Michael Towle: “Official counting continues past election night. State and federal laws allow extensions of voting deadlines for military personnel and citizens living abroad. Absentee ballots and provisional ballots (required by law when there is a question about the voter’s status) often don’t show up in the first sets of reported numbers. Oregon, Washington and Colorado have a vote-by-mail system, which can slow the processing of ballots. Maine uses a ranked-choice system for its federal elections that requires a second round of counting if no candidate has a majority after the first round.”
“We can’t stop the networks from reporting the results that they have, but we can require that votes not be released to the networks until there is a reasonable certainty of the outcome.”
“Unfortunately, premature announcements result in questions about the validity of elections. If early reports differ from the more complete final counts, the urge to cry foul is strong.”
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