2020 Absentee/Early Voting thread

[Skill and Chance]

I'm sorry but I have to think such insane early voting has to help Democrats if it stays like this.  Even though the Falls Church voters would almost certainly vote on Election Day, you never know, a few might have something come up, etc.  This banks their votes now.  Plus the party doesn't have to worry about them and invest resources last minute on voters who have already turned out.  If a similar thing happens in Philly and its burbs I think that's a good sign.

Pennsylvania is unique among the swing states because it has no-excuse mail voting but no early in-person voting at all (other than dropping off a mail ballot that the voter already requested and was mailed).  Basically the opposite of Texas (highly restrictive mail voting with no COVID excuse, but long period of in-person early voting).  This is why the vagaries of mail voting in PA are getting so much scrutiny. 

[Skill and Chance]

I'm sorry but I have to think such insane early voting has to help Democrats if it stays like this.  Even though the Falls Church voters would almost certainly vote on Election Day, you never know, a few might have something come up, etc.  This banks their votes now.  Plus the party doesn't have to worry about them and invest resources last minute on voters who have already turned out.  If a similar thing happens in Philly and its burbs I think that's a good sign.

Pennsylvania is unique among the swing states because it has no-excuse mail voting but no early in-person voting at all (other than dropping off a mail ballot that the voter already requested and was mailed).  Basically the opposite of Texas (highly restrictive mail voting with no COVID excuse, but long period of in-person early voting).  This is why the vagaries of mail voting in PA are getting so much scrutiny. 

That was true until this year - but many counties, at least in Philly/Southeast are opening satellite election offices to basically do pseudo "early voting" this year. I think the Philly ones open this week or next week

The "all-in-one" absentee satellite offices haven't opened yet and are being challenged in court.

[Skill and Chance]

I'm sorry but I have to think such insane early voting has to help Democrats if it stays like this.  Even though the Falls Church voters would almost certainly vote on Election Day, you never know, a few might have something come up, etc.  This banks their votes now.  Plus the party doesn't have to worry about them and invest resources last minute on voters who have already turned out.  If a similar thing happens in Philly and its burbs I think that's a good sign.

Pennsylvania is unique among the swing states because it has no-excuse mail voting but no early in-person voting at all (other than dropping off a mail ballot that the voter already requested and was mailed).  Basically the opposite of Texas (highly restrictive mail voting with no COVID excuse, but long period of in-person early voting).  This is why the vagaries of mail voting in PA are getting so much scrutiny. 

That was true until this year - but many counties, at least in Philly/Southeast are opening satellite election offices to basically do pseudo "early voting" this year. I think the Philly ones open this week or next week

The "all-in-one" absentee satellite offices haven't opened yet and are being challenged in court.

They are opening September 29th regardless: https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/philadelphia-early-voting-locations-2020-election-20200918.html

OK, looks promising.  If the whole thing happens under poll worker supervision, a lot of the high profile errors that could invalidate a ballot can be avoided.

[Skill and Chance]

I'm sorry but I have to think such insane early voting has to help Democrats if it stays like this.  Even though the Falls Church voters would almost certainly vote on Election Day, you never know, a few might have something come up, etc.  This banks their votes now.  Plus the party doesn't have to worry about them and invest resources last minute on voters who have already turned out.  If a similar thing happens in Philly and its burbs I think that's a good sign.

Pennsylvania is unique among the swing states because it has no-excuse mail voting but no early in-person voting at all (other than dropping off a mail ballot that the voter already requested and was mailed).  Basically the opposite of Texas (highly restrictive mail voting with no COVID excuse, but long period of in-person early voting).  This is why the vagaries of mail voting in PA are getting so much scrutiny. 

That was true until this year - but many counties, at least in Philly/Southeast are opening satellite election offices to basically do pseudo "early voting" this year. I think the Philly ones open this week or next week

The "all-in-one" absentee satellite offices haven't opened yet and are being challenged in court.

