What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[crazy canuck]

No, that's not democracy. That's chaos.

I know that Canadians have somewhat more of a reputation for orderliness than Americans, but this is a bit much.  In my town we had a hotly contested election for town council - with 2 seats up, it was very close for who was getting the second seat.  It took a few days for all the mail ballots to come in.  The results are still listed as unofficial.  There is no panic in the streets.  No one is complaining.  As problems go, this one ranks really, really low.

OK, but we're not talking about town council elections are we?

It is odd that you live in a country that has 50 different sets of rules for how federal politicians will be elected. One country 50 different sets of rules.  That's just bizarre.

[grumbler]

I've never experienced in my own moving from state to state any confusion at all. In every state I've lived in, mail-in ballots had to be posted by midnight on election day. The chaos CC imagines is utterly absent.

[Sophie Scholl]

My take: Would it be easier? Sure. Is it necessary? No. Would the process be used to do something absolutely horrible and anti-democratic if it were changed these days? Odds are.

[Sheilbh]

Because posting the ballot is act of voting and Election Day is the deadline to vote.  Because it increases convenience to the voter.  Because it allows mail-in voters who are on the fence the same time to decide as live voters.

Yeah I think this is a fair point and slightly reflects different views. So in the UK you can have a postal or proxy vote. If it's a postal ballot it needs to be with the council on election day for the count which means there's normally a deadline a few days before the election day (although in most council areas, you can drop it off in person if you miss that).

It's a bit like Royal Mail announcing every year the last point at which you can send Christmas cards and they'll definitely get to their destination by Christmas.

And so what if it takes a few days to complete the count?  What's the big rush?  For Congress, there is nearly a two month gap between Election Day and the start of the new term.

I think that's practically true - but I think there is a difference of perception and trust matters I'm not sure, in the modern world (especially compared with other countries) the multi-day arrival of and counting new votes helps.

But the flipside is that I think in terms of practical democracy there are other issues. So the stuff that always slightly surprises me about the US compared with the UK is the short voting period, relatively few polling stations and that from examples I've sen they are themselves very often gerrymandered. So here polling stations are open 7am to 10pm because people work and there are different shift patterns so you want to maximise the chance people can vote and there are calls to move elections to a weekend (I think it's on Thursday because traditionally Wednesday was market day so people were often in the local town on Thursday). Similarly every election I find the "stay in line" stuff insane in a developed democracy.

I think because other reasons - like shorter hours, fewer polling stations particularly in certain areas (all of which I feel operate against specific types of voters) - create an artificial scarcity on voting. That helps justify the longer mail-in ballot process.

[crazy canuck]

I've never experienced in my own moving from state to state any confusion at all. In every state I've lived in, mail-in ballots had to be posted by midnight on election day. The chaos CC imagines is utterly absent.

I suppose you've just never lived in a country where peace order and good governance is the goal and so you just have no idea what it's it's like where there is one federal law, governing all federal elections 

[Sheilbh]

Re chaos and confusion - I'd add that the UK has slightly different voting eligibility rules for different elections (sometimes set by the devolved nations)

In national/general elections (set by the UK government) British and Commonwealth citizens lawfully resident in the UK who are over 18 can vote.

Local elections and the elections to the devolved administrations are determined by the relevant national body. So in England and Wales that slightly changes so as well as British and Commonwealth citizen, EU citizens with settled status who are over 18 get the right to vote too (pre-Brexit EU citizens in general).

But then for Scottish Parliamentary and local elections they've reduced the age of suffrage to 16 and anyone who is lawfully resident in Scotland regardless of citizenship can vote (there's been a bit of controversy over a new Green MSP who is on a student visa which they now need to change to something else because they don't have a permanent right to stay in the country but have become a parliamentarian).

Also Brits overseas lose the right to vote after 10 years until they return.

I lean a little more CC in thinking a single set of rules would be a bit more straightforward and I'd be inclined to make it so that it is more directly tied to citizenship rather than residence (though I get the reasons why not) - with EU and Commonwealth citizens I'd probably make it only apply if it's reciprocal so an equivalent British citizen living in that country has the same voting rights (which I think is true in the EU but not really elsewhere).