2020 Absentee/Early Voting thread

[Adam Griffin]

[Adam Griffin]

Yeah, they're pretty awful when it comes to modelling partisan composition.

As I said a few days back, be careful with Tom Bonier/Targetsmart's data modelling. It's one thing when they're utilizing registration by party stats in the states where party registration exists, but they also found very similar patterns/results in 2016 as well that turned out to be bogus in terms of determining the outcomes in those states.

*Data reflects registered party where available, and TargetSmart modeled party in states without partisan registration.

[Adam Griffin]

https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/1317267452116553728?s=20

46.0 Biden
42.5 Trump

[Adam Griffin]

Georgia: a total of 206,610 ballots were cast today, bringing the early vote total to 1,332,340.

Of the ballots cast today, 44,878 were mail ballots and 161,732 were in-person votes. The in-person total was almost identical to the first day of in-person voting, and easily surpassed Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday in-person totals.

The identical number for total votes as of 18 days prior to the election in 2016 was 569,816 (42.7% of '20 total); for the first Friday of early in-person voting in 2016 specifically, 108,564 (52.5% of '20 total).

[Adam Griffin]

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).

[Adam Griffin]

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.

It's possible we still get half the votes we've seen per day tomorrow; I'm not abreast of every county that's offering weekend voting during the first week but if it's happening in the 12 main urban counties, then all of those in-person and mail ballots received could be close to that.

I know Fulton, Cobb and Muscogee are doing in-person voting tomorrow, and Chatham is doing early voting on both Saturday and Sunday (Gwinnett and Bibb are not doing any extra weekend voting).

[Adam Griffin]

Pure speculation here, but I wonder if we're seeing a sort of psychological phenomenon in Texas and Georgia where suddenly low-propensity voters who thought their vote wouldn't matter in either state are going to turn out in huge numbers because things look much closer this election. I'm not sure how you'd go about proving that, admittedly.

I can't speak much to TX other than its population is booming, but GA's automatic voter registration system began in January 2017 and has now had nearly 4 years to propagate.

It's technically quasi-AVR since it is done via the DMV: poorer people (who are of course low-propensity) are more likely to renew their licenses every 5 years as opposed to 8 due to cost. That of course means the vast majority of these individuals are now registered to vote when they might have not been otherwise. Georgia active registered voters are now 95% of VEP (including inactive RVs, 102%). Even in 2018, the effect of AVR would have only been half as strong as it is now.

GA of course also took the liberty of sending mail ballot applications for the primary & sent ballots automatically to anybody who requested one in the primary if they were 65+, disabled, veteran or overseas (historically, you have to opt-in for ballots for each election in a cycle and be in one of those groups - this is why the number of automatically mailed ballots in the 2020 GE for these groups was 2.5x greater than all mail ballots cast in the 2016 GE).

[Adam Griffin]

Pure speculation here, but I wonder if we're seeing a sort of psychological phenomenon in Texas and Georgia where suddenly low-propensity voters who thought their vote wouldn't matter in either state are going to turn out in huge numbers because things look much closer this election. I'm not sure how you'd go about proving that, admittedly.

I can't speak much to TX other than its population is booming, but GA's automatic voter registration system began in January 2017 and has now had nearly 4 years to propagate.

It's technically quasi-AVR since it is done via the DMV: poorer people (who are of course low-propensity) are more likely to renew their licenses every 5 years as opposed to 8 due to cost. That of course means the vast majority of these individuals are now registered to vote when they might have not been otherwise. Georgia active registered voters are now 95% of VEP (including inactive RVs, 102%). Even in 2018, the effect of AVR would have only been half as strong as it is now.

How did they manage to trick the GOP-controlled state government into implementing AVR??

It was literally Brian Kemp (SoS-GA) who pushed for the initiative (as well as online voter registration 2 years prior). He basically became a fake conservative/Trumpian when he decided to run for Governor!

The 2018-GOP-GOV primary is a hilarious affair in retrospect because Kemp was the more moderate option but pivoted to being crazy to win due to that being his only option, in large part because Cagle was the crazier of the two for the prior decade but was incumbent LT-GOV, so he likewise pivoted to being moderate to appeal to the establishment GOP base!

Either way, the (historically) more moderate option won the GAGOP primary as always!

[Adam Griffin]

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

Is this more Target Smart crap?

Maybe, but also Biden kinda did triage the state basically

Targetsmart really is garbage, as I said well before EV began:

Yeah, they're pretty awful when it comes to modelling partisan composition.

As I said a few days back, be careful with Tom Bonier/Targetsmart's data modelling. It's one thing when they're utilizing registration by party stats in the states where party registration exists, but they also found very similar patterns/results in 2016 as well that turned out to be bogus in terms of determining the outcomes in those states.

*Data reflects registered party where available, and TargetSmart modeled party in states without partisan registration.

[Adam Griffin]

I looked at the EV portal Targetsmart setup for GA this cycle, and what does it show?

Relative to 2016: Democrats doing phenomenally better in dying South GA, meaningfully worse in GA-6, and atrociously worse through non-urban North GA. Pshaw!

[Adam Griffin]

Just wanted to point out that GA as of today now has roughly the same number of prospective early voters as all who voted early by any method & at any time in 2016 (57% of all voters). This includes the 1.33m who have actually voted early + 1.06m who have requested mail ballots (but have not yet returned them).

And GA still has 11 more days of in-person early voting (first week averaged 141k voters per day)...

