2020 Absentee/Early Voting thread

[wbrocks67]

People should keep in mind that 2016 non-voter just means that the person in question did not vote in that particular state. There is almost no way of knowing whether that person voted in a different state

Eh, sure, but I doubt that's a super high % of the overall "2016 non voter" composite

[wbrocks67]

Should start getting some votes out of PA today! Philly early voting sites open today and ballots should start hitting voters this week across the state.

[wbrocks67]

WaPo: Early surge of Democratic mail voting sparks worry inside GOP

Why would this worry the Rs ?

It was clear all along that Ds would vote mostly by mail ...

Because banking votes is always a good thing.

[wbrocks67]

Is there anything new from Pennsylvania? Interested how many early votes Philly got yesterday.

[wbrocks67]

so is turnout higher or lower than we expected at this point?  I'd say some states like South Dakota, Virginia, and Wisconsin have surprisingly high turnout.

uh its certainly not lower...

[wbrocks67]

I don't think it's worth paying much attention to early voting until right before election night. We still don't have enough data at all.

With some states already approaching 25% of their 2016 turnout more than a month still out, I disagree.

You're citing statistics that mean absolutely nothing of predictive value. Let's see what turnout is right before the election.

Huh? States are literally nearing 25% of their entire 2016 turnout with a *MONTH TO GO* That is absolutely of predictive value that this is going to be insanely high turnout election

[wbrocks67]

I don't think it's worth paying much attention to early voting until right before election night. We still don't have enough data at all.

With some states already approaching 25% of their 2016 turnout more than a month still out, I disagree.

You're citing statistics that mean absolutely nothing of predictive value. Let's see what turnout is right before the election.

Huh? States are literally nearing 25% of their entire 2016 turnout with a *MONTH TO GO* That is absolutely of predictive value that this is going to be insanely high turnout election

It could be frontloaded. And no state is near 25% besides South Dakota (which is at 17%). virginia/wisconsin are only around 13%...

Most primaries saw record turnout as well. All of the evidence we have points to a very high turnout election with record breaking turnout

[wbrocks67]

https://twitter.com/chucklindell/status/1311718569189806089

Seems unfair that some counties get ballots before others in the same state...

Larger counties need to get them earlier because of how long it would take to process/send them.

There is no justification for this. Just simple voter suppression.

[wbrocks67]

https://twitter.com/chucklindell/status/1311718569189806089

Seems unfair that some counties get ballots before others in the same state...

Larger counties need to get them earlier because of how long it would take to process/send them.

There is no justification for this. Just simple voter suppression.

I'm assuming you're responding to the tweet and not my explanation for county ballots?

sorry, yes lol

[wbrocks67]

Wisconsin has updated numbers: https://electproject.github.io/Early-Vote-2020G/WI.html

437,000 returned.

Holy sh**t. Dane is already at nearly a 50% return rate.

[wbrocks67]

48.9% of Dane county's absentee ballots have been returned; 30% of 2016's total turnout in a county that will be among Biden's best performance in the state.

But the "Enthusiasm Gap"...

[wbrocks67]

That "modeling" doesn't look correct based on what we are seeing returned so far and where.

[wbrocks67]

https://twitter.com/AnnaBrichacek/status/1313449733256613889?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw...

[wbrocks67]

Just a few minutes later and it's up to 4.45 million votes now:

https://electproject.github.io/Early-Vote-2020G/index.html

Looks like the added numbers are mostly from Michigan.

Wisconsin just added over 100,000 votes in the new update. Dane is now at over 50% requested and 50% returned.

Judging by those insane Dane #s, that modeling for Wisconsin appears to be severely wrong.

[wbrocks67]

Democrats surpass 200k lead by party ID in Florida.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17YKazYaUMZ33vmd4YHDKcVdlTkP5DmnHQQlAttwOzL0/edit#gid=1837208868

Even given Dems propensity with mail in this time around, this seems significant, since historically, Dems take their time to return them in FL don't they?

[wbrocks67]

Also, looks like the D lead is about 230k now in Florida, still basically nothing from Miami but Orange came online.

Palm Beach at 120k ballots returned.  Is this a sign that elderly Democratic voters are the most engaged (given Trump's handling of the coronavirus)?

Pretty incredible that the FL lead keeps getting bigger and bigger. I did not expect that.

[wbrocks67]

Also, looks like the D lead is about 230k now in Florida, still basically nothing from Miami but Orange came online.

Palm Beach at 120k ballots returned.  Is this a sign that elderly Democratic voters are the most engaged (given Trump's handling of the coronavirus)?

Pretty incredible that the FL lead keeps getting bigger and bigger. I did not expect that.

Keep in mind that Miami-Dade is still ridiculously behind everyone else.

That makes the Dem margin even better tbh.

[wbrocks67]

Does anyone know what's going on with Pennsylvania?  It's barely reporting anything.

Wondering this as well. Not just that it doesn't appear they update daily - but Philly is reporting nothing even though Early Voting has been happening since early last week

[wbrocks67]

I mean were are seeing the same sort of enthusiasm as GA in SC among black voters.

pundits told me there is no enthusiasm for Joseph R. Biden Jr

[wbrocks67]

Early voting options are really making it hard for Republicans to suppress the vote this time.

I'm really really happy that PA in particular not only implemented vote by mail but basically early voting as well this time around.

[wbrocks67]

PA numbers picking up, but still very low compared to other states.  But the partisan gap is enormous.

https://electproject.github.io/Early-Vote-2020G/PA.html

198k D
42k R

Allegheny is posting big numbers at 35% returned. Philly and the burbs (other than Chester) and Lackawanna have basically nothing returned yet.

Yeah, Montgomery has been open and Philly has had lines for the past 2+ weeks so I think it's just these counties being incredibly slow to update. Which, hopefully is not an indicator of what's to come...

[wbrocks67]

Also, wow, in PA not a whole lot in, but Democrats already have returned 12% of their ballots. Reps only 6.8%.

[wbrocks67]

AA vote in GA dropped 1% to 33% keeping an eye out if it will fall below 30... it's been dropping slowly with each day of new data.

Wait for the early voting before really making any predictions. Same with North Carolina.

That's when "Souls to the Polls" starts right?

[wbrocks67]

2016 PA dem lead; 900,000
2020 PA dem lead; 700,000

are you talking about voter registration? you should provide more context to your post.

[wbrocks67]

2016 PA dem lead; 900,000
2020 PA dem lead; 700,000

are you talking about voter registration? you should provide more context to your post.

I think so Ye, saw it on a tweet

November 2016
Dems 4,217,456 (48.3%)
Reps 3,301,182 (37.8%)
Other 1,204,339 (13.9%)
Total 8,722,977

October 2020
Dems 4,168,900 (46.9%)
Reps 3,451,514 (38.7%)
Other 1,277,325 (14.4%)
Total 8,897,739

In 2016, Dems lead over Reps was 916K (10.5%), while it's now 717K (8.2%). So yes, it's down, but PA is a very complex state and it's hard to tell whether these are truly people converting to R, or a bunch of ancestral Ds that have been voting R and now just making it official. You also have a lot of people in the PA suburbs as well who are still Republicans who aren't as fast to change their registration to D. (for example, i know one - my mom, she only *just* changed to D this year from being R for 30+ years)

The other problem with this narrative is that Dems lead was lower in 2018 (9.8%) than it was in 2016 (10.5%) and yet Casey and Wolf both won by double digits.