Need for patience

The headline “Election results? Get ready to wait” [page one, Nov. 5] is insulting. So is the tenor of the article that appears under it.

I am ready to wait as long as it takes so that every vote is accurately counted without one candidate or another demanding a recount. The rush to release results continues to plunge our voting system into chaos. The perversity of our president being selected by the Supreme Court [Bush v. Gore] because poll results weren't released quickly enough will remain an embarrassment.

In many countries it is acceptable to wait days or weeks before every vote is tabulated and the results released. Democracy does not suffer when we are patient. People get on with their lives. However, we do suffer when there is a rush to judgment and a rush to release voting results too quickly.

Elections are not sporting events where the winner and loser must be announced as quickly as possible. I am ready to wait. But I am not ready to go through another election where claims and counterclaims are made about election results because those results were released incomplete or inaccurately.

Election results? Get ready to wait? I suggest patience unless we are willing to once again appear as idiots and fools to the rest of the country and the rest of the world.

— Peter Stekel, Seattle

Praise for ballot counters

No matter which candidates win or lose, no matter which initiatives pass or fail, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the most underappreciated group involved in our electoral process: those who painstakingly count and record each ballot dispassionately and without bias, the workers at the Election Division of the Office of the Secretary of State.

Thank you for all of your hard work and dedication.

— Lorin E. Grinolds, Kent