Early & Absentee Voting Megathread - Build the Freiwal

[GeorgiaModerate]

Quick, somebody find them and get an exit poll!

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/ElectProject/status/1046260657585295360

[GeorgiaModerate]

Are we really gonna overanalyze <20k votes when there will be more than 2 million cast statewide?

How long have you been here?

[GeorgiaModerate]

Maybe some of our resident Georgia experts can help interpret this, and explain why this is the case? Why are the return rates significantly lower in the Atlanta area so far? Just an idea, but maybe the Abrams campaign has been focusing on turnout especially in the Atlanta area, and got more people who would not normally use absentee ballots to get ballots there as compared to in rural ares?
 

Come over to the Georgia thread in the Gubernatorial/Statewide board.  Griff does terrific analysis of the Georgia early vote.

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/ElectProject/status/1049476363714027520

[GeorgiaModerate]

Do we know anything about "Other Race"? That increase is pretty remarkable by %.

Primarily Asian, I expect.

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/michpoligal/status/1050035421130952704

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/oldnorthstpol/status/1051844693607243781

[GeorgiaModerate]

I get why people are doing it, but I wish there were more comparisons to 2016 rather than 2014. This is going to be a high-turnout midterm, and the patterns we'll see will be much closer to the 2016 patterns.

Doing both would be useful.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Ballots were mailed out yesterday in WA.
As of 10/17, 3,411 ballots had been returned in King County.

I still haven't gotten mine #EastCoastProblems

Haven’t gotten mine either and I live in King

Clearly a concerted campaign to disenfranchise Atlasians.

I've got another data point to add to this troubling trend: I haven't received my ballot either.

The Russians have figured out who you are.

[GeorgiaModerate]

At the Election project the question has been raised as to whether this could be the first midterm since 1914 to have a 50% or more turnout:

http://www.electproject.org/early_2018

Another observation I have is that the folks who are harassing Republican lawmakers are foolishly in the process of driving up the GOP turnout.  They are also in the process of making Senator McConnell a hero to Republicans.  I cannot understand why they are doing that.

Can someone explain this foolishness?

The electorate has never been a shining example of