Who won? Mail-in ballots rules delay election results in key states.
By: Katie Wedell and Kyle Bagenstose (USA TODAY)
The zombie press must have brains. Your brain, to be exact. Somebody has to be to blame. For what isn't exactly clear.
Blame the states. Blame the voters. Blame the electoral college. Blame the Russkies. Blame Republicans. Blame Trump.
For God's sake don't blame the press. The press can't help themselves; they're only zombies and need to eat your brain.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
As Americans woke up Wednesday wondering who their next president would be, delayed vote counting in several states - particularly battlegrounds like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin - kept them from an answer.
More than 65 million voters this year cast mail-in or absentee ballots. But the laws in seven states prevented election officials from counting many of them until Election Day. Votes that could have been tallied in advance sat in unopened envelopes until Tuesday morning.
As counting drags on, USA TODAY asked election experts across the country why these states still wait until the last minute.
Those interviewed, including law professors and Denver's former head of elections, said no one reason drove the decisions. But most agreed on a few things.
The rules were written at a time when absentee voting was very limited and elections officials needed little time to tally the mailed in ballots. States also kept the ballots sealed to prevent tampering, especially in the days before electric scanning machines, said Edward Foley, Director of Election Law at Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law.
And doing so ensured against someone leaking the results early, a concern some people still harbor.
"Nothing good can come from early counting," said Bruce Ledewitz, a professor at the Duquesne University School of Law in Pittsburgh.
But other states - with both Republican and Democrat leadership - have for decades allowed officials to start counting those ballots early. And none has fallen victim to early leaks of absentee vote tallies, said Lawrence Norden, director of the Brennan Center for Justice's Election Reform Program at NYU Law School.
The machines that scan mail-in ballots don't tally a total until someone runs that query after polls are closed, according to Amber McReynolds, CEO of the National Vote at Home Institute and former director of elections for the city and county of Denver, Colorado. State laws set harsh penalties for any official caught sharing absentee ballot information early.
The overwhelming reason most states had these rules on the books was simply that they never anticipated mail-in voting becoming as widespread as it was this year.
"The main expectation was that almost everybody would vote on this one day," Foley said.
Typically, poll workers would be able to find downtime during Election Day to count the small number of absentee ballots, he said.
"That model," Foley said, "doesn't make any sense in a world of no-excuse vote-by-mail," which was available in 34 states plus D.C. before COVID-19 and expanded elsewhere as a result of the pandemic.
In Pennsylvania, where nearly 2.5 million ballots have been returned by mail, the count is expected to take days to complete. As of early Wednesday, some 1.4 million remain to be counted, and many of those from Democrat-friendly Philadelphia and its collar counties.
In suburban Montgomery County, officials said they will be counting ballots around the clock. Even still, a statewide total may not be available until the end of the week.
Pennsylvania Democrats introduced bills this year into the Republican-controlled state legislature to allow the early opening and verification of mail-in ballots.
Despite initial bipartisan support, the effort died after state Republicans demanded scaling back other voting provisions, such as the number of available drop boxes for mail-in ballots.
Ledewitz pointed out that Republicans quickly voted to allow all Pennsylvanians to vote by mail earlier this year. Ultimately, he said, counting ballots through the end of the week should not lead to any voter disenfranchisement, it will just take longer than the public would like.
The situation looks less dire in Wisconsin and Michigan, where overnight counting allowed officials to report about 95% of estimated ballots from both states by Wednesday morning. Both showing a slight edge for Democrat Joe Biden.
The experts said there is no reason for states to still stick with these outdated policies, except partisan politics.
"There honestly is no valid reason," McReynolds said. "All they're doing is adding stress to an already stressful situation."
Prior to this election cycle, mail-in voting wasn't a partisan issue, Norden said.
"Now it's become sort of a political football," he said.
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The press zombies want your brain.
Trump won't giver them back
Yeah, blame Trump. Blame somebody. Blame anybody.
Just don't blame the press.
It doesn’t make sense to you to blame Trump for claiming victory in a state whose gop legislature makes it illegal to count absentee ballots until after the time Trump claims victory?
Which is vitally important why? It's too late to convince people to change their votes. Minds are already made up.
The election is much, much closer than expected or predicted. Blaming someone or anyone is only a distraction that allows ignoring what has happened. Head meet warm sand.
The zombie press are eating the public's brains by casting blame that accomplishes nothing other than dodging blame placed on the press. Look, squirrel!
Which is vitally important why?
Is that a serious question? From a guy who is accusing others of having their head in the sand?! You are on a very short list of people who see coherent ideas in what you are spewing.
I've got no problem with waiting until election day to count them but waiting until AFTER election day?
That's messed up.
Well , in PA , the gop did block a common sense solution to avoid such a scenario
Recounts happen after election day. And there are state laws that trigger a recount.
The important thing is that the ballots are counted. After all, this is what democracy really looks like. Kinda has something to do with that life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness stuff.
I wasn't talking recounts. I was talking first counts.
IMO it is incumbent on each municipality to deploy the resources necessary to count the vote in a timely manner. We've known about the increase in absentee ballots this year for some time. They've got no excuse really.
Waiting until the day after or later is not timely in my book.
I take it you didn't read the seeded article.
Well, of course, recounts are off the table because that fact doesn't fit.
When facts don't fit just ignore them like a New York Times reporter does.
I read the entire seeded article and I am at a loss to understand what the press has to do with it ( as the seeder suggests).
Who turned this into a news story? Who is trying to use that news story to cast blame?
your words
can and will be used against you...thanks TG, i need a body guard like you, but, a very poignant point