They are opening September 29th regardless: https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/philadelphia-early-voting-locations-2020-election-20200918.html

OK, looks promising.  If the whole thing happens under poll worker supervision, a lot of the high profile errors that could invalidate a ballot can be avoided.

The only thing I worry about pessimistically is that because these are new, that no one really knows about them. It would be really great if enough people utilized them, and I hope they do, but I fear many people don't realize they're even opening

If there is any weirdness going on because of expanded mail voting/long in-person early voting, we have a bunch of swing states to use as natural experiments:

AZ: both already in place
FL: both already in place
IA: both already in place, started mailing everyone request forms
MI: switched from excuse required for any early ballots to no excuse in-person and mail in
NC: both already in place
NV: switched to mailing all RV a ballot
PA: switched to no-excuse mail voting only (requires mail ballot procedures regardless of where it's turned in)
VA: switched from excuse required for any early ballots to no excuse in-person and mail in
TX: extended in-person EV only
WI: both already in place, started mailing everyone request forms

[Skill and Chance]

Michael McDonald
@ElectProject
·
4m
#earlyvote cast as a percentage of *total* 2016 vote is truly amazing

SD: 22.8%
VA 20.7%
WI: 20.6%
WY: 14.9%
VT: 14% (report from yesterday)
MI: 13.1% (report from yesterday)
ND: 12.1%
NJ: 12.3%
FL: 12.3%
MN: 11.3% (report from last Fri.)

https://electproject.github.io/Early-Vote-202

LOL regarding the ridiculous Virginia turnout, that's just pure hatred of Trump fueling it.

Wisconsin too.

What the heck is going on in South Dakota?  There's nothing competitive anywhere on the ballot from president to state legislature. 

[Skill and Chance]

http://www.electproject.org/_/rsrc/1551800206840/national-1789-present/National%20Turnout%20Series.png

Big fan of this image from elect project. Fascinating story.

2018 really stands out vs. any other time with remotely modern election laws.

[Skill and Chance]

I think Democrats will get the coveted 600k vote lead in Florida before Election Day...  still not sure where 600k came from though...

I am very hesitant to assume anything from EV reporting, other than this is likely to be one of the highest turnouts overall in the modern era.  Election day could be near unanimous for Trump in states with no-excuse EV and VBM.

[Skill and Chance]

This is a pretty nice summary of the absentee and early voting schedule by state.

Eh, I can point out at least 1 inaccuracy, given that I got my ballot in the mail on the 29th of Sept. & that chart says FL doesn't start mailing ballots 'til Oct. 1st.

well it's a good general guideline.  Some of these dates are somewhat in flux as well due to ongoing court battles.

Wait, why does Oklahoma bother having in person EV when it's only open 3 days (10/29-31)?

[Skill and Chance]

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.

Right.  The party registration numbers don't tell the full story.  Clearly a large chunk of those "Democrats" were voting Republican consistently otherwise Democrats would be winning every election with such a massive advantage.  At least a lot of those people switching over is giving us a better idea of true D vs. R.  One could say that despite this transition Democrats still lead in the early vote by a wide margin, which is probably a bit more accurate in terms of who they are voting for than it would have been if those rural Democrats didn't switch party registration.

I wouldn't rely on party registration for an analysis unless it's like Ohio where the statistic is based on the last primary you voted in.  A ton of people register with a party when they turn 18 and then never change it.  Whole bunch of Southern/Appalachian states with tons of registered D's voting R and a whole bunch of Mountain West/Plains states with registered R's voting D.

[Skill and Chance]

Top 10 states (as of yesterday; share of '16 total vote):

TX: 59.3
VT: 53.4
NJ: 50.4
NM: 47.8
MT: 47.1
GA: 45.9
NC: 45.2
TN: 42.6
VA: 39.3
IA: 38.5

Hmmm, looks like VA really slowed down.