Reply #15: I believe this is an urban myth [View All]

[TahitiNut]

All votes are tallied by law, I believe, in every state. Each state's election authority is required to certify the complete count of votes by a date certain. I do not believe there is any exception to this. Remember, when you say "it is a close election" ... just which of the many elections on a ballot do you think this would mean?

I think this urban myth may have begun as a result of Election 2000 ... where reichbots have speciously claimed that absentee ballots weren't counted and (they contend) Gore probably didn't get the plurality of popular votes. This is total reichbot hogwash, imho.


On edit: Here's some background to this myth

All absentee ballots that are returned to the county elections office by 8pm on election day are counted. After the 2000 election a popular radio program host suggested on air that absentee ballots in California are not counted unless the contest is close, and unfortunately this piece of misinformation ended up being repeated to the point where many people became concerned that their absentee votes had not been counted.

If you have heard that not all absentee ballots are counted in California, rest assured that this is not the case. All votes legally cast in this state are counted, regardless of whether they were cast at the polling place or submitted via mail through the absentee voting process. It may take a little longer to incorporate all of the absentee votes into the final election results, but they are definitely figured into the tally.

http://www.calvoter.org/questions.html#counted