Election officials from three significant swing states recently appeared on cable news to make justifications for why they wo n’t have the results on Election Day, despite the fact that this has been the norm in many much larger states and has been for decades.
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson was asked Sunday on CBS News ‘ Face The Nation how “quickly” she expects to get the results, and she responded, in part, by saying:” I would estimate, end of the day on Wednesday] November 6], as the best guess on how we’ll perform”.
Election officials in the post-Covid age are pushing the difficulties we saw during the 2020 election as the new rule even though there is no compelling reason for for a wait.
Due to a recently passed state legislation governing how elections are conducted, “every earlier vote and all first accepted ballots will have their effects reported by 8pm,” according to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who also joined the display on Sunday. That’s 70, sometimes even 75 % of all the vote totals may become reported no later than 8pm on election day”.
So why is it that Georgia is unable to release election effects on election day? The state” may be waiting for… outside ballots that come in not afterwards than Friday]that week,” according to Raffensperger, and those will then be the final statistics. And we’ll notice if that affects the total votes cast.
Why do Raffensperger feel the need to delay until the vote from what should be a sizable number of foreign Georgians are released? Whatever the reason, American voters, who are clearly accustomed to seeing results on Election Day, are left with uncertainty and inseparability as a result of the delay.
]READ NEXT: The Federalist’s 2024 Battleground State Elections Guide]
In pushing for normalization of difficulties, Raffensperger and Benson are also at odds with one another. Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt told CBS News ‘ “60 Minutes” on Oct. 13 that, in light of controversy surrounding the time between polls closing and “races being called”,” ]t ] he message is please be patient” as” counties are working night and day to count their voters ‘ votes”.
The advertising media also puts pressure on delays, downplaying concerns about an election administration’s incompetence.
We’re Likely to Understand the Winner on Election Night, according to an href=”https://www.newsweek.com/were-unlikely-know-winner-election-night-thats-ok-opinion-1971418″ target=”_blank” rel=”noreferrer noopener”>analysis by Aron Solomon that was recently published in Newsweek. That’s Okay”. The item argues “patience” is “essential in the modern political landscape”, and that while law for “decades” meant Americans could hear the results by vote day, this desire “has become an increasingly unrealistic standard”. According to Solomon, says are stalled by the widespread usage of mail-in votes.
But that excuse does n’t hold water. In a state like Georgia, the frequency of use in the 2024 general vote cycle may not be as popular as it is in 2020, which is when the election was called the night of the election.
In 2016, 241, 519 absent ballots were issued in the Peach State, according to Savannah Morning News. The 2016 contest was called by the Associated Press at 11: 33 p. m. on Election Night. The deadline to submit an absentee vote in the position for the 2024 election cycle is October 25, according to WRDW, who reported on Monday that “more than 200, 000 Citizens have requested an absent poll” for this election cycle. That’s roughly the same number of votes as in 2016, when we first learned who won in Georgia before nightfall on Election Day. In Georgia, more than 1.5 million absent ballots were requested in 2020, according to information from the secretary of state.
In a September article, Time Magazine explains” Why We May Not Understand the Winner on Election Night.” The article also echoed the assertions made in the Newsweek research regarding mail-in vote.
Then there’s Axios, which said the” 2024 vote may take weeks to call”, only like 2020. As Politico reported the day after the vote, 196, 000 votes were cast in Pennsylvania, making only 12 percent of the voting counted, as we all recall. Weeks later, President Joe Biden may be declared the winner after mail-in vote came flooding in, largely in Biden’s pursuit.
Election experts raise new alarms about ballot counting delays– and chaos – in battleground states, according to a recent article from CNN. The article asserts that despite first being in favor, the outcome may be a victory for a Democrat. Voters who are upset about the delayed effects are then labeled as helping to produce what CNN calls “false stories about election scam.”
What a change from just eight years ago, when disgraced reporter Jeffrey Toobin , said , in a short , New York Times documentary , about the 2000 election that” the one thing no one expected in a presidential campaign is that we would n’t know who won on Election Day”.
No one anticipated that in 2000 because, in the past, everyone had known that election results would be made public on Election Day except in exceedingly unlikely conditions.
The left and its advertising media allies are working hard to minimize concerns about delayed vote results, keeping voters in anticipation while officials wait days to release results that may shift days after Election Day as we approach the end of the election cycle.
These delays, while understandably engendering distrust in the electoral process, do n’t make you an “election denier” or a propagandist of “false narratives about election fraud,” by pointing out that there’s no compelling reason for such delays. You’re correct to believe that our votes are not being conducted as easily or reasonably as they should be, and that it does more than show that you’re paying attention.
For more vote information and updates, visit , electionbriefing.com.
The Federalist’s election editor, Brianna Lyman. With a diploma in global political economy, Brianna received her diploma from Fordham University. Her job has been featured on Newsmax, Fox News, Fox Business and RealClearPolitics. Following Brianna on X: @briannalyman2