2020 Absentee/Early Voting megathread 2

[Inmate Trump]

So this may be a stupid question, but I'd love if someone more familiar with election mechanics could answer... With millions of people returning their ballots well before election day, is there any actual reason to believe we won't get results on election night? Even places that cannot count until the day of, I mean that's when we normally count them anyway, right? I may be missing something about the actual ways this is run, but on paper the fears seem kind of unsubstantiated to me.

Some states are allowed to count ballots hours or days prior to polls closing

https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/vopp-table-16-when-absentee-mail-ballot-processing-and-counting-can-begin.aspx

Yeah so am I right to think election night should be pretty normal, all things given? Like I see on the news all this fretting about not knowing who will win for days or weeks and even if this was a close election, which I don't think it will be, it seems like everything should actually run fine, again all things given (knocks profusely on wood).

Basically, the problem is Pennsylvania. If Biden wins in a way where PA is unnecessary, election will be called on election night. PA will be slow.

Is it too late for PA to change their rules on this and allow early processing and/or counting of absentee ballots?

Did they even try to get this done?

[Inmate Trump]

https://twitter.com/umichvoter99/status/1320410525507985408?s=21

No Miami or Broward.

Are Miami and Broward Dem leaning or GOP leaning?

[Inmate Trump]

https://twitter.com/umichvoter99/status/1320410525507985408?s=21

No Miami or Broward.

Are Miami and Broward Dem leaning or GOP leaning?

Dear God man, you are an American in the next state over who has been here for years and has thousands of posts, how do you not know this?

Everybody’s so nice and warm here!

[Inmate Trump]

 50k day OTW

I appreciate the updates, but the turnout guesses, especially without VBM context, are wholly unnecessary.

This is about the only think that Buzz can hang his hat on right now. It looks so bleak everywhere else he has to take even meh numbers from Florida and blow them out of proportion

You’re not wrong

Buzz, you just need to accept Joe Biden as your lord and savior. Everyone here has a fealty allegiance to Lord Biden.

Join us!

[Inmate Trump]

Texas is basically an entirely different state this year.

Republicans have benefited so much from the electoral votes given to them by growing minority populations in their states, whom they oppress.  It's going to be beautiful when Democrats overtake them in Georgia and North Carolina and Texas and the oppressors learn what it's like to not have a voice.

I want to believe.

[Inmate Trump]

https://twitter.com/ThePlumLineGS/status/1321231442664443907

Were things this promising in the 2016 early vote? I don’t remember.

[Inmate Trump]

It would appear that an underreported story here is that Dems have already hit their 2016 EV turnout with 5 days left while GOP is still 5% behind. Given FL Dems propensity to usually wait until the last minute, that seems notable.

And the NPA would most likely break for Biden more so than Trump, I would imagine.

[Inmate Trump]

I don't get why folks are acting like Biden being the underdog in FL is a reason to freak out.  It's not even the only chance for an election night knock out blow, much less a state Biden needs to win.  Honestly, Trump probably is favored there, but Florida is basically the only state where the numbers aren't looking great for Biden.

I think a big reason is because Florida settles it on election night if Biden wins there.

If Biden wins Florida, the election is over.
If Trump wins Florida, we’ll likely not know the overall winner for a day or two or maybe even extending into a couple of weeks. Thus giving Trump a chance to contest the results and have his Supreme Court settle things.

[Inmate Trump]

Ralston runs an independent blog. Is it all that surprising he wouldn't want to declare it over and hurt himself traffic-wise? It doesn't make him a coward or a pussy. It's also an entirely different kind of year so hedging is probably smart until his typical weekend prediction. Can we stop with this garbage?

 Ralston is a good reporter, he's not a homer for anybody and he tries to account for surprises. Everything he has reported has been accurate and shows Democrats in the driver's seat. Atlas is too critical of anybody who's not a Democratic Party cheerleader, which is myopic.

Ralston is literally the best there is when it comes to dealing with the early vote, and people shouldn't fault him too much for what has been some frustrating noise in the day-to-day data. Particularly important for a state that is notoriously hard to poll.

Exactly, he only got ME-2 and Iowa wrong in 2016. He didn't do that by being a blogger trying to whip up as much page views as possible.

Edit: Plus he just had a new post!

He added a new column to his hypothetical models:

"I added a sixth column, which I call the Trump Fantasy Scenario, which shows what would happen if Biden gets 90 percent of Dems, Trump gets 95 percent of Rs, both get 5 percent of the others and Trump won indies, 50-45."

Result? Biden still up by 7,040.

He sums it up with:" So how dire is it looking for Trump with one day of data coming and much more mail before Election Day?

Pretty dire."

That’s just concerning NV correct? Or the election as a whole?

[Inmate Trump]

Am I right to be worried about Pennsylvania?

Seems like turnout is extremely low and absentee ballots might not arrive by election day, giving Trump legroom to challenge them.

[Inmate Trump]

Am I right to be worried about Pennsylvania?

Seems like turnout is extremely low and absentee ballots might not arrive by election day, giving Trump legroom to challenge them.

The turnout in the state does not look low by any measurement...

Eek, I think I was looking at the wrong figure. In any case, is there any cause for concern there?

[Inmate Trump]

Am I right to be worried about Pennsylvania?

Seems like turnout is extremely low and absentee ballots might not arrive by election day, giving Trump legroom to challenge them.

https://www.bloombergquint.com/politics/biden-aides-see-warning-signs-in-black-latino-turnout-so-far

"In Florida, half of Latino and Black registered voters have not yet voted but more than half of White voters have cast ballots, according to data from Catalist, a Democratic data firm. In Pennsylvania, nearly 75% of registered Black voters have not yet voted, the data shows."

You're right in a way but in PA's case, black voters may prefer to vote in person on Election Day. We'll see.

Umm in PA, the total votes are only 35% of 2016 votes and this not including election day votes and the higher turnout we will see

Considering the nature of early voting in PA that's quite a good sign

Minority voters tend to vote late/day of for one so if trends  hold this is all quite good

I’d think during a pandemic, the early voting rate would be higher.  But I don’t know anything really.

[Inmate Trump]

Texas about to be ground zero for disenfranchisement:

Mark Joseph Stern
@mjs_DC
·
15m
Texas Republicans have asked a federal judge to throw out 100,000 ballots in Harris County cast through curbside voting. They drew Judge Andrew Hanen, one of the most notoriously partisan Republican judges in the entire federal judiciary. This is alarming.

When might we find out the judge’s ruling?


And what happens to those 100,000 voters? Would they get to vote again?

[Inmate Trump]

For anyone wondering why I’m a doomer, this is why.

I think what the Texas GOP is trying to do is only a small fraction of what they’ll try to do across the country.

[Inmate Trump]

This is a bizarre lawsuit. Why would the TX Supreme Court uphold throwing out 100K votes from a method that they ruled to allow? All this is going to do is drive up Democratic turnout and anger Indies who just want all votes counted.

This is a lawsuit in federal court, so the goal here would be to get it up to the US Supreme Court.

If SCOTUS rules in favor of tossing ballots, the next time Dems get any power at all they need to pack the court.

[Inmate Trump]

My niece is a first time voter in GA and she voted for Biden. I am a proud uncle