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| credit: Detroit News |
Political
post-mortems are blazoned across the CMM, but here at
PNG the message is: the election system is
still broken. Even
El Obamados recognized this fact in his Chicago victory speech. Citizens in Florida,
the perennial wrench in the machine, stood in line until after the candidates' closing speeches were made and audiences had gone home. Despite some improvement in Florida's voting systems they remain plagued by poor management, lack of capacity and systemic dysfunction. The most populous counties have the biggest problems. The fact most Florida elections are run by partisan supervisors contribute to the failure. Florida election supervisors defend themselves by point to the large volume in urban counties, the length of time taken by voters at the polls, and the complex ballots as responsible for the delays. In Miami-Dade County there were more than 405,000 voters on Election Day, another 237,000 who voted early, and 210,000 absentee balloters. The complex ballot was 10 pages long. Southern California has a larger and more racially diverse population, but does not have the same voting problems as Florida. Florida, with 29 electorial votes, will be a closely watched, contested state as long as the red-blue political divide continues. The United States is a federal system and constitutionally elections are a matter of state and local governments. However, it has been obvious since the 2000 presidential election that some minimum federal standards are necessary in elections for federal office to ensure full and fair access to the ballot box. Virginia and
Rhode Island also had long lines and confusion.
Chicago, home base for the President, was plagued with irate election officials, a crashed city election website, and delays in voting.
In Virginia, a swing state in which the presidential election was heavily contested, there were
long lines for voting. Some voters in River Oaks precinct of bellweather Prince William County gave up after waiting in the cold for four hours after the polls closed. Voting finished around 10:45pm. Confusion about a new ID requirement was blamed for some delays, but in Prince William only 22 provisional ballots were cast. Statewide, only 366 provisional ballots were cast out of the most ever submitted in a Virginia election. Bit checking for proper residency and filling out change of address forms took more time than in previous elections. Virginia is expected to play a prominent role in the 2016 election too. Contrast the situation there to Oregon, a blue state that votes by mail. Voting in person also takes place on Election Day, but there are no lines to vote. Results of a county's vote are known within a few hours of the polls closing.
