What’s the rush? Elections don’t need to be decided the same day

Thankfully, the days when all voters had to go to the polls have ended. Now many ballots arrive by mail, or get dropped off at polling sites. It takes time to do a careful count of these paper ballots.

So can we please retire the mindset that an election must be decided on Election Day? After all, the general election takes place at the beginning of November. The president, Representatives, and Senators don’t take office until January. We can afford a little extra time to make sure everybody’s vote is counted.

A good example of taking the time to make an accurate vote count occurred in the US Senate election in Arizona in 2018. At the close of Election Day, about 1.7 million votes had been tabulated, and Martha McSally (Republican) was ahead of Kyrsten Sinema (Democrat) by a tiny fraction (about 9,000 votes). However, more than 650,000 paper ballots remained to be counted. Calmly and patiently, for 10 days, workers tabulated these outstanding ballots. They reported updated results at the end of each day. And Kyrsten Sinema emerged the clear winner (by about 55,000 votes).

During those 10 days, the world didn’t come to an end. The two candidates stayed calm. As the Democratic candidate pulled ahead, Republicans tried to file a suit to stop the ballot count, but it was quickly tossed out of court as baseless. The ballot tabulation process in Arizona is well established and battle-tested, and an outstanding example of democracy at work.

So let’s stop thinking of ongoing ballot counting as “slow.” It’s just the way it works now. There should be no rush to declare a winner and no pressure on a candidate to make a concession speech or phone call. When something is this important, it’s worth the wait for the hard working ballot counters to finish their job.