ELECTION 'RESULTS' ARE IN: IT'S STILL A CIRCUS, AND YOU'RE STILL PAYING FOR THE PEANUTS

Well, folks, Edhat’s big scoop on preliminary election results for Santa Barbara County is in, and it's less a definitive declaration and more a gentle pat on the head while they admit, 'We're still counting.' Shocking, isn't it? In this age of instant gratification and AI that can write a symphony in seconds, our local election officials need weeks to tally what most of us finished in five minutes with a dull pencil. One has to wonder if they're using abacuses or just waiting for the ink to dry on all those 'I Voted' stickers.

The real story, consistently ignored by the mainstream press, is the perennial glacial pace of the vote count. It’s a bureaucracy in slow motion, designed to keep everyone on edge and give plenty of time for 're-evaluations' or 'finding a box of ballots in the back.' One could almost posit that the longer the count, the more 'opportunities' arise for those backroom deals and 'oopsie' rediscoveries that always seem to benefit the status quo. It's a miracle we ever elect anyone beyond the already-anointed with this kind of operational efficiency.

Of course, the preliminary results show 'clear leads' in some races and 'razor-thin margins' in others. This just means the entrenched incumbents got their usual lock, and a few poor souls are still clinging to hope before the ultimate disappointment. We predict that by the time the actual, final, honest-to-goodness results are announced – probably around Christmas – everyone will have forgotten who was running anyway, freeing our elected officials to continue their work unimpeded by public scrutiny. Because, let's be honest, who’s checking up on them come December?

It’s a perfect illustration of how our tax dollars are hard at work... slowly. Millions spent on a system that seems determined to make voting as drawn out and opaque as possible. Maybe next time, instead of just reporting the 'preliminary preliminary' results, Edhat could investigate why it takes longer to count ballots in Santa Barbara County than it does to build a luxury condo complex nobody asked for. But then again, that might require actual reporting, and we wouldn't want to get ahead of ourselves. Stick to the horse race, or rather, the tortoise race.