The Trump administration treats the election as if it were a television program. Exciting programming on election night seems to be presented as the goal. The broadcasters’ ability to make a show of our election results is even touted as a major reason for disdaining the safe and sane practice of voting by mail.

An election is too important to turn it over to the television networks to package it and sell a few cornflakes. We don’t need to wrap everything up on one night’s programming. We should be grown up enough to wait for an accurate count. We should not allow any program that predicts outcomes or patterns while the polls are still open. We should also question why in-person voting is held on just one work day.

Such rules might diminish the excitement on that Tuesday evening. But are we just looking for another thrilling program or are we looking for the will of the people?