US Postal Service delays threaten to disrupt election voting, officials say

We definitely have enough resources to give everyone free IDs and record if they voted. We can even afford free public transportation for that day. We can afford not working one extra day a year.

We thought there was no legal way to do a lot of things that Trump did, yet he did them anyway. Turns out a lot of things we thought were "laws" were either regulations subject to repeal or modification by executive order, or just "guidelines" or "gentlemens' agreements" that were always open to abuse by anyone willing to cast tradition aside for the sake of expediency. It's ironic that only the conservatives are willing to do that these days.

Regarding provisional ballots, I have yet to see any evidence that double-counting is an issue, and if you cast one, there’s a toll line you can call per the Help America Vote Act of 2002 to check on your ballot. From my own State’s Secretary of State website (https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/voting-resources/provisiona...):

> The Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) requires each state or local elections official to establish a "Free Access System," such as a toll-free telephone number for voters to call or an Internet website that voters can access free of charge, to ascertain if they voted a provisional ballot at the polls, whether or not their vote was counted, and, if it was not counted, the reason why it was not counted.

Other than having to verify the ballot cast is valid in the county, provisional ballots are just counted during the canvassing process.

> and challenging the results is not straight forward, very contentious and political for no reason.

Election night lawsuits happen all across the country any time a campaign wants to challenge any election irregularities they come across. Yeah it’s political, but it’s also lawful and courts are setup to accept these challenges, often under an expedited process. This is as much a cornerstone of American democracy as the secret ballot, I wouldn’t get worked up about it like some do.

> All states should have immediate provable results with redundancy checks.

This would be nice but balancing it with the secret ballot and with the general distrust people have to rely entirely on computers which can be compromised and thus a need to retain the human accountability factor, we’re not there yet. Maybe someday.

My State has some more information on its own process here: https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/upcoming-elections/vote-cou...

However I wanted to highlight the following three paragraphs for you:

> Election results posted on Election Night are semi-official results based on the in-person ballots cast at voting locations on Election Day, any early voted ballots cast in person prior to Election Day, and any vote-by-mail ballots received and processed prior to Election Day.

> The complete tally of votes is never finished on Election Night as vote-by-mail ballots postmarked on or before Election Day and received within seven days after the election, as well as any provisional ballots cast, must still be counted. These ballots are always counted during the official canvass period in the 30 days after Election Day.

> While media outlets and others may “call” an election contest, or candidates may “concede” to their opponent, on Election Night or the in days following, these calls and concessions are based on the semi-official results and not the final election results. The election results are never final until the Secretary of State has compiled the official statewide results after all county elections officials have reported their official canvass of the votes.

I feel like people just kind of forget that the election is never technically finished on election night itself. While there’s a lot of emphasis on calling it for one candidate or another and the media usually gets it right on the night of the election, their calls are not the actual results, they’re the presumed the results with available information.