Ok would you people PLEASE get your election shit together

[LiberalFighter]

22. The USA does not have just one type of voting.

There is early in-person voting. There is early voting by mail. There is voting on election day on machines. There is voting on election day on paper.

There are 50 states and 3,243 counties or equivalent counties. And many, many, many polling locations. Each state has different election laws pertaining to voting and counting the results.

Voting machines are likely the easiest to compile the results when they have both the cartridge and the printout. The election headquarters can enter the results when they receive them from the polling locations. But elections consist of more than one elected office on the ballot. At my polling location there were 8 voting machines and on my ballot there were 24 positions. There are 278 precincts with a total of just over 236,000 registered voters in my county. Votes for each office are tabulated by precinct.

Those voting by mail or in person on a paper ballot take more work as they are not counted immediately. Some states allow mail ballots to be counted before election day or during the election day before the polls close. Other states require them to be counted after.

There is a process that needs to be followed when counting the results from paper ballots. They need to first confirm that the ballot is from a registered voter that has not already voted. Then remove the secrecy envelope containing their ballot from the mail envelope and separate.

After they have been confirmed they are run through counting machines. In some cases they need to be tabulated by people and that would take even longer when there are multiple offices on each ballot.