The Brits know how to do an election night.
We can't do it the same way, because we have a zillion different federal, state, & local offices up for grabs on the same day, plus ballot initiatives & referenda.
But one night with elections to a single legislative house is so pure, it's fun.
UK politics can be grim, but election night there with constituencies being largely ungerrymandered, losers standing next to winners of podiums, and the "election season is 6 weeks, not 2 years" default is incredibly wholesome
also "if/when you lose, there's no lame duck season, the next guy arrives tomorrow at 10am" is a big UK W vs the US system, we should totes get rid of that
Tbf we also have our "ask electors to pick" and "ask congress to count" cosplay, which tbqh we should really move past, because while it's all fun and games as weird cosplay, we've found out to our detriment what happens when folks refuse to dress up and act it out
tomorrow we get my favorite constitutional oddity which is that there's a ~ 1 hour period in which all UK executive authority formally vests in the King
No. But I sometimes use it as one of my "pwnallthethings conlaw nightmare examples", specifically: "what if the King accepts Sunak's resignation and then just doesn't invite Starmer to form a government"
It's wonderfully perverse, because it happens in the context where there's plainly a duly elected PM, but the incoming PM has no authority to act, and Parliament is not yet assembled, so there's (technically) no power center to correct it
The understood bargain here is that the King does what he's supposed to and in return the people of the UK very graciously do not cut off his head, yeah?
