The Vote And Voting Problems, Pre-Election Day 2020
For the second time, the Texas Supreme Court on Sunday denied a legal challenge to drive-through voting in Houston’s Harris County. However, a separate challenge is still pending in federal court, with a hearing scheduled for Monday morning. The Republican plaintiffs are attempting to invalidate the almost 127,000 votes cast via drive-through voting in the Democratic-leaning county.
Q: One last thing — election administration is chronically underfunded in the U.S. which means states and election officials often don’t have the resources they need, which can create problems in their own right, like long lines, equipment that malfunctions, etc. How is that especially under strain this year, given the pandemic?
When the pandemic struck the U.S., election officials recognized immediately that the systems they’d used for years would need to be bolstered in ways they’d never imagined. They also knew that their budgets wouldn’t sustain the expense, and they appealed to Congress for help. States ultimately received $400 million in funding — short of what was needed but still significant.
Now, as we head toward the final days of the election and as an unprecedented number of voters have already cast their ballot, I’m hopeful that the election will be safe and secure. This is in part because of the important work of election officials, who have worked tirelessly to expand voting options and protect the health of voters and election workers. This is also because of public support. People have helped spread awareness of different voting options, voted early to reduce stress on election day systems, and even flooded election offices with applications to serve as poll workers.
Q: Are there any states where you’re tracking potential problems closely? Or if not, are there types of problems you’re zeroing in on across states?
I’m most focused on states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, where we expect unofficial results to be released over a longer period of time than we’ve seen in the past. But it is not because I expect any problems to occur with the actual counting of votes, or that slower counting should lead us to doubt the accuracy of results. My concern is that people might try to take advantage of the uncertainty that exists on election night to create an illusion of chaos or illegitimacy.
In some states, the vote count will climb considerably after election officials release initial unofficial results on election night. This shouldn’t be a cause for concern, though. Typically, this happens for three reasons.
First, there are ballots that were received on or before Election Day (both mail and in-person), but that election officials did not have time to count on Election Day. Second, in some states, there are ballots that were cast by a voter on or before Election Day, but did not arrive by mail until after Election Day. Third, there are provisional ballots, which are cast on or before Election Day but can’t be counted until after because some additional verification is needed.
In all three cases, there is nothing different about these votes from the ones that are added to totals on election night. They are all legitimate votes cast by voters on or before Election Day. The order in which election officials count them — or how long it takes to count them — does not make them worth more or less in the final total.
There is some speculation that a cyberattack or technical failure could disrupt the reporting of results. But if that were to happen, there is almost always a back-up in place that election officials can fall back on to verify results, including an opportunity to double-check numbers or correct any errors in a later step.
Accuracy takes time. But counting every vote — and counting every vote correctly — is worth the wait.