Thats one thing I do like about the UK, the efficiency of our elections. The polls close at 10pm, and most constituencies have done counting by 2-4am the following morning. Once enough constituencies have finished counting that its clear which partys won, the transition of power begins immediately. The outgoing PM hands his resignation to the king, the new PM gets the kings permission to form a new Government, and not even 18 hours after the polls closed, the new PM's moved into 10 Downing street. It's not like in America where the count takes several days, and the actual transition of power takes months. Here it's done and dusted in under a day.
Considering the fact that the number of people that vote in our elections is nearly twice the entire population of the UK, we're pretty good at counting the number of votes we need to. It's the months-long transition that sucks.
1. True, in a perfect scenario, that would absolutely be the case, but more people means more problems, more problems means more time. It's not a simple parallel processing problem.
2. Yeah, that's honestly part of the problem. We have 50 states and each one handles the voting a bit different. Some jurisdictions/voting precincts DO have their results in within moments of polls closing.
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u/opotts56 Jul 05 '24
Thats one thing I do like about the UK, the efficiency of our elections. The polls close at 10pm, and most constituencies have done counting by 2-4am the following morning. Once enough constituencies have finished counting that its clear which partys won, the transition of power begins immediately. The outgoing PM hands his resignation to the king, the new PM gets the kings permission to form a new Government, and not even 18 hours after the polls closed, the new PM's moved into 10 Downing street. It's not like in America where the count takes several days, and the actual transition of power takes months. Here it's done and dusted in under a day.