[vmh1928]

What many people outside the US may not realize is that ballots here may include 40-60+ races. The presidential race appears on the same ballot the races for Senate, House of Representatives (both national races,) state wide positions like governor, attorney general, superintendent of public instruction, state treasurer and secretary of state, and state mine inspector. In some states superior court judges are on the ballot for "retention" as well as State Supreme Court positions. Then come the state legislature races. Most states have two houses so a state-level Senate and House. Then come county positions, Sheriff, Board of Supervisors, Recorder, Treasurer, County Attorney, Justice of the Peace and constable. Then the school board races so you may have a high school district board and an elementary school district board. Then come the referendums and initiatives that either the state legislature put on the ballot or citizens gathered enough signatures for; these typically change state law but sometimes implement or remove new taxes. In 2024 in Maricopa County, AZ we had a two page ballot because the legislature added 20+ initiatives to try and implement laws the governor had vetoed.

In any case, the idea that these ballots can be accurately hand counted is absurd. In some of the hand count examples in the states mentioned in the article only one or two races on ballots with 10's of races were recounted and even those recounts were problematic.

What's really telling is that none of the people elected in 2020 or 2022 or 2024 at the state legislature level are calling for recounts of THEIR races. Machines are fine when the right party wins.

Machines are the only way to deal with a ballot with 60 races. There are other parameters that could be put in place to help improve people's faith in the system. San Francisco makes ballot images available via a web portal. It's entirely possible that an AI model could be trained to rapidly recount any and all of the races to validate the official results. Tighter ID requirements would be OK, it's 2025 and even people in the hills and reservations should have IDs.