VANCOUVER, Wash. — The methodical work of tabulating the vote continues at the Clark County Election Office in Vancouver. After getting results from 220,000 ballots on election night, they are taking care of the rest. That is normal.
What is happening at some election offices in battleground states across the country is not.
The elections office in Detroit, Michigan is overrun by Trump supporters claiming foul play in an attempt to stop the counting. And that's not all, there have been rallies outside others from Nevada to Pennsylvania.
The chaos is happening in a highly charged presidential election year, where a pandemic had tens of millions more people mail in their votes.
“I sympathize with these states that have not had a lot of mail-in ballots in the past,” said Greg Kimsey, Clark County auditor.
Kimsey has been overseeing elections in the county for 22 years. Like many in Washington and Oregon, they've modernized systems to make mail-in vote counting much more efficient. That's not the case in many states, where mail-in voting is not the norm.
For them Kimsey urges patience, saying it takes time to tabulate.
“I have confidence in the integrity of elections administrators across the country. Every election administrator I've met is committed to the integrity and the accuracy of the elections process.”
Patience is hard to have when so much is on the line. But Portland State University research professor Stephanie Singer agrees that patience is what's needed. Singer is an election expert and also the former chair of the Philadelphia County Board of Elections in Pennsylvania, where the national spotlight may be shining most brightly.
She has confidence they and others counting the ballots will get it done properly, in due time.
“Boards of elections and the people who work there, they are used to having things thrown at them at the last minute and they are used to dealing with problematic situations. And they focus on counting the ballots,” said Singer.
But she says the notion that the race should be stopped before all the votes are counted is more than wrong.
“Every ballot that was submitted by someone who is eligible to vote, every ballot like that that doesn’t get counted is a tragedy, it’s an absolute tragedy.”