2020 Absentee/Early Voting thread

[Holmes]

Looking to be another 100k+ day in Harris County, and I don't see it slowing down with the weekend coming up.

[Holmes]

Tomorrow’s gonna be a huge early voting day with TX, GA, NC, NV, TN, and probably a few I’m forgetting having their first early voting weekend.

[Holmes]

Tomorrow’s gonna be a huge early voting day with TX, GA, NC, NV, TN, and probably a few I’m forgetting having their first early voting weekend.

Won't be big in Georgia: some counties (i.e Democratic and urban) may have weekend voting, but GA only mandates one weekend day of in-person early voting (that'll be next Saturday, the 24th).

That’s lame, but that’s the same weekend as Florida’s first weekend of early voting, so the 24th should be a big day.

[Holmes]

https://twitter.com/JudgeClayJ/status/1317276105221509120

Judge Clay Jenkins must be so happy to not have to be the COVID wet blanket for a while and be able to talk about something uplifting. He's had to be the "No, your bar CANNOT open, what are you thinking" guy for the last over half a year of his life.

Well, it looks like he was also the “no, you SHOULD NOT go trick or treating” guy today though.

[Holmes]

I feel like Pennsylvania is really struggling with the voting by mail.

[Holmes]

So we’ve hit 25 million just in time for the weekend. I wonder if we can hit 30 million by the end of the weekend.

Also please don’t post Target Smart. It’s trash.

[Holmes]

Those FL #s continue to be striking.

Yeah, it looks like the difference between Ds and Rs will be 500k before early voting starts. And there are still some very Democratic counties whose return rates are below the statewide average (Miami-Dade and Orange in particular, but also Broward and Hillsborough).

We’ve seen in North Carolina that the early vote is still very Democratic (although less so than the mail votes). I expect that trend to be the same in Florida.

[Holmes]

Why is turnout so low today?  People don't have to work, so you think they'd have more time to go vote.

It’s not low in Virginia where I’ve been on line for nearly 3 hours....

Oof, I remember you waiting until more voting locations were open in Fairfax because you wanted to avoid the wait.

[Holmes]

https://twitter.com/bishop_gains/status/1317496023078510592

Is this more Target Smart crap?

[Holmes]

https://twitter.com/bishop_gains/status/1317496023078510592

Is this more Target Smart crap?

Maybe, but also Biden kinda did triage the state basically

It literally makes no sense to say “Trump is leading a county by 40 points” in a state that doesn’t have partisan voter registration and is a county that has demographics that are trending sharply against Republicans.

[Holmes]

I don’t think Biden’s campaign is triaging Texas? Harris was literally about the spend three days in Texas until a staffer she was in contact with tested positive for COVID... not really something a campaign that’s triaging the state would do.

[Holmes]

Yeah, Travis always has high turnout. In 2016, the county had a turnout of 90%. The fact that they’re keeping up with 2016 early voting is a good sign that they’ll hit they number again.

[Holmes]

the only turnout numbers that are crazy good are harris + denton everything else is on par with past years not sure why people are so "excited" lol let's wait & see

https://twitter.com/JTStinkworx/status/1317328517697314817?s=19

[Holmes]

Yeah, Travis always has high turnout. In 2016, the county had a turnout of 90%. The fact that they’re keeping up with 2016 early voting is a good sign that they’ll hit they number again.

In 2016 Travis had a turnout of 63.8%

https://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/historical/travis.shtml

You’re right, the 90% is the amount of people registered to vote. Big difference!

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2016/oct/14/bruce-elfant/bruce-elfant-says-90-plus-percent-eligible-travis-/

[Holmes]

Raltson says about 18k voters in Clark as of an hour ago (in person only, not including mail ballots received today) compared to 39k for the first day in 2016 for Clark. But it’s basically impossible to compare 2016 with 2020 because all voters in Nevada were mailed a ballot and many have already sent them.

[Holmes]

Voted this afternoon early in person, took about 40 minutes to get in.

This is Wayne County, NC. They had curbside voting, looked to be doing three at a time and there was a steady 15 or 20 people in line, the whole time I was there.

Never seen it this busy for early in person voting.

Is Wayne a reddish county?

it's quite Republican. It even went for Dole in 2008 in her losing re-election bid.

Looks pretty inelastic too. Went R by 10-12 points the past three elections.

[Holmes]

So by the end of its first week of early voting it looks like TX could be within striking distance of 50% of 2016 turnout. I wasn't sure what to expect, but it definitely wasn't this.

Chances they exceed 2016 turnout by the end of early voting?

Texas exceeding its 2016 vote with just early voting alone would be insane. I don't know if it will happen but I can see it getting close.

[Holmes]

Oof, there’s gonna be quite a few “but Target Smart said” posts on Election Day, I think.

[Holmes]

I'm willing to do an avatar switch bet with any Republican on this site about TX this year.

If the result in Texas is worse for Biden than Trump winning by 2 (so any margin for Trump than 2%), I will adopt the avatar of your choice FOR SIX MONTHS after the certification of results.

If the result in Texas is better for Biden than that (Trump wins by less than 2 or Biden wins), you have to be a D-TX FOR SIX MONTHS after the certification of results.

Who wants to take me up on this? First come first served.

You that confident of Biden's chances?  I feel like if the race is really within 2 points in Texas, Biden (or Bloomberg if you're out there!?!?) should invest $50 million in the state.  He has the resources.

To be fair, getting Bloomberg to invest in Florida was like pulling teeth. I’m not surprised he’s not doing much else.

[Holmes]

Might be a dumb question, so please forgive me.

How are absentee ballots counted?  By hand or is it computerized counting somehow?

Depends on how the state counts its ballots. Usually fed through a machine (like a scantron).

[Holmes]

Just voted (for the first time) here in Virginia for Biden.

King

[Holmes]

Can you all just shut the f[inks]k up and take this to one of the many more appropriate threads?

Tea.

Does anyone know if we’re gonna get a report for the early vote in Miami-Dade (and all other non-reporting counties) today?

[Holmes]

Florida In-Person EV as of 7:10 PM

Rep 133,405
Dem 129,824
NPA/Others 47,631

Total 310,860

50/67 counties reporting

https://tinyurl.com/y2wulups

dems have closed the margin quite a bit in the last two 1.5-2 hours

I feel like Dems will pull ahead when all counties have reported, but it’s clear that mail voting has eaten away at their early voting numbers.

[Holmes]

So let me see if I have this right:

— Basically even in in-person voting
— Big Dem advantage in mail voting
— Miami-Dade still out

Sounds good for Dems then, right?

I’m guessing Miami-Dade puts Dems in the lead for the day for in person early voting. The rest of the unreported counties, other than Sarasota, are pretty small, so Miami-Dade will eclipse them.

[Holmes]

So let me see if I have this right:

— Basically even in in-person voting
— Big Dem advantage in mail voting
— Miami-Dade still out

Sounds good for Dems then, right?

I’m guessing Miami-Dade puts Dems in the lead for the day for in person early voting. The rest of the unreported counties, other than Sarasota, are pretty small, so Miami-Dade will eclipse them.

Isn't Sarasota the only other unreported county?  My understanding was those remaining rural counties didn't actually have early voting today.

If that’s he case, RIP GOP. Miami-Dade’s 40k votes will be more than enough to give Dems a comfortable lead for the day.