As the U.S. bites its collective nails waiting for a conclusive result in the presidential race, it may be difficult to view the 2020 election as a success. Close elections in polarized societies place great stress on democracy. After all, no matter who eventually wins, nearly half the country will be disappointed, perhaps even outraged, by the result. But from the perspective of election administration, the past week has been a surprising success.
The smooth administration of the 2020 election is all the more impressive given the unprecedented challenges posed by the pandemic. Earlier this year, we saw meltdowns in election administration in the presidential primaries. During the Wisconsin primary, Milwaukee closed 97% of its polling places. New York City ended up disqualifying 20% of its primary absentee ballots over problems with postmarks, signatures and mail processing. The possibility that there would be too few polling places, supply-chain disruptions for voting equipment and poll-worker shortages loomed over the general election.
But none of it materialized in the early voting period or on Election Day itself. The election wasnt perfect; in some places, there were unacceptably long lines, voting machine outages and problems with the electronic poll books used to check in voters. Some underserved communities and communities of color struggled with closed or understaffed polling places. Still, as of now, we know of no major failure of election administration that cast the legitimacy of the outcome into question.
One key mark of the elections success was its record turnout. Millions of ballots remain to be counted, but the number of people who votedas a percentage of eligible voterswas greater than it has been since 1900. More than 100 million Americans cast ballots earlyeither through the mail or in personand 50 million more votes will be counted before the election is over.
On Election Day, we saw fewer problems than in any recent election. Poll workers, many of them elderly, braved the pandemic and showed up in large numbers, and polling places were rarely crowded.
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