The US election still balances on a knife-edge, although our personal prediction is that Joe Biden will secure Nevada and Arizona as well as complete a late surge in Pennsylvania to secure the presidency. (Since writing this, Biden has also taken the lead in Georgia.)

However, Trump has consistently defied expectations, and stranger things have happened so we will be following it closely.

Unfortunately, even if Biden reaches the all-important 270 electoral college votes, Trump will insist on a protracted legal battle and a likely recount in Wisconsin where Trump’s share of the vote is less than one percent lower than Biden’s.

Trump’s main issue with the election is the high quantities of mail-in ballots that are, firstly, predominantly votes for Biden and, secondly, are being found in large quantities at the end of the count in certain key battleground states.

As a company specialising in records management, we know what it’s like to coordinate the storage, movement, protection, and integrity of important documents. We sympathise with the election officials in the US who are being accused of fraud by none other than the President himself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Does Trump know anything about records management?

Trump is accusing the election officials of fraud because he is unhappy with the large proportion of Biden votes that have been found at the end of the counts for states such as Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

In Michigan and Wisconsin, these last piles of votes seem enough to have secured Biden the win and in Pennsylvania, these votes have turned a big Trump lead into a knife-edge race.

The reason Trump’s claims show he knows nothing about records management is because he clearly has some very ignorant views of how large tranches of election ballots are collected, transported, and counted.

Trump must think that all the election ballots in one state, let’s say Pennsylvania, are collected and then they are thrown into a big burlap sack and election officials pull them out one-by-one until an obvious winner can be announced. Because he thinks it works like this, he also believes that, at some point during the counting process, some sneaky Democrats have thrown a couple hundred thousand fake ballots in near the bottom of the burlap sack.

This is not how records management works. Not in the real world, anyway.

In the real world, the election ballots arrive at the various counting stations from the different state counties. They arrive in large groups of votes, or tranches. These tranches all have different proportions of Biden and Trump votes. If they are from urban counties, they will favour Biden and if they are from rural counties, they will favour Trump.

Usually, these tranches are not capable of causing considerable percentage swings in the vote as, in battleground states, the race is usually very close anyway.

However, this election has occurred during the time of Coronavirus, and so there are huge tranches of mail-in ballots that need to be counted. Seeing as Trump has spent the whole time downplaying the virus, which has in tur

n encouraged his supporters to not wear masks and just generally not follow the guidelines, Trump voters have been more likely to vote in person.

This means that most of the mail-in ballots are votes for Biden and explains, rather logically, why Biden is overturning Trump’s initial lead in many battleground states.

Leave records management to the professionals.

It saddens us deeply at the Filing Room to see US election officials, our fellow records managers, be dragged through the mud and accused of fraud. Democracy in America has always been robust, and it is because of the logical, sophisticated, and meticulous work of these proud records managers.

This election has been a great example of why you should leave records management to the professionals. The correct process many not seem important to you, but there will come a time when you will wish you had gone with a secure records management company like The Filing Room.