2020 Absentee/Early Voting thread

[Tender Branson]

Republicans are the enemy of the people.

Should Biden and Dems win big, the first thing they need to do is pack the Supreme Court and pass a significant election reform package, with automatic voter registration, same day registration, a national election results page, a precinct for every 400 voters within walking distance, expansion of mail-in and drop off locations, de-politification of the postal service and proper funding and a lot more.

[Tender Branson]

There are many African countries where people are not waiting hours to vote ...

https://twitter.com/davidfrum/status/1315813973703487490

This must change. Comprehensive election reform after Jan. 20th !

Bring the US into the 21st century.

[Tender Branson]

Austrian ORF article about the hour-long wait in GA:

https://orf.at/stories/3185017

[Tender Branson]

Aside from the fact that GA has a horrible 3rd world election administration (long lines, poll books failing, voting machine fails), they have at least a system in place that automatically registers most people in the state. This should be applauded. Other states have as many as 20% eligible unregistered to vote.

[Tender Branson]

Please remember that there’s an early rush of many people voting or requesting mail ballots, but that this will taper off significantly as Election Day approaches.

We have seen the same thing here in Vienna: record early voting and requests, and hardly anything in the final week before Election Day.

Election Day itself had pretty bad turnout here, but this could be different in the US, with hordes of Trump supporters voting.

You cannot really say that turnout will be much higher because many people are voting early.

In Vienna, turnout was eventually 9.5% lower than last time.

[Tender Branson]

Good early news from my adopted home state CO:

https://twitter.com/JenaGriswold/status/1316786067748646913

[Tender Branson]

Vishal Patel, M.D.
@VPatelMD
 · 57m
Update:

After only 4 days of voting, 3.4. MILLION ballots in Texas have been cast.

That's 37.9% of the total (8.9 million) ballots cast in 2016 with 15 early voting days and 1 general election day to go.

#TexasEarlyVoting #TexasTurnsBlue twitter.com/VPatelMD/statu…

TX could be a big driver of US turnout this year.

The state always had sh*tty turnout at around 50%, but this year it will probably be close to the US average because both sides consider it a swing state.

11-13 million votes maybe, instead of 9.

[Tender Branson]

Vishal Patel, M.D.
@VPatelMD
 · 57m
Update:

After only 4 days of voting, 3.4. MILLION ballots in Texas have been cast.

That's 37.9% of the total (8.9 million) ballots cast in 2016 with 15 early voting days and 1 general election day to go.

#TexasEarlyVoting #TexasTurnsBlue twitter.com/VPatelMD/statu…

TX could be a big driver of US turnout this year.

The state always had sh*tty turnout at around 50%, but this year it will probably be close to the US average because both sides consider it a swing state.

11-13 million votes maybe, instead of 9.

I gotta say, while I am extremely doubtful of Blue-Xas, the political landscape is really changing in the area and a lot of voters are probably going to turn out now that it’s a “swing state”.

It’s probably a one-time-event this year because of Trump.

Once the Republicans nominate a normal conservative again in 2024 or 2028, the polling will be back to R+10 and lower turnouts.

[Tender Branson]

If Kansas is close things like this will be a pain

https://twitter.com/ConnieSchmidt2/status/1317533099920687105
This is Johnson Co. 

That’s why in Austria you can only vote early by bringing your absentee ballot with you to your polling station ...

[Tender Branson]

Here's your weekly or daily reminder that all those high early D numbers don't mean anything if the Trump people vote on election day in hordes ...

(Besides, it is not even guaranteed that the early vote is so extremely pro-D as people believe. The Indys voting early might be less pro-Biden for example than what polls say ...)

[Tender Branson]

Brace yourself that early voting numbers will significantly drop off the closer Election Day comes ...

The „record-breaking“ early vote we see right now will look much smaller and realistic then (except maybe in TX).

[Tender Branson]

Not sure how many states McDonald updated tonight (for instance, I know GA is now a tad above 40%, but I'm just using the currently-listed figures):

VT: 46.3
TX: 45.3
NJ: 43.2
GA: 35.6
VA: 34.3
NM: 33.4
SD: 32.8
IA: 32.5
NC: 32.0
CO: 31.8

TX's fast growing population and voter registration numbers alone should lead to a big increase in raw voting numbers.

That doesn't necessarily mean a higher turnout (because of the fast-rising population), but I guess in the case of this year it will. It's a swing state after all this year.

[Tender Branson]

What I really want to see is Texas getting to 6.5 or 7 million early votes.

In that case, if the Biden/Trump ratios we've seen from polls hold, Biden would win unless turnout substantially exceeds 2016 in Trump's favor on election day.

That’s exactly the posts that I’m warning you guys of ...

The early vote is not a monolithic bloc in favour of Biden !

We don’t know who these voters are, how many independents voted and how they voted !

[Tender Branson]

[tweet]

Ughhhh.

For the 100th time: these lines are an abomination !

I wonder when the US will have a system in place like other civilized Western countries that allow people to go in, vote and leave within 5 minutes ?

2050 ?

2100 ?

[Tender Branson]

[tweet]

Ughhhh.

For the 100th time: these lines are an abomination !

I wonder when the US will have a system in place like other civilized Western countries that allow people to go in, vote and leave within 5 minutes ?

2050 ?

2100 ?

I mean it's early voting and alot of people want to vote right away. Most states don't go on full capacity until election day

A smart state with good planning and logistics would go on full capacity on day 1 of early voting and also outfit the state with enough polling places and steer people towards those polling places to reduce lines.

They knew for half a year that this would happen !

Most US states are not smart. They are dumb.

They should look at smart cities like Vienna to study how it’s done !

For f**ks sake: even one person turning around and heading back home after waiting 5 hours in line, deciding not to vote at all as a result, is one person too much !

[Tender Branson]

[tweet]

Ughhhh.

For the 100th time: these lines are an abomination !

I wonder when the US will have a system in place like other civilized Western countries that allow people to go in, vote and leave within 5 minutes ?

2050 ?

2100 ?

I strongly agree. I have voted in every danish election at every level since 1993 and have never stood in line for more than a couple of minutes. We are talking shorter lines than in the supermarket. And in Denmark we have voter participation rates of 85% and barely anybody votes by mail or votes early. Virtually the entire population votes on election day. It can absolutely be done to eliminate lines and should be done in any civilized country.

Also, every citizen is automatically registrered to vote when they turn 18 and every citizen is automatically mailed their voter card before every election. It’s not rocket science.

!!!

I hope there is a prolonged time of bi-partisanship after Trump gets booted and the US will look at our voting systems here and then pass a comprehensive election reform amendment into its constitution.

[Tender Branson]

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

The IA return rates are pretty stunning, particularly Democrats.  82.5% returned already.

ALL polls said that Dems would almost exclusively vote by mail or early, while Rs would vote on election day.

NO SURPRISE.

[Tender Branson]

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

The IA return rates are pretty stunning, particularly Democrats.  82.5% returned already.

ALL polls said that Dems would almost exclusively vote by mail or early, while Rs would vote on election day.

NO SURPRISE.

Dems return rate is higher than Rs, and the fact that Dems have returned more shows that they are more enthused right now. Reps have a huge hill to climb in IA if these #s stay the same thru Election Day.

From what I remember during previous elections, Dems return ballots faster in IA, Reps close the gap closer to election day ...

[Tender Branson]

With the way this is going, Democratic leads in mail-voting will get wiped out by in-person voting and especially election-day voting (Trump-voters will turn out big).

All is still possible in the swing states, even Trump wins !

I think I will settle on some 2012-style Biden wins in my final prediction and give some states like FL or NC to Trump ...