Eli McKown-Dawson (Silver Bulletin) writes (introduced by Nate Silver):

California is notoriously slow at counting its ballots. In 2024, it took California until November 8 (three days after Election Day) to get just 70 percent of its ballots counted. Across all 50 states, the average share of the vote counted by that date was more than 95 percent, putting California squarely in last place. Rest assured, The Golden State did eventually hit that 95 percent mark … a full 10 days later….

Florida now manages to count 99 percent of its ballots within a few hours of polls closing, in part because election officials can process ballots before the polls close. And they are able to accomplish this feat of incredible speed with a sizable proportion of mail votes — about 27 percent in 2024…. Colombia held a presidential election on Sunday, and 99.98 percent of the result was in on Monday morning. Japan also counts most of its votes overnight. And in the UK (not exactly a poster child for state capacity), you can generally expect to have calls for all 650 parliamentary seats the morning after the election….

Nor is the problem inherent in California's choice to promote mail voting:

Mail-voting states such as Oregon, Washington, and Colorado count slowly relative to the US average, but they're all faster than California…. [And y]ou can make voting accessible without bending over backward to accommodate the tiny share of people affected by extending the mail ballot receipt deadline [to one week after the election, as California has]….

And slowness doesn't seem to be the price one needs to pay for accuracy:

There's no evidence that voter fraud or other election administration issues are any less prevalent in California than in faster counting states. Based on the Elections Performance Index — a project that compares election administration quality across states — California ranked 41st in 2024. So the state isn't slower and better: it's slower and (often) worse….

If you want people to be confident in your electoral system, a good first step is to build one that works properly instead of adding yet another example to the "California is a failed state" pile.

The post "Why Can't California Count?" appeared first on Reason.com.

Woke killed the R-rated comedy.

It’s hard to deny. It’s even more challenging to bring them back, en masse, to movie theaters.

The recent “No Hard Feelings” was a good first effort, drawing a modest crowd and delivering a few adult laughs. The recent “Busboys,” released with zero fanfare, pushed the envelope but quickly disappeared from theaters.

Others, like “Ricky Stanicky” and “Balls Up” debuted on Prime Video, not in theaters. The former found some R-rated laughs while the latter proved unwatchable. (Full disclosure: This critic watched the first 25 minutes of “Balls Up” but bailed at that point – so not a full-throated review)

Now, we have our first R-rated comedy smash in a while, courtesy of the Wayans family.

“Scary Movie,” the sixth film in the parody franchise, is set to make an estimated $56 million this weekend in a very crowded, competitive marketplace. That’s gold, especially since the film’s budget came in around $30 million.

That’s just math.

Now, compare that to the reception for “The Breadwinner.” The squeaky-clean comedy gives Nate Bargatze his first major film role. He’s the most popular stand-up comedian in the country by a large margin.

Yet the film opened to a tepid $7+ million in its opening frame, and it’s expected to fall roughly 59 percent this weekend.

“The Breadwinner” will likely crush it on VOD and, later, a streaming service. The comic’s first film simply didn’t lure his legion of fans to theaters.

Audiences chose an R-rated comedy that vowed to offend and cross every line. The latter was literally in the film’s marketing materials.

We’ll need more data to draw more conclusions from this box office information, but it suggests we’re eager to see more bawdy comedies at our local cineplex.

Could “The Hangover: Part IV” be next?

Do you long for the return of R-rated comedies in theaters? Which ones are your personal favorites?

The post R-Rated ‘Scary Movie’ Trounces Family-Friendly ‘Breadwinner’ appeared first on Hollywood in Toto.

PolitiFact’s Caleb McCullough was at it again with more Senate campaign cherry-picking shenanigans on Friday. This time McCullough focused on Iowa Republican Ashley Hinson’s recent ad that accused Democrat Josh Turek of supporting sex changes for minors. McCullough called it “false,” but his actual article suggested it was not quite that simple. The controversy arose over an ad that “makes two similar but distinct claims. Its narration says Turek ‘supports kids changing gender without parental consent.’ But the on-screen text says ‘sex changes for kids,’ while video of surgeons in an operating room plays behind an image of Turek. Hinson’s social media post sharing the ad also used the phrase ‘sex changes for kids.’” If McCullough focused on the narrator, it is likely he would never have written the article because PolitiFact tends not to publish articles about Republicans being true. Instead, McCullough focused on the text: ‘Sex change’ is not a standard medical term. Gender-affirming care can include a range of approaches to support a person's gender identity including, for minors, using a different name or pronouns. According to medical best practices, gender-affirming treatments are available only to adolescents and can include puberty blockers, hormone therapy and in rare cases, surgeries for older teens. Medical intervention for minors requires parental consent. The ad distorts Turek’s position. The law cited in the ad as evidence does not mention medical interventions or ‘sex changes.’ It has to do with notifying parents when a student expresses a different gender identity at school. Which is exactly what the narrator said and McCullough even admitted was correct: The ad cites Iowa's Senate File 496, a 2023 law that regulated school library books with explicit themes and prohibited instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation. Turek voted against the bill. The Republican-led Legislature passed the bill and Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds signed it into law.  The law requires school districts to inform parents if a student requests "an accommodation that is intended to affirm the student's gender identity," including requests that employees "address the student using a name or pronoun" that differs from the school’s records.  McCullough also cited “Hinson campaign spokesperson Addie Lavis” as having “said the ad was not referencing gender-affirming surgeries. In an email to PolitiFact, she said the ad was using gender and sex ‘interchangeably as is the case under Iowa law and nowhere do we mention surgery.’" In that case, the ad is once again correct. Still, when it came to hormones for minors, McCullough tried to give Turek a pass, “Iowa lawmakers had already prohibited medical gender-affirming procedures for minors in 2023. Turek was not present for the vote on that bill, and the Iowa House Journal shows he was granted a leave of absence that day.” He then continued, “Citing the American Medical Association — which said in February that gender-affirming surgeries should ‘generally be reserved until adulthood’  — Turek campaign spokesperson Hannah Goss said he does not support gender-affirming surgeries for minors.” In his summary, McCullough used all that to conclude, “A separate bill the same year banned gender-affirming medical treatments for minors; Turek was absent from the vote. His campaign said he opposes such surgeries for minors.” Every single Democrat in the Iowa House of Representatives voted against the bill that banned gender-altering hormones for minors. There is no reason to believe that if Turek were present, he would have been the lone Democrat to join with Republicans.