It Just Ain’t So

Part 5 of 6 – Be Patient:

It Takes Weeks to Count Votes!

 

Here in these United States, we hear so many things that popular culture, the media, and politicians expect us to believe about our elections:

 

  • The 2020 election was the most secure ever.
  • California elections are fair, honest and transparent.
  • There is no appreciable voter fraud or election manipulation.

 

Those who dare to express doubt are marginalized, demonized and even cancelled. But the truth is these dismissive mantras need to be questioned, put to the test. When they are, it will become apparent that they just aren’t so.

 

Part 1 of this series questioned the assumption that voting should be easy and convenient.

 

Part 2 of this series stressed that universal Vote by Mail harms election integrity.

 

Part 3 of this series debunked the myth that simply living here gives you the right to vote.

 

Part 4 of this series showed that requiring photo voter ID does not amount to voter suppression.

 

In this article, we expose the reason public officials who are not committed to election integrity ask us to patiently wait weeks before we learn election results.

 

Once upon a time, Election Day was just one day as per the U.S. Constitution. The vast majority of voters used to cast their ballots in person. Few people voted absentee; absentee ballots were limited to people who requested them, and generally given to only those voters with a valid reason not to vote in person.

 

However, laws have changed significantly in recent decades, in California and throughout the nation. To truly understand the reason that the media and politicians ask us to be patient with election results, we first need to take a step back.  

 

In a previous series titled On Your Honor, we described how California has implemented numerous changes to its elections. These changes work together to create numerous opportunities for manipulation:

 

  • Lack of citizenship verification
  • Inaccurate, outdated voter rolls
  • Universal vote by mail
  • Steering voters to return ballots through processes that operate outside of public view
  • The need to process millions of mailed ballots
  • An extended election season that blurs the deadline for receiving and counting ballots
  • Weak chain of custody for mailed in ballots

 

The demand that we be content to wait thirty days for election results must be seen through the lens of these changes. The need to process millions of mailed ballots, blurred deadlines for receiving and processing them, and weak chains of custody collectively enable bad actors to monitor incoming ballots, process ballots selectively, and fraudulently submit and count ballots – before Election Day and beyond. 

 

Processes that undermine election integrity take time.

 

In decades past, when most people voted in person on Election Day with a hard and fast 8:00 p.m. deadline, it took far less time to tabulate ballots and report results.

 

However, California has cleverly re-structured their elections with processes that require additional time - providing the cover needed to insist on our patience. Fortunately, EIPCa and an ever-growing number of ordinary citizens are wise to the game.

 

EIPCa advocates:

  • no more than 4 days of open polls
  • in-person voting (with limited exceptions to obtain an absentee ballot)
  • precinct voting with paper ballots (no ballot marking devices or machines)
  • a hard and fast deadline for receiving absentee ballots coinciding with the close of the polls.

 

Further, we recommend de-centralized, precinct-level, hand counting. There are far fewer votes to tally at the precinct level, and each precinct would then report its results to the county on Election Night. 

 

Taken together, these changes would restore integrity to election laws, regulations, policies and procedures while ensuring that citizens learn the results shortly after the polls close, as we could in days gone by.

 

Change is not always good. Sometimes it’s just change, and sometimes there is reason for suspicion.

 

The powers that created California’s current election system, with its incomprehensible complexities that have resulted in the need for thirty days after Election Day to announce results, extol its virtues, and claim it produces “the most secure elections in state history.”

 

But It Just Ain’t So!

 

Please stay tuned for Part 6 of this series, It Just Ain’t So.

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It Just Ain’t So Part 5 of 6 - Be Patient: It Takes Weeks to Count Votes!     ©Election Integrity Project®California, Inc. copyrighted 2023