Advance Warnings
There are coincidences–and then there are some things beyond mere coincidence. You decide in which category this falls.
A warning popped up at the top of my Twitter feed Wednesday. With a bright graphic symbolizing campaign buttons and voting symbols, Twitter announced “It takes time to count all of the votes. It’s expected to take multiple days to count the votes, so the projected winners of some elections might not be announced yet. This means you could encounter unconfirmed claims that a candidate has won their race.” Then there’s a button I could tap to “find out more”.
First, I should hope that “the projected winners of some elections might not be announced yet” since election day is not until Tuesday. But beyond that, I thought it was odd that Twitter was warning me how long it would take to count votes this year.
Then yesterday, the Associated Press tweeted out something that was virtually identical in both language and tone, telling us to be patient because it may take days to count all the votes…followed by a series of tweets documenting how misinformation about elections was rampant on certain right-wing media sites.
In between, of course, the current President delivered a full throated attack on Republicans, and himself cautioned citizens that—wait for it—it could take days, weeks, to count all the votes.
Is it just me, or are they sort of setting us up for something? Do they know something we don’t?
I am not, repeat not, concerned about the accuracy of the vote in Iowa. Mail-in ballots are due when the polls close, not days or weeks after. We use paper ballots, and recount sample precincts. And we count votes that night, after the polls close, without hours of breaks in the middle of the night.
We didn’t used to have this much trouble quickly and accurately counting votes. The longer it takes, the more concern is understandably raised about the process.
So is having media outlets like Twitter and the AP parrot language used by the president simply a cute coincidence…or perhaps something else, something far less cute? I leave it to you to decide.
