It has been more than five
days since the polls in California closed and the country is still no
closer to knowing who the president will be than it was on Wednesday.
People in Palm Beach County
in Florida are claiming that they don't know if they voted for the right
person because of confusion over the format of the ballot.
Florida is in the middle
of an extensive recount because of the closeness of the national race.
In every election, there
are always discrepancies between the final results and the results tabulated
on election night. In an election as close as this year's presidential
election, there is no room for these discrepancies.
The confusion surrounding
this election is caused by the disarray that surrounds the election
process. Because of the size of our country, a presidential election
is a major undertaking. There are millions of votes to be tabulated
and precincts to be organized. This is no excuse, however, for the confusion
that now exists.
It is difficult to organize
a national election because all elections fall under the states' jurisdiction.
Even though the national government doesn't have direct control over
the elections, it can still provide support to the state governments.
One type of support the government
could give would be to provide an optional standardized ballot format.
A set, nationwide ballot format would bring some continuity to the election.
The states would be free to choose whether or not to use the format,
but if they did then the ballots would be the same from state to state
and county to county.
The national government should
also help the states find a reliable, standard way to count results,
and the people overseeing elections should stress accuracy over speed
when trying to tabulate all of the votes.
In a close race such as this
year's, there is going to be some debate about the accuracy of the results
and concern over whether the electoral process is still viable.
These are tougher questions
to answer but the small things mentioned earlier can be done easily
and would help bring order to the election process. Some of these simple
changes may increase the cost of the elections, but if they provide
order to the process then they will be worth every penny.
Editorial Board: Sarah
Loehr, Nick Giordano, Adrienne Kleman, Olivia Conroy, Nathan Cross.
