The reasons for the slow vote count in the US elections

Employees check ballot papers for errors before they are processed by the Los Angeles County, California Registrar.

Father

The United States, and with it the world, is awaiting the announcement of the winner of the US presidential election, while the counting of votes proceeds slowly.

Polling results are updated at a frequency of no more than a few thousand votes each time.

Therefore, a question arises: Why does the vote count take so long?

"Speed ​​is fantastic," says one Georgia state election official, Gabrielle Sterling. "We appreciate speed, but we value accuracy more."

Fears of the spread of the "Covid-19" pandemic prompted many states to encourage voters to vote by mail, for the first time.

And many states found themselves faced with a massive mail order of ballots, numbering 70 million, out of more than 150 million votes.

The postal service, which is understaffed and under equipment, is also delaying the process.

To prepare for the influx of cards, some states have extended the grace period for postal ballots, after Election Day on November 3.

Sorting out postal ballots is cumbersome.

In many states, cards must be verified by comparing the voter's signature on the external envelope with the signature recorded in the database.

The cards, which are received after the election day, have their postmark checked to ensure that they are sent in a timely manner.

Many centers are equipped with devices that can do the initial work, but rejected cards may be many and must be manually reviewed.

Then the cards must be removed from the envelopes, and in many states they are in "(internal) privacy-sensitive circumstances," and collected before being passed through the voting counters.

And if the counters fail to read the cards, they are verified, and then passed manually, in the presence of more than one official who oversees the accuracy of the process.

Other problems may occur that hinder screening.

In South Carolina, a county had to manually sort all 14,600 votes, due to a typing error that prevented the devices from being able to read them.

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