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California: the high-tech society that can’t (or won’t) count ballots

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California takes forever to count ballots. And there’s no excuse.

No excuse for the delays, no excuse for the Election Night leads that are mysteriously reversed as the mail comes in.

It doesn’t have to be this way. California’s “electile dysfunction” is not a necessary condition. It’s not about fairness, or access, or the size of the population. It’s a political choice.

A lifetime ago, I was an election observer in a squatter camp in a black township on the outskirts of Cape Town, South Africa.

It was the year 2000, and South Africa was holding its first municipal elections. After the polls closed, the election staff gathered all the ballots from the cardboard boxes and assembled around a table to count them.

There was no electricity in that part of the shantytown, and so the officials had to count by candlelight.

One by one, the ballots were counted by hand. Observers from the different political parties could demand to examine each ballot for any irregular markings.

The process took several hours, but was over by midnight.

I learned that even in a country with much of the population living in extreme poverty, ballots could be counted quickly and fairly.

Today, in California, it is the second day after polls have closed, and no one knows the final result. Not only that, we don’t know when we will know. 

Members of the public and candidates alike are left to refresh the results all night on various government webpages, and to scour the news for updates about when the next round of counting might be finished.

Gavin........

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