First they will count the Trump and Harris votes that actually matter. Then they will quickly tally the rest of the ballots and easily conclude that no other candidate stands a chance, and then they will declare either Trump or Harris the winner.
Splitting the “other” category up into different third party candidates is a waste of effort since all of them will lose, and that outcome can easily be determined by tallying all the ballots not going to Trump or Harris. There are no 2nd or 3rd place winners.
In principle, under a First Past The Post system you can get vote splitting parties and those votes for those representatives should still be counted because if they got more votes than last time and are on an upward trajectory then those candidates can measure how well they’re resonating with their voters.
But with the USA’s FPTP and electoral college system, I’d agree with you, there’s zero point in counting those votes before declaring the winner because ultimately the electoral college comes down to red or blue which is the only thing that matters in US politics.
This is a shame because a private continent like the US could be the greatest tapestry of all flavours of political candidates and ideologies with debate and compromise if it wasn’t for:
The electoral college and FPTP making it into a two party system.
The hugely biased news media which has no obligation to report factually and fair.
That both sides (with the Republicans being the one that is objectively worse because of their abhorrent behaviour that’s somehow only gotten worse of late) vying for that insider trading perk and getting to control the worlds largest military and therefore dictate history.
I agree it could be useful for the politicians. That’s not the purpose of the groups who count votes though. Their goal is to determine who won. They are not there to tell the candidates if they’re on an upward trajectory or not.
Their votes will be counted.
First they will count the Trump and Harris votes that actually matter. Then they will quickly tally the rest of the ballots and easily conclude that no other candidate stands a chance, and then they will declare either Trump or Harris the winner.
Splitting the “other” category up into different third party candidates is a waste of effort since all of them will lose, and that outcome can easily be determined by tallying all the ballots not going to Trump or Harris. There are no 2nd or 3rd place winners.
In principle, under a First Past The Post system you can get vote splitting parties and those votes for those representatives should still be counted because if they got more votes than last time and are on an upward trajectory then those candidates can measure how well they’re resonating with their voters.
But with the USA’s FPTP and electoral college system, I’d agree with you, there’s zero point in counting those votes before declaring the winner because ultimately the electoral college comes down to red or blue which is the only thing that matters in US politics.
This is a shame because a private continent like the US could be the greatest tapestry of all flavours of political candidates and ideologies with debate and compromise if it wasn’t for:
The electoral college and FPTP making it into a two party system.
The hugely biased news media which has no obligation to report factually and fair.
That both sides (with the Republicans being the one that is objectively worse because of their abhorrent behaviour that’s somehow only gotten worse of late) vying for that insider trading perk and getting to control the worlds largest military and therefore dictate history.
I agree it could be useful for the politicians. That’s not the purpose of the groups who count votes though. Their goal is to determine who won. They are not there to tell the candidates if they’re on an upward trajectory or not.