An Indian way for USA

There was a time not long ago when Americans had to go to a polling booth to cast their votes on election day. Absentee ballots were accepted if they were received by election day, and they could vote early if the polling booth was open.

- BASAB DASGUPTA

 This was true whether the election was the presidential election or the midterm election or some other special national election. Furthermore, the votes were counted, and the election results were announced within 24 hours after the polls closed, except in some unusual circumstances such as the infamous George W. Bush vs Al Gore contest in the year 2000.

The situation changed dramatically because of the coronavirus pandemic. The goal was to avoid gatherings of large numbers of people in small rooms. Mail-in ballots were allowed and accepted not only for a period preceding the election day but also for several days afterwards if they were postmarked on or before election day. Since counting of mail-in ballots was done manually, this delayed the counting process, and the final tally was not known for days.

However, the most serious impact of this change was the fact that manual counting opened the door for both mistakes and fraudulent casting of votes. Determination of when the ballot was mailed and authenticity of signature on the ballot became big issues. In addition, there were reports of accidents whereby mail trucks carrying tens of thousands of ballots were destroyed.

Donald Trump's repeated assertion that the 2020 election was stolen from him and the ensuing Capitol riot on 6 January 2021, were sad consequences. This whole episode certainly raised questions about the fairness of the process.

In a country where one party dominates the political scene, a certain degree of error in tabulation would not be that significant. Unfortunately, America has been almost evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans in recent years and the elections are being decided by rather margins in a handful of socalled "battleground" states. Trump did not even win a majority of popular votes in 2016 and Hillary Clinton felt the election was stolen from her.