{"id":61339,"date":"2020-11-06T03:00:44","date_gmt":"2020-11-06T08:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=61339"},"modified":"2021-01-02T10:55:55","modified_gmt":"2021-01-02T15:55:55","slug":"the-inability-of-election-authorities-to-do-something-as-simple-as-gather-and-count-votes-is-undermining-americans-faith-in-the-constitutional-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2020\/11\/06\/the-inability-of-election-authorities-to-do-something-as-simple-as-gather-and-count-votes-is-undermining-americans-faith-in-the-constitutional-system\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;[T]he inability of election authorities to do something as simple as gather and count votes is undermining Americans\u2019 faith in the constitutional system&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There have been many accusations of ballot fraud since the polls closed in the recent US federal election &mdash; not helped by Joe Biden&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Kinsley_gaffe\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Kinsley gaffe<\/a> about creating the &#8220;most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics&#8221; &mdash; but that&#8217;s not the only thing holding up the process of determining who won say <a href=\"https:\/\/fee.org\/articles\/government-cant-count-ballots-how-can-it-possibly-manage-a-pandemic-or-our-health-care\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Jon Miltimore and Dan Sanchez<\/a>:<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_61340\" style=\"width: 859px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Polling-place-Vote-here-by-Scott-Beale-CC-BY-NC-ND-2.0.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-61340\" src=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Polling-place-Vote-here-by-Scott-Beale-CC-BY-NC-ND-2.0-849x640.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"849\" height=\"640\" class=\"size-large wp-image-61340\" srcset=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Polling-place-Vote-here-by-Scott-Beale-CC-BY-NC-ND-2.0-849x640.jpg 849w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Polling-place-Vote-here-by-Scott-Beale-CC-BY-NC-ND-2.0-480x362.jpg 480w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Polling-place-Vote-here-by-Scott-Beale-CC-BY-NC-ND-2.0-150x113.jpg 150w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Polling-place-Vote-here-by-Scott-Beale-CC-BY-NC-ND-2.0-768x579.jpg 768w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Polling-place-Vote-here-by-Scott-Beale-CC-BY-NC-ND-2.0.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 849px) 100vw, 849px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-61340\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">&#8220;Polling Place Vote Here&#8221;<span> by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/27403767@N00\">Scott Beale<\/a><\/span> is licensed under <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-nd\/2.0\/?ref=ccsearch&#038;atype=html\" style=\"margin-right: 5px;\">CC BY-NC-ND 2.0<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-nd\/2.0\/?ref=ccsearch&#038;atype=html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" style=\"display: inline-block;white-space: none;margin-top: 2px;margin-left: 3px;height: 22px !important;\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"height: inherit;margin-right: 3px;display: inline-block;\" src=\"https:\/\/search.creativecommons.org\/static\/img\/cc_icon.svg?image_id=ea2f103b-41c0-4698-8b41-ca91fd1f915e\" \/><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"height: inherit;margin-right: 3px;display: inline-block;\" src=\"https:\/\/search.creativecommons.org\/static\/img\/cc-by_icon.svg\" \/><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"height: inherit;margin-right: 3px;display: inline-block;\" src=\"https:\/\/search.creativecommons.org\/static\/img\/cc-nc_icon.svg\" \/><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"height: inherit;margin-right: 3px;display: inline-block;\" src=\"https:\/\/search.creativecommons.org\/static\/img\/cc-nd_icon.svg\" \/><\/a><\/p><\/div>\n<blockquote><p>Elections are a nasty business, but sometimes they can be clarifying.<\/p>\n<p>We don\u2019t yet know who won the US presidential election, and we may not for days or weeks to come. This stems largely from the ineptitude Americans witnessed on Election Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>It wasn&#8217;t just the fact that pollsters once again <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/ideas\/archive\/2020\/11\/polling-catastrophe\/616986\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">failed disastrously<\/a>, or that networks <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Nate_Cohn\/status\/1323851008338993153\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">fumbled<\/a> their election coverage.<\/p>\n<p>The bigger issue is that America&#8217;s governing bodies look incapable of managing something as simple as a vote, something Americans have managed to do efficiently for centuries without the benefit of computers, digital communication, and mass transportation.<\/p>\n<p>As an American, I find this a tad embarrassing. As the journalist Glenn Greenwald <a href=\"https:\/\/greenwald.substack.com\/p\/the-us-inability-to-count-votes-is?r=170nj&#038;utm_campaign=post&#038;utm_medium=email&#038;utm_source=twitter\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">observed Wednesday<\/a>, countries with far fewer resources and less advanced technology regularly manage to hold speedy, efficient elections. This is something the US failed to do on Tuesday, Greenwald noted.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>The most prosperous country in the world cannot manage to do something as simple as <em>collect and count ballots<\/em>. Think about that for just a moment.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, this incompetence carries consequences that are quite real. Americans are beginning to lose faith in the integrity of elections. I&#8217;m not just talking about voters in the fever swamps of Twitter.<\/p>\n<p>Many impressive journalists, thinkers, and students of various political stripes have expressed alarm at what they witnessed in the last 24 hours.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There have been many accusations of ballot fraud since the polls closed in the recent US federal election &mdash; not helped by Joe Biden&#8217;s Kinsley gaffe about creating the &#8220;most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics&#8221; &mdash; but that&#8217;s not the only thing holding up the process of determining [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,84,53,13],"tags":[188,194,1406],"class_list":["post-61339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bureaucracy","category-government","category-politics","category-usa","tag-electionwatch","tag-fraud","tag-joebiden"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-fXl","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61339"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61342,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61339\/revisions\/61342"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}