The US held its midterm elections on Tuesday, November 8, but the results of the Arizona and Nevada senate races were not known until after several days of ballot counting, largely due to complex mail-in voting rules and technical malfunctions.
US media did not project Democratic incumbent Mark Kelly the winner of the Arizona race until late Friday while Nevada's Democratic incumbent Catherine Cortez Masto was not declared the winner until Saturday. Cortez Masto's victory allowed the Democratic Party to maintain control of the Senate. Meanwhile, although the Republicans are projected to seize control of the US House, nearly 20 races remain uncalled.
OSCE election observers assessed the US midterm elections as "competitive and professionally managed," although the group said international monitors were restricted from some areas.
"How is it that in the US, which is supposed to be so technologically sophisticated, that counting the ballots takes days?" McAdams said. "Democrats have perfected harvesting [mass collection of] Democrat ballots while Republicans, under a worthless leadership, have done nothing in two years to correct the deeply flawed voting system in many states."
The original excuse for mail-in ballots, Adams added, was that people should not be forced to go to vote in person because of Covid, but now the pandemic is over and voting issues continue.
McAdams said in the 1990s he spent several years as an international elections monitor in the former USSR and Eastern Bloc. Western observers would see any failure to produce results on election day as extremely suspicious and worthy of declaring fraud.
However, McAdams said in Belarus in 2006 they watched as paper ballots were openly counted in front of all election observers and observers from political parties.
"Everyone agreed on suspect ballots and the results were delivered to the regional authorities within a half hour," McAdams said.
McAdams said that Stalin once quipped: "Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the vote decide everything."
That is what can now be seen in the United States, McAdams added.
"Politics in the United States is broken," McAdams said. "We are ruled by an oligarchy."
Although Republicans are projected to seize control of the House, they failed to meet expectations as many predicted a "red wave," would sweep the country. Even former President Donald Trump said he found the results "disappointing," after seeing mixed results from dozens of candidates he endorsed.