2020 Absentee/Early Voting thread

[redjohn]

Incredible how people are trying to read anything out of those early numbers ...

That’s like trying to predict how the winter will go based on the first snowfall of the season.

Early voting numbers are in general pretty useless for predictions in higher turnout elections like the presidential election. That's even true close to election day. For low turnout elections (e.g. Wisconsin's spring election) they were useful to gauge enthusiasm

Yep. We know turnout is likely to be way up among both sides, so all this is confirming is a high level of interest in voting which we already knew was the case.

[redjohn]

Returned ballots in Dane county comprise 22.3% of its 2016 total. A month before the election.

[redjohn]

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.

[redjohn]

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.

is there early in person voting in Wisconsin. I could easily see it surpass 100% turnout of 2016 before election day at this rate.

Yep, it starts on 10/20. Turnout will easily eclipse 2016 in dozens of counties across the state, I'm sure.

[redjohn]

https://twitter.com/tbonier/status/1313899653012885504?s=20

I'll be very interested to see preliminary exit polling data on election day and what pollsters think the racial composition of the electorate is. Will give us a really good idea whether Biden or Trump is winning there, and how close it'll be.

[redjohn]

Taniel
@Taniel
·
1m
31% of all registered voters in WI's Dane Couty (Madison) have now voted.

Elsewhere in Wisconsin: In blue Milwaukee, 20%. In red WOW counties (Waukesha, Ozaukee, Washington), 20%/21%/17%. In swing Kenosha, 17%

Dane is Joe's juggernaut. HRC netted 146k votes out of Dane in 2016, Evers netted nearly 151k in 2018. My best guess is Biden easily nets over 200k from Dane, potentially up to 220k. Easily wipes out Trump's 2016 margin (if all other counties voted the same, which they won't)

[redjohn]

Dane county remains ahead of Milwaukee in raw vote count. I imagine Milwaukee jumps ahead after in-person absentee voting opens up, but it's pretty clear the majority of voters in Milwaukee county will vote on election day. I hope the city is prepared to deal with the turnout.

[redjohn]

=it's pretty clear the majority of voters in Milwaukee county will vote on election day.=

I actually don't think so. 45% of registered voters in Milwaukee county requested mail ballots. And we have in-person early vote is coming up.

You may be right. Depends on how many eligible, non-registered voters show up on election day.

[redjohn]

If I made a call based on the data I am seeing
Florida +2-3 Biden
Texas +2 Trump
NC +2 Biden. Of course there isn't as big of a sample compared to Florida, Va, Iowa and Ga yet.
Va +9 Biden
Iowa +1 Biden --- There's a 100,000 democrat lead. This is something we've haven't seen since 2008-2012.
Nevada- really early guess is +3 Biden
Arizona +2-3 Biden -I am using a site that has 317k votes in with a 46k democratic lead. Looking at trends and considering 2018. https://www.saguarostrategies.com/arizona-ballot-returns\
Ga-No party break down but based on the racial breakdown I'll guess tie to +1 for Trump.
Wis - no party break down but I'll guess +4 for Biden.
Pa - +2 to + 4 for Biden

The last few are low accuracy guesses.

I'd strongly caution against interpreting any of the early voting data we have so far as anything other than showing there is high interest and will be high turnout. Polls are going to be a much better indicator pre-election than early voting data, especially because of the partisan lean in early voting/election day in-person voting this year.

[redjohn]

If I made a call based on the data I am seeing
Florida +2-3 Biden
Texas +2 Trump
NC +2 Biden. Of course there isn't as big of a sample compared to Florida, Va, Iowa and Ga yet.
Va +9 Biden
Iowa +1 Biden --- There's a 100,000 democrat lead. This is something we've haven't seen since 2008-2012.
Nevada- really early guess is +3 Biden
Arizona +2-3 Biden -I am using a site that has 317k votes in with a 46k democratic lead. Looking at trends and considering 2018. https://www.saguarostrategies.com/arizona-ballot-returns\
Ga-No party break down but based on the racial breakdown I'll guess tie to +1 for Trump.
Wis - no party break down but I'll guess +4 for Biden.
Pa - +2 to + 4 for Biden

The last few are low accuracy guesses.

I'd strongly caution against interpreting any of the early voting data we have so far as anything other than showing there is high interest and will be high turnout. Polls are going to be a much better indicator pre-election than early voting data, especially because of the partisan lean in early voting/election day in-person voting this year.

Yeah but given that Republicans are trying to suppress turnout and Democrats are trying to promote high turnout, it seems that the parties, who probably have a lot better data than we have access to, agree that high turnout benefits democrats and this indicates turnout is probably going to be high. 

