Reply #26: Sorry - I counted by your "3 hours" -

[Lurker321]

not by the (more correct) 45 minutes. But even with 45 minutes, as you said, it would be 10 days of counting, which completely unacceptable.

The reason why all the races get combined in the US is that it is very hard to bring people out to vote for a dogcatcher if there is no parallel race for a congressman or President. If you call an election for JUST a dogcatcher (or JUST a sheriff, or JUST a school board director etc) you will get a turnout of 5%, if that. That would give a HUGE influence to a tiny group of very dedicated people (of either flavor) in electing local officials. Not a very good scenario.