In America, they do things differently – and rather strangely. For a round of elections that will determine how the rest of
Joe Biden‘s presidential tenure will play out over the next two years, the
US midterm polls that were held way back on Tuesday, are still being unfurled at a distinctly 20th-century pace. Nevada and Arizona are still counting ballot papers. For outsiders, the matter is befuddling. For one, the election determining the composition of the
US House of Representatives and the Senate – and, in many states, voters chose their governors – may look like too much stirring in one pot: a kind of chowder mix of our Lok Sabha and assembly polls, with bypolls and municipal elections thrown in. True, the federal nature of the decidedly not-too-united United States plays a significant role in this smorgasbord. But it still doesn’t quite explain why, for instance, the land of the CHIPS and Science Act is so suspicious of electronic voting machines, especially when memories of ‘dimpled chads’ – partially perforated ballot paper – in the 2000 presidential elections is still a memory.
Equally intriguing is the poll analysis that has gone into major course-correction since predictions of a ‘red wave’ have led to a ‘red ripple’. Much pre-poll discourse of Biden being punished for inflation, ‘stealing the (2020 presidential) vote’, fomenting woke culture now looks exaggerated. In the 2016 presidential elections, pundits had underplayed the Republican revolution. This time around, they seem to have overcompensated, giving the GOP more buck for its bang. Now, with results throwing up a more balanced mandate, post-mortem is damage control – low unemployment, backlash against the anti-abortion law in states, distaste for mad, bad and dangerous Republicanism under Donald Trump being trotted out as a ready explainer.
Meanwhile, with a run-off poll slated for December 6 in Georgia, where it’s been too close to call, and Pennsylvania expecting a re-poll ‘soon’ since voters re-elected a Democrat state representative who died on October 9, election night is now election month. In America, they do things differently – and rather strangely.
