Winners and losers in America’s election system

AMERICA is meant to be the greatest democracy in the world, but its method of running elections leaves much to be desired. And that was even before Donald Trump refused to accept he had lost the last presidential election to Joe Biden.

There are forces in Britain still not reconciled to Joe Biden being in the White House. They will be disappointed that Trump supporters did not do as well as predicted in the US mid-term elections.

In Georgia, the winner has to get more than 50 per cent of votes cast. None of the candidates did, so there will be another election on December 6 for a seat in the Senate. The incumbent Democrat, Raphael Warnock, garnered 49.4 per cent of votes cast to the Republican challenger Herschel Walker’s 48.5 per cent. About 35,000 votes separated the two men. A third party candidate, Chase Oliver, had drawn 2.1 per cent of the vote, and will not participate in the run-off election.

The Americans, for all their technology, do not appear confident of being able to count votes correctly. I would argue that if Warnock received one vote more than Walker, he is the winner.

Despite India being a chaotic democracy, losers seldom challenge results. The real test of a democracy is for losers to accept they are out. Trump’s refusal to acknowledge he lost in November 2020 suggests that US democracy – or rather the way it holds elections – is deeply flawed.