US election campaigns, especially for national offices like the presidency and both houses of Congress, are interminably long and absurdly expensive. This is partly a consequence of the fact that the date of the election is fixed (for federal offices they are held every even year on the day after the first Monday in November), which means that planning can be done a long time ahead. Furthermore, the almost complete absence of restrictions on the money that can be raised and spent (whatever flimsy restrictions there are are easily worked around) means that vast sums, billions of dollars, are involved, giving an outsize influence to wealthy individuals and organizations.

People in other countries are incredulous that elections in the US are run by the states and that each state largely makes its own rules, and these rules are determined sometimes by highly partisan state legislatures that seek to give an advantage to their own party. They do this as far as the law and the constitution allows but in the age of creepy Trump, they are sometimes willing to go over the line. In many other countries, elections are run by a central, largely non-partisan, body. The reason for the state variability in the US goes way back to the origins of US that required the 13 colonies that had been separate entities to join together to form a single nation. Since each colony had been operating largely independently of the others, they jealously guarded their autonomy as much as possible and thus gave as little power to the central government as they could. Hence we have this patchwork of systems. One argument in its favor is that it allows for innovation in that each state can be a laboratory to try out different ways of doing things and, hopefully, the ones that works best may be copied by others.

Non-Americans are also incredulous that elections in the US take so long to determine the results, even though computers are used for tabulating the votes. In many other countries, people use what seems on the surface to be a more primitive system, with paper ballots that are hand marked and hand counted and yet the results are usually available by the next morning. The reason for this is that elections in the US are rarely for just one race. They are for elected offices at all levels, from the president, to the Senate, to the House of Representatives, to county officials, city mayors, and to even smaller local bodies like city councils and school boards and judges. In addition, there are also votes to be case on various measures.

For example, my ballot had provisions for one vote to be cast for the presidential ticket, two for a vacant US senate (one for just two months to cover the remainder of the unexpired term of Diane Feinstein who died in office, the other for the subsequent six-year term), one vote for the House of Representatives, one for state senator, one for member of the state assembly, two for members of the governing board of the local community college, one for the mayor of my small town, two for members of the city council, and twelve for various ballot propositions at the state, county, and city level.

As a result, the ballots are very long. In my case, the ballot I got consisted of four pages, each of which was 17 inches long (twice the size of a regular sheet of printer paper) printed on both sides.

California has a system where they mail the ballot to all registered voters. The state also provides detailed information to help you decide how to vote. For example, the ballot I received two weeks ago was accompanied by a 142-page booklet from the state that told you how and where to vote and provided information on the candidates and the issues. The booklet consisted of 21 pages of general voting information, two pages of statements of the senate candidates (that was the only statewide office in play), 5 pages of thumbnail sketches of the propositions on the ballot plus a list of the organizations that support and oppose them, 50 pages of descriptions and analyses of the propositions, and 64 pages of the full text of all the laws behind the propositions, again with the arguments for and against them, for those who want to see the fine print.

In addition, the county I live in sent me my ballot plus another booklet of 35 pages, with eight pages giving general voting information, six consisting of candidate statements, 13 pages about the county and city propositions, and eight pages consisting of a facsimile of the ballot. I used the ballot copy to first fill in my preliminary preferences and then let it sit for a few days to see if my mind changed. Then I filled in the actual ballot (where I had to fill in 23 boxes) signed and sealed the envelope, and dropped it off in the box in my local city hall two days ago. So I am done.

As can be seen, voting in the US is pretty complicated but I have been impressed at the amount of detailed information voters are given (at least in California) to help them make decisions. I am glad that the ballots were mailed to me so that I can sit at home and think about the vote and enter them carefully. Doing so on election day, and filling in the many boxes while standing in a small booth, is liable to introduce errors.

So when it comes to tabulating the results, election workers have a complicated task, much more so than counting the votes for just one race. While I am sure it could be made better, perhaps people in other countries will now have a better idea of why elections in the US are so complicated and take so long.