Turnout will be high, but nearly all of the people who have already submitted their ballots have strongly leaned towards one candidate or the other, and again tells us very little other than turnout being high. High turnout might benefit Democrats depending on the demographics that are turning out at a higher rate than in 2016, but it's too early to know that.

[redjohn]

The Secretary of State for TN just released the numbers for the first day of early voting. 273,325!

Jesus, that's like 11% of 2016's total turnout.

[redjohn]

WI early voting stats updated
Till now total 821300 people have voted in WI

Dane leads with 135 k votes
Followed by
Milwaukee 133 k votes
Waukesha 68 k votes
Brown 42 k votes

Great turnout day in Wisconsin as there were 65,093 new votes returned since yesterday to bring the totals to 821,300. There will probably be over 900,000 returned votes when in-person absentee voting starts on Tuesday. The trio of Milwaukee-Dane-Waukesha all returned pretty substantial numbers of raw votes (10,648-8,269-6,136). Dane County is up to 43.67% of 2016 votes returned. Still possible that Dane County could get to 50% by next Tuesday morning. Today is the first day of Madison having 14 drop boxes across the city.

I wonder how much these numbers are going to surge next week when in-person early voting starts. I'll be voting with my family at 8 AM on Monday, I'm sure it's going to be a huge day statewide for voting numbers.

[redjohn]

Wisconsin: Mails in ballots requested: R +2
                Mails in ballots and early in person ballots returned: D +2

Is this data collected by looking at whether someone previously voted in the Democratic or GOP primaries? We don’t have party registration so I’m wondering as to what they’re getting this from.

[redjohn]

In-person early voting finally opens up in WI tomorrow morning. I'll be voting, and I know a lot of friends who have been waiting until tomorrow to vote. Turnout probably jumps statewide by a couple percentage points at least.

[redjohn]

The line at my local polling place in Waukesha county was longer than it is on most election days, in my experience. Turnout is going to be gigantic this election.

[redjohn]

The line at my local polling place in Waukesha county was longer than it is on most election days, in my experience. Turnout is going to be gigantic this election.

That's a GOP area right?  So it seems both sides are energized.

GOP area that's been trending & swinging Democratic since 2016. Not necessarily great news for Trump, especially given his #s among seniors in WI.

[redjohn]

It's encouraging for Wisconsin Dems that the highest absentee return rate in the state is in Dane, the state's second largest county which will end up voting at least 75% Biden.

[redjohn]

Battleground Texas? Doesn't feel like it
https://twitter.com/BruinEric/status/1318582956152156162?s=19

Doesn't TX have open primaries and therefore no partisan registration?

[redjohn]

WI clocked in nearly 200,000 votes on the first day of EV + Postal Office running again. Democrat counties are now close to 75% returns on VBM ballots.

Yes! It'll be interesting seeing how many additional Democrats end up voting on election day. Most of Biden's vote in the state will almost certainly come from early/absentee voting.

[redjohn]

The Milwaukee Suburbs have woken up and are clearly taking advantage of in-person absentee voting. Milwaukee County has cast the most in-person votes in the first two days, but Waukesha County has bested Dane County the past two days in in person absentee and total absentee. Waukesha County will probably jump to #2 in terms of % of 2016 voted returned in a day or two. Dane County is still adding more votes via mail/dropbox absentees than any county but Milwaukee County and is at almost 55% of 2016 vote. Dane's return rate has been pretty consistently going up at 2-3% every day.

Ozaukee County and Washington County are also seeing double digit % increases due to the start of in-person absentee. Other Republican counties are coming in strong too including Calumet County, Sheboygan County, Walworth County, and Manitowoc County all have double digit % increases.

It's not all lost for Democrats, lots of their secondary counties (especially those with state universities) are seeing significant increases. This includes La Crosse County, Kenosha County, Rock County, Portage County, and Eau Claire County. This college factor is also evident in Grant and Pierce  counties. Who's not voting yet? Basically the Central and Western rural counties. The bottom five counties from worst to best are Clark, Buffalo, Trempealeau, Pepin, and Rusk.

I don't think anyone should really freak out about these results. Wisconsin is one of the best voter turnout states in the country, only behind the VBM states and Minnesota. Republicans and Republican areas were going to turnout.

All three of these counties will trend D, and Waukesha+Ozaukee will both swing D relative to 2016 and 2018, for some more context for everyone. The electorate in these counties turning out in large numbers is not the same as 2012 or previous elections when the GOP relied mostly on WOW counties.