[Adam Griffin]

Georgia: As of 5 PM, 87,459 votes were cast on Saturday (the final number will be a bit higher).

This includes 59,942 in-person votes and 27,517 mail ballots. Not bad at all given less than half the state's population had early in-person voting today.

Total ballots cast in GA are now 777,391 in-person & 653,795 by mail, for a grand total of 1,431,186.

[Adam Griffin]

Georgia: For the final update, 93,184 votes were cast on Saturday.

This includes 64,604 in-person votes and 28,580 mail ballots.

Total ballots cast in GA are now 783,426 in-person & 654,858 by mail, for a grand total of 1,438,284.

[Adam Griffin]

Georgia: For the final update, 44,148 votes were cast on Sunday.

This includes 31,767 in-person votes and 12,381 mail ballots.

Total ballots cast in GA are now 819,406 in-person & 663,026 by mail, for a grand total of 1,482,432 (35.59% of 2016 total vote).


EDIT: worth noting that many counties not offering voting this weekend haven't checked their dropboxes since Friday afternoon, meaning anything dropped off between Friday evening and Monday morning will lead to a big dump of mail ballots in Monday's report. Just in the counties holding Saturday and/or Sunday in-person voting, we've seen 40,961 mail ballots received via USPS on Sat or dropped off in boxes on Sat/Sun, and 96,371 in-person votes: a total of 137,332 votes across the weekend. I wouldn't be surprised if there were 50k mail ballots sitting in dropboxes across the state right now in the counties that didn't offer in-person weekend voting; 100k mail ballots being processed on Monday isn't out of the question.

[Adam Griffin]

Demographics of LA early vote after day 2

2020--62-34-4 (W-B-O)   2016--70-27-4

2020--52-32-15 (D-R-O)  2016--45-39-17

Not quite at half of the 2016 early vote.

Are there that many Dixiecrats in LA in 2020?

In terms of registration and/or primary participation? Sure:

October 2020 Registration: 1,248,613 D (55.42%), 1,004,537 R (44.58%)
2020 Presidential Primary: 267,286 D (56.69%), 204,175 R (43.31%)
2016 Presidential Primary: 311,776 D (50.86%), 301,241 R (49.14%)

[Adam Griffin]

Georgia: As of the 5 PM update, 173,926 votes were cast on Monday. This is the largest single day of voting thus far (previous record for this election was last Wednesday, with 173,263 votes), and there are still votes to be reported. We may hit 200k today, depending on how many got processed before 5 PM across the state.

This includes 133,718 in-person votes and 40,208 mail ballots.

Total ballots cast in GA are now 955,994 in-person & 700,364 by mail, for a grand total of 1,656,358 (39.76% of 2016 total vote).

[Adam Griffin]

Georgia: As of the 5 PM update, 173,926 votes were cast on Sunday. This is the largest single day of voting thus far (previous record for this election was last Wednesday, with 173,263 votes), and there are still votes to be reported. We may hit 200k today, depending on how many got processed before 5 PM across the state.

This includes 133,718 in-person votes and 40,208 mail ballots.

Total ballots cast in GA are now 955,994 in-person & 700,364 by mail, for a grand total of 1,656,358 (39.76% of 2016 total vote).

Related: Do you have the percent of the electorate that was white/black in 2018 and 2016?

In terms of the unofficial, SoS-classified categories (that leave anywhere from 5-10% of voters classified as "other/unknown")?

White-2018: 58.93%
Black-2018: 28.95%

White-2016: 60.79%
Black-2016: 27.66%

[Adam Griffin]

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

[Adam Griffin]

Georgia: Final update shows that 210,171 votes were cast on Monday. This is the largest single day of voting thus far.

This includes 158,426 in-person votes and 51,745 mail ballots.

Total ballots cast in GA are now 981,199 in-person & 711,404 by mail, for a grand total of 1,692,603 (40.63% of 2016 total vote).

[Adam Griffin]

Yeah, not really sure why people are freaking out over today's EV in Florida? Would you call a very tight race in the state for the GOP with literally zero of Miami-Dade being counted?

[Adam Griffin]

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

[Adam Griffin]

Georgia: As of noon, 82,176 votes have been cast in Georgia (in-person & mail). Total EV as of noon is 1,777,947.

[Adam Griffin]

Georgia: As of the 5 PM update, 189,417 votes were cast on Tuesday.

This includes 143,086 in-person votes and 46,331 mail ballots.

Total ballots cast in GA are now 1,129,413 in-person & 757,735 by mail, for a grand total of 1,887,148 (45.30% of 2016 total vote).

Georgia's EV total has officially surpassed Clinton's 2016 vote total.

[Adam Griffin]

Georgia, Final Tuesday Update: 214,314 votes were cast on Tuesday. This is the largest single day of voting thus far.

This includes 160,089 in-person votes and 54,225 mail ballots.

Total ballots cast in GA are now 1,146,416 in-person & 765,629 by mail, for a grand total of 1,912,045 (45.90% of 2016 total vote).

Georgia will almost certainly hit 50% of 2016 turnout tomorrow and likely surpass Trump's 2016 raw vote as well (Clinton's raw vote total was surpassed today).

[Adam Griffin]

If the averages from the past 9 days (since Day 1 of early in-person voting) were to hold over the next 11-12 days, Georgia:

• Would cast approximately 3,640,000 early votes, or 87.4% of its total 2016 vote
• Would reach 100% of its 2016 EV total this Friday
• Would cast approximately 1.5x the number of early ballots as in 2016