Reply #5: Having been involved in reporting numbers to the AP, I can say that sometimes things change without

[Brickbat]

a nefarious reason. There are massive amounts of people -- the vast majority of them volunteers -- involved in this kind of work, and it's unrealistic to expect every one of them to work at 100 percent efficiency long into the night. A stack gets placed in the wrong pile, a number is sent to the state without rechecking, and believe me, the person who screws up feels like absolute shit when they realize what they've done and they go and correct it.

It's a messy process, and one that will get much more scrutiny in the coming years. People should probably be ready to fight against continuing efforts to privatize the entire process -- I can see people talking about cornerstore voting outlets like it's the most natural thing in the world. But I'll take messy, transparent, and staffed by my neighbors volunteering over a business any day.