How Did We Get Here?
Even if it is for a federal election, like for president, each state gets to set its own rules regarding how to conduct elections. It’s an appropriate part of the division between the central federal government and the individual states.
After all, for president, the only thing that counts is a state’s electors, for the electoral college…and how a state selects those is up to the state.
But if you are a state, and you have seen the issues that have come up elsewhere…why in the world would you sit back and invite a problem? Why in the world would you not seek out a better way to handle counting ballots?
In Iowa, we have a limited window of time in which early votes are counted. They have to be counted by election night, one hour after the polls close. That’s to avoid the appearance of impropriety of knowing how many votes are, in essence, needed to change the election day outcome and that very number of ballots mysteriously appears in the dead of night.
They also cannot be counted too early, to keep the chain of custody of the ballots, as we say in the law, as pure of possible…again, to limit the appearance of impropriety.
And when it looked like it would be a big turnout, the rules were tweaked to allow opening of the outer envelope of the ballot two days earlier than normal…the security envelope guaranteeing privacy of the ballot was maintained, but it a proper tweak to make sure the actual count was efficient.
So Iowa’s county auditor offices started counting on Monday and finished on time Tuesday. We knew the results of everything, even the closest race, within three hours of the polls closing…in an election with record absentee and record total turnout.
Compare that with a place like Pennsylvania. They didn’t start until the day-of-voting polls closed. Then they stopped. Then they started again. Talk about eroding confidence in the credibility of the count.
This is not about who may win or lose. It’s about not committing self-imposed errors that call the result of the national election into question.
