Why are wait times for election results so long in Washington?

Why does it take so long to find out who won a race on election night in Washington?

One of the biggest causes of suspicion amongst those who doubt the integrity of our elections is how long the ballot-counting process takes. Even if you have complete faith in the security of our elections, the long wait times can still be frustrating in Washington. What we used to call Election Day seems to have morphed into election week, or even on occasion, election month.

Snohomish County Auditor Garth Fell assured voters the time it takes to tabulate votes has nothing to do with foul play. On the contrary, Fell said the vote counting takes as long as it does to ensure it is accurate.

More on Washington elections: Why do dead people keep getting ballots in Washington?

Do staff schedules contribute to long Election Day wait times in Washington?

Couldn’t Washington get results faster if election staff worked around the clock to tabulate votes?

Fell said one reason they stop processing votes after the first count on election night is because “we want to make sure that our teams are continuing to stay as sharp as they possibly can.”

“Our staff have worked a long day, and we found that if you have them work through the night and you try to do shift work, the quality of work can suffer,” he added. “And so, our goal is to make sure that we have timely results, but they also need to be accurate and highly accounted for.”

Fell noted there are a number of factors that are completely out of their control.

“One piece that we can’t control is on-time ballots due to postmarking, and so that’ll continue to be a sizable number of ballots that come back that we get the next morning, even if we were to be working through the night,” he said.

Rantz: Seattle Black bloc activists vow to ‘express our displeasure’ on the streets this Election Day

You can listen to the extensive two-part interview with Fell below:

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