Ross: The perception of election theft can change if we only release the final results

In a matter of hours, it will be safe to allow young children near the TV again. All we have to do now – is get through the ballot count.

Are you a little nervous about that? Well, we could calm things down with one simple change. Don’t give out the score until the game is over, and stop releasing partial results.

More from Dave Ross: With 8,000 challenged ballots, don’t have a sloppy signature

An election shouldn’t be treated like a football game or a horse race because it is neither.

There is no race going on; the race is over, and it’s baked into the ballots. What begins tonight is nothing but a tabulation exercise.

It can be exciting – yes – but there is no actual race going on! Nothing is happening that would make one candidate or the other pull ahead in the final stretch. The decision’s been made – we’re just waiting to find out what it is.

So how about in the future, we only release the final results.

Then there could be no election stealing or even the illusion of election theft. Because to steal an election, the election stealers have to know who’s losing, so they know which races to steal.

But if no one has an inkling of the actual vote until the final winner is announced – the crooks are out of luck.

That would solve the problem that fuels all this mistrust – when you see your favorite candidate up by ten thousand votes and suddenly down by two thousand votes – and you think, ‘aha! There’s the illegal ballot dump!’ But in fact, nothing has changed. Those votes were already cast. You’re just reacting to arithmetic.

So wait until all the votes are in, until all the ballot challenges are settled, until all the fraud lawsuits have been filed, until the audits are done, and then announce the results.

Yes – under this system, lawsuits alleging fraud would have to be filed before the results are announced—no more lawsuits based just on who won. You’d have to present actual evidence of fraud.

And if this takes a month– it takes a month!

Considering we’ve been embroiled in this election theft issue for six years now – what’s a month?

Listen to Seattle’s Morning News with Dave Ross and Colleen O’Brien weekday mornings from 5 – 9 a.m. on KIRO Newsradio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.

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