(Thanks, T. :)

Reader Tony writes:

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Re: Reader: 'Here is the bottom line concernin....

I am an Australian, so I really don't have a dog in this fight.

But the U.S. Electoral College would appear to be a kind of umpire, so that any dispute or irregularity can be decided by someone supposedly very knowledgeable, trustworthy, and NEUTRAL.

You may not always agree with the umpire, but without such an authority to finally rule, competitive sport would be in total chaos.

We do not have an Electoral college in Australia, but we do have some very restrictive laws about compulsory voting and we have paper ballots that are first electronically scanned (for a quick result) and then hand counted which is very closely watched by representatives of the major political parties.

The paper ballots are physically watched 24 hrs by representatives of the major political parties and tampering or vote stuffing is impossible.

Every few years the government send around someone to check every household in the nation to update and correct the electoral roles.

How many people live here, what are their ages.... yes that is what I have here.

No dead people or illegal immigrants can vote in Australia. Its all very closely scrutinized and very open to scrutiny by anyone. Everyone must vote, if you don't its an $80.00 fine.
The number of votes counted must equal the number of voters on the electoral roll.

Sometimes an election result can be a surprise, but mostly the professionals that carry out phone polling or exit polling come out pretty close to what the eventual result turns out to be.

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