Election officers counting ballots on the Allegheny County elections warehouse Friday in Pittsburgh. Jeff Swensen/Getty Photos

Final week I used to be grading a web based examination for my college students. We’re working with a brand new studying administration system at my college and I didn’t understand my college students might really see their grades transferring up and down on-line as I used to be engaged on their checks.

It was a mistake. Not figuring out how the numbers had been altering, what judgments had been behind the modifications, and once they’d simply get to know the end result made them frantic.

And as election officers work by means of the ultimate vote tallies of the 2020 election, I think about People really feel equally.

Lots of transparency with little or no context is extra nerve-wracking than it’s useful. That is true for examination grades in addition to elections. My college students can drop by my workplace hours in the event that they wish to perceive how I graded their exams. And I hope this explainer will present the same context to the best way we depend votes in the US.

A Donald Trump supporter faces a crowd of Joe Biden supporters exterior the central poll counting location in Philadelphia on Thursday.

Bastiaan Slabbers/NurPhoto through Getty Photos

From grading exams to counting votes

When my college students had been watching me grade, they may have seen their rating rising very slowly. This could make them suppose they had been doing very poorly on the examination, as a result of they weren’t getting very many factors per query.

Nevertheless it may very well be that I used to be simply grading essentially the most troublesome questions first. Afterward, after I began grading simpler questions, their grades would go up quick.

Counting votes is like grading runs of simple or onerous questions.

This 12 months, Democrats had been way more more likely to mail of their ballots. Pennsylvania counts in-person ballots first, and rural areas are sooner counters than city areas. So Trump voters obtained the scores on the simplest questions early. For those who had been a Republican watching the vote depend in Pennsylvania, early election returns made you are feeling such as you had been doing fairly effectively on the examination.

However as soon as the city mail-in vote began coming in, that modified. Philadelphia mail-in ballots had been like a future of robust questions. Trump’s rating began declining quick.

Importantly, although, this doesn’t imply the system is “rigged.” Truly, it means the system is clear to a fault. Often whenever you take a check, you don’t see the grading occur in actual time. You simply get the rating when the grading is finished.

The important thing takeaway is that it doesn’t matter which questions get graded first and it doesn’t matter which votes get counted first. The top outcome is identical. It’s simply that having to look at it occur can play along with your feelings.

Poll safety

Dishonest on an examination is much simpler than dishonest in voting. Let’s undergo the method to see the way it works.

Step 1 (elective): Mail in your poll

Many citizens had been skeptical of mailing their ballots this 12 months, however these fears had been possible principally unfounded. Put merely, it’s onerous to steal your mail-in poll. Election mail doesn’t get thrown in with grocery store coupons. Moderately, there’s a particular system only for mail-in ballots. And like most states, Pennsylvania makes use of the Clever Mail Barcode system for ballots, a system that works like a Postal Service monitoring quantity.

A Trump marketing campaign ballot watcher movies the counting of ballots on the Allegheny County elections warehouse Friday in Pittsburgh.

Jeff Swensen/Getty Photos

Though voters themselves hardly ever see this monitoring system, it’s accessible to native canvassing boards, and the Postal Service is required to supply updates on the development of election mail by means of the system. In actual fact, it was this method that alerted curiosity teams to a set of 300,000 probably lacking ballots – ballots whose bar codes confirmed them arriving at a submit workplace, however not leaving one.

The Postal Service assured a decide that the ballots had been safely delivered. And voters in most states, as in Pennsylvania, might test on-line to make sure their poll was delivered and forged a provisional poll if it had not. Questionable ballots are held apart, and county boards of election have seven days to find out whether or not the vote ought to depend.

Step 2: Confirm eligibility

While you vote in particular person, you signal for a poll and presumably present some identification.

This 12 months, President Trump inspired his supporters to vote twice – one thing he stated later that he did as a joke. That is dangerous recommendation. It’s unlawful in all states and might usually get you jail time. Probably, you possibly can lose your proper to vote in future elections.

In actual fact, one of many causes the votes in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, took so lengthy to depend was to keep away from the potential for unintentional double-voting on account of an error there in poll printing.

Importantly, ballot observers – marketing campaign volunteers who’re looking for his or her candidate’s finest pursuits – are watching each vote because it’s processed. That is true even in Philadelphia, the place Trump marketing campaign officers sued as a result of they claimed they had been saved “in darkness” on the polling place. They outlined that “darkness” as 20, relatively than 6, ft away from the canvassers tasked with counting the ballots. Trump’s observers sued and gained their 14 additional ft, however at no time had been ballots being opened in secret.

Ballot watchers connected to the campaigns can name out issues with a poll. If signatures don’t match, for instance, a marketing campaign’s ballot watcher can problem the poll.

The poll will then endure further scrutiny. The canvassers then decide about whether or not or not they’ll settle for the poll in query, and clarify their resolution to the ballot watchers. At this level, if one of many ballot watchers disagrees with the ruling the canvasser makes, she or he can make a remark of the small print of the poll, together with the title of the voter and the explanation the vote could also be incorrectly counted.

Campaigns can use these lists when they’re drawing up lawsuits in the event that they suppose the canvassers had been counting ballots that should have been rejected, or rejecting ballots that should have been counted.

Step 3: Depend the ballots

This half is simple. However it will probably take a very long time as a result of secretaries of state need actual numbers. In 2016 we knew Trump gained Pennsylvania by round 44,300 votes. However the outcomes weren’t official till officers had been positive the precise quantity was 44,292.

Step 4 (elective): Depend the ballots once more

Most states have provisions for computerized recounts if the vote could be very shut. That margin is normally 1% or much less of complete turnout. In Pennsylvania, the brink is 0.05% of the vote. That’s actually shut, however on condition that turnout in Pennsylvania exceeded 6.6 million this 12 months, that may very well be greater than 33,000 votes. A recount normally isn’t more likely to discover sufficient votes to vary the end result.

All that is to say, watching votes get counted is like watching an examination get graded. It looks as if a course of that’s altering over time, however it’s not. The votes are already there. They are going to be counted. If there may be fraud, it will likely be discovered. That’s why there are lawsuits.

It simply might take some time, and it could be onerous in your nerves within the meantime. Perhaps it’s best to look away till they’ve completed the job.

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Kristin Kanthak doesn’t work for, seek the advice of, personal shares in or obtain funding from any firm or organisation that might profit from this text, and has disclosed no related affiliations past their tutorial appointment.