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

BTR1701 <atropos@mac.com> wrote:

Nov 20, 2024 at 8:03:59 AM PST, Dimensional Traveler <dtravel@sonic.net>:

On 11/19/2024 12:22 PM, shawn wrote:

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

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.

Not to mention that one of the two US political parties is fighting to
_stop_ use of the advanced technologies for voting, wanting to force it
back to hand marked paper ballots that can only be counted by hand.

But when we did it that way, we had elections completed within days, not
months.

We've had mechanical voting for decades. I'm not old enough to have
voted on paper. We had punch cards based on old-fashioned pre-computer
cards for business machines. Today we've reverted to paper ballots with
that optical system used for multiple-choice tests invented after WWII.

The difference between then and now: Absentee ballots used to be
delivered to the polling place if received early enough, so the election
judges would count them as part of the preliminary count announced after
polls closed; outstanding absentee ballots wouldn't have made that much
of a difference.

Today, no absentee ballots are delivered to the polling places and they
are not included in the preliminary counts from the polling sites. They
are all counted at a central location with the totals added to precinct
totals later. If the results are too close to call that uncounted
absentee ballots can make a difference, then the race won't be called.
Also, timely postmarked ballots may be received in the days after polls
close. In my state, it's up to two weeks due to the time it takes to
receive ballots from service members stationed overseas. I don't think
California has a two-week deadline for receipt.

But it's been more than two weeks and I can't even guess why California
still lacks a preliminary count in several races, so your state wins the
race to the bottom.