Re: [OT] Why are some seats still not decided?

shawn <nanoflower@notforg.m.a.i.l.com> wrote:

Tue, 19 Nov 2024 18:18:03 -0000 (UTC), BTR1701 <atropos@mac.com> wrote:

On Nov 19, 2024 at 9:27:38 AM PST, suzeeq <suzeeq@imbris.com> wrote:

On 11/19/2024 9:14 AM, Rhino wrote:

Can anyone enlighten me on why 1 Senate seat and several House seats are
STILL undecided a solid two weeks after voting closed?

I get that races can be very close but surely two weeks should be plenty
to do counts and recounts.

Yes, sometimes takes even longer.

It didn't used to. Seems like the more we advance technologically,
the harder it is to have an election.

There's also the fact that the population of potential voters is
growing every year.

Uh, no, that's not it. That's dependent on the throughput of the scanners,
not the voting age population.

It takes forever to receive ballots cast by the military and American
civilians abroad. Even when mailed weeks in advance, they arrived too
late to be counted at the county clerk's office. It was deemed patriotic
to increase the odds that service members' ballots could be processed on
a timely basis, so my state changed the law for mail-in ballots. The
postmark deadline became day-of the election and they could be received
up to two weeks later.

In the March 2024 primary, newspaper editorials were screaming about not
being able to declare a winner in one very close primary. The difference
in counted ballots was so miniscule that the outcome was going to be
affected by the number of outstanding mail-in ballots not yet received.

AP didn't wait the full two weeks but did wait 1 1/2 weeks to call it.

Suddenly it was no longer patriotic to count the votes of service
members. All that was important were news deadlines.

I'm guessing that the delay is unprocessed mail-in ballots in races too
close to call.