In a rare step, 3 South Dakota counties are set to vote on counting ballots by hand

[BumRushDaShow]

40. Another big difference

In Canada, ALL Judges are "appointed". In the U.S., they can be "appointed" OR "elected". Federal judges are "appointed" but STATE/COUNTY/MUNICIPAL judges might be either/or.

Here in Pennsylvania, ALL of our judges are ELECTED (including the highest level - the State Supreme Court). We have "Municipal Courts", "Common Pleas Courts", "Commonwealth Courts", "Superior Courts", and the "State Supreme Court". We also have a "Judge of Elections" that gets elected for each "Division" (precinct).

That means you get ballots like this during years when they are up for "election" (to fill vacancies) or "retention" (to allow them to continue for another term) -




In any given year, I may see a ballot for Commonwealth Court judges that has 10 names and I need to pick 5.

You can do the math on the number of combinations and permutations of votes. And that is in addition to whatever else is on the ballot (in the above example, there was also an election for the city's District Attorney and City Controller).

And nowadays here, just about every election has a "referendum", whether at the state level or county/municipal level. Canada doesn't do those or only does them very rarely.

"Hand counting" with a ballot that might have ONE or a few candidates on it might is one thing. But multi-page ballots with locally elected offices, ballot questions, and even judicial elections/retentions, takes voting to a whole other level that is just not done elsewhere in the world due to their systems of government.