EXPLAINER: Slow U.S. election count mostly for good reasons

slow pace of this year’s election count is fueling a lot of criticism, but it's mostly a reflection of laudable things: greater voter enthusiasm and steps that states took to protect ir residents from COVID-19.

ENTHUSIASM FACTOR

Even though count is t yet complete, President Donald Trump has easily surpassed number of votes he got four years ago: more than 70 million so far, versus about 63 million in his victorious 2016 run. Meanwhile, Democrat Joe Biden has gained some 73.9 million votes, versus 65.9 that Hillary Clinton got.

All in all, some 15 million more voters participated in this year’s presidential election than in one four years ago. Congratulations, America.

PANDEMIC FACTOR

Hoping to prevent long lines of people having to gar during a pandemic, states decided to make it made it easier to vote by mail, and refore safer for everyone.

States such as Minnesota, rth Carolina and Nevada extended deadlines for when ballots could be received. Nebraska and Iowa joined ranks of states that send an absentee ballot application to every registered voter. New Jersey and California mailed ballots to every registered voter, wher y requested it or t.

Millions of voters took states up on offer and chose to vote by mail rar than in person on election day. For some states, that has meant a slowdown in tabulation of results because votes received by mail often take longer to process than ballots cast at polling places.

EXPERIENCE FACTOR

Some states have done much better than ors processing mail-in ballots.

States such as Florida and rth Carolina learned from experience and allowed election officials to process mail ballots in weeks leading up to election day.

In Florida, clerks can start counting ballots 22 days before an election. In rth Carolina, beginning five weeks before election, county boards insert approved ballots into a voting machine, allowing for a prompt tabulation on Election Day.

But or states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, all with Republican-led legislatures and all of m swing states, made a conscious decision to wait so re would be counting of mail-in ballots prior to Election Day. Michigan did eventually allow election officials to process some ballots one day earlier, but counting of ballot still had to wait until v. 3.

PREDICTABILITY FACTOR

As state lawmakers battled over how to process mail-in ballots, re were warnings of what was to come.

Here’s what Eugene DiGirolamo, a Republican county commissioner in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, state’s fourth-most populous county, told Associated Press two weeks before election day:

“My guess is if we’re only allowed to start on Election Day, it’s going to be three, four, five days after election when we’ll have se things scanned and counted,” DiGirolamo said. “I am just scared to death that Pennsylvania is going to look really bad, especially if election for president is close and y’re waiting for results from battleground states like Pennsylvania truly is.”