours+ for more info) greatly affected confidence in the results.

Of course as shown in the current US cases, differing trends which change the results can happen organically but lead to unnecessary concerns among the naïve.But the hope is those who better understand the issues can given confidence by explaining why things happened that way, especially if it was already partly expected. (It probably helps when you have the candidate benefiting in some cases and losing in others.) Also, I think it's clear the slow change has helped matters compared to if there was one announcement at the end of election night counting, and then another when all those postal votes etc were counted. And it's doubtful that no results for days and then suddenly announcing candidate X won would have improved confidence.

Nil Einne (talk) 14:18, 7 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The UK system (usually known by the gross misnomer "first past the post" *) is incredibly simple in concept, and results are always known on election night. But those seem to be its only saving graces. It often/usually ends up with winning candidates receiving less than a majority of votes, which seems inimical to most concepts of democracy. All one needs is to have more votes than anyone else. (* I call it a misnomer because there is no "post" to be first past. A post is a fixed point, and in this context that would be 50% of the votes. Yet that is not where the winner needs to get to. In a seat where there are 20 candidates, the winner could conceivably win with only 6% of the votes. What sort of a "post" is that? Give me a preferential system any day, with all its complexities and delays in some cases.) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:17, 7 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It could even be as little as 5.1% if the other 19 candidates are stuck at 4.995%. Since candidates rarely do what they have promised, elections are often mostly a contest in who is the best liar while appearing sincere. Selection by lottery from among the pool of candidates will then in general select someone who is less good in lying than voting would, which I think tends to work in the direction of a more meaningful democracy. --Lambiam 00:17, 8 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In Britain, all the ballot boxes are taken to a central location before being unsealed. That seems to me to be a very reliable way to prevent fraud.194.35.116.70 (talk) 17:31, 8 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

How can one be sure a sealed ballot box arriving at the designated central location is the same box as the one shipped from the polling place? Is the seal unforgeable? Also, I can imagine a box being prepared in advance of the polling so as to have an additional hard-to-detect way of opening it other than the normal way: a secret access not protected by the seal. It might not fool Penn & Teller, but this could fool the observers. --Lambiam 21:50, 8 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You can use a simple transparent box to make hidden openings difficult. But ensuring the seal can't be forged, or the ballot box simply replaced is difficult, especially when the nominally independent election authority is actually beholden or controlled by the government and likewise the police etc.

Having the seal signed or marked by poll monitors from all sides makes things a little more difficult, still not foolproof. These problems will be especially acute in large electorates where the polling places may be hours away including in rural terrain etc. So potentially the carrier vehicle could be stopped for 30 minutes somewhere without anyone noticing or it being obvious there's something suspicious in the time taken for transport. (And since voting tends to be during the day, the transport is likely to happen at night unless you want an even more delayed count.) The ACE link I provided above discusses the various methods that may be used to try and prevent fraud including how to handle ballot boxes. [4]

I should clarify that even the 1.0 version doesn't say that an initial count in polling places is definitely better. (Although the answer to this question come close [5].) But the advantages of a counting place (reducing opportunities for violence and intimidation etc) are IMO of most concern in a place with very major problems which are difficult to handle. Whereas the advantages of polling centre counting can arise in countries e.g. Malaysia where there is genuine perhaps earned mistrust of the electoral authority but where it hasn't reached the level where polling places may be attacked or people who voted the wrong way are placed at personal risk.

While it may be true that in the UK, confidence is high enough that you can use either method without concern, there's the question of when you reach that level.

Also in case it wasn't clear in my long reply, polling place counting should generally be faster, and this is especially the case in the modern era where you can have decent communication e.g. from satellite even in remote areas, but where bringing ballot boxes to one central place in a large electorate may take days.

Nil Einne (talk) 07:22, 9 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I have always assumed that the essence of the "first past the post" metaphor is that in a race, it doesn't matter how fast anyone is, or how close they are: the winner is the first to reach the finishing mark, and everyone else loses, whether they are behind by a fraction of a second, or by minutes. Likewise, in a FPTP election, all that matters is getting the most votes. And if you don't, it doesn't matter if you are behind by 1 vote or 10,000, you still lose just the same. Iapetus (talk) 09:51, 9 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The entire concept of “majority rules” is why some people (above) don’t like the idea that someone may win without a majority. That is, a fictional post has to be (why?) at the 50% line. That concept drives the fortunes of the two-party political system, but in reality has nothing whatsoever to do with the notion of democracy. Democracy is about freely choosing one’s leaders, not the manner in which it is done. DOR (HK) (talk) 01:48, 10 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Electional results in the U.S. are not released while the polls are open. What you may hear are exit polls which try to get a representative sampling of people who will admit who they voted for. With the computer voting systems used in many places in the U.S. the poll workers may not even know the numbers. In our precinct, the machine totals the votes after the poll closes and the data is then transmitted to both the city clerk and the county clerk. All the ballots (voted, unused, spoiled, provisional) are locked in a sealed container witnessed by two workers, one from each major party - without counting cast votes by hand. The memory chip and tape output from the voting machine are locked in a separate sealed container. These two sealed containers are then escorted to the city clerk by two precinct workers. Rmhermen (talk) 18:23, 10 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Just a pedantic note: Biden is NOT “President Elect” yet (and that has nothing to do with Trump’s lawsuits). Currently, he is only “President Presumptive”. He will not become “President Elect” until Dec. 14th... when the Electoral College actually elects him. Blueboar (talk) 19:17, 10 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

See "US again" above, specifically User:Baseball Bugs's post at 2:32 on 8 November. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:35, 10 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Verb question

I ran across this sentence in a Study Guide book about The Tempest by William Shakespeare. Here is the sentence: Their attitudes toward the search and the likelihood of finding the prince alive reveals a great deal about their characters. Is the verb reveals correct ... or should it be reveal? Either way, why? I am also having trouble parsing this sentence. Their attitudes is the subject. Right? And, toward the search is a prepositional phrase, serving as an adjective, to describe the subject. Right? What exactly is and the likelihood of finding the prince alive? Is that a second subject? Or is that a "second piece" of the prepositional phrase toward the search? I guess I am asking: what two words/phrases is the word and connecting exactly? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 21:42, 7 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

See article Small clause to start with... AnonMoos (talk) 21:55, 7 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Joseph A. Spadaro. I think you're right: this is an error. The subject is "Their attitudes". Attraction is found increasingly often, even in what one would expect to be careful writing. --ColinFine (talk) 22:07, 7 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The word and is connecting "the search" and "the likelihood of finding the prince alive", which are the two things - effectively a short list - that they have attitudes toward. It could be rewritten as Their attitudes toward the search and toward the likelihood of finding the prince alive reveal a great deal about their characters (yes I agree that reveal is correct). PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 23:06, 7 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps a draft version had Their attitude ... reveals ..., and the author changed the singular attitude to plural but forgot to make the verb agree. In any case, we all agree on the subject that the verb does not agree with its subject. --Lambiam 00:02, 8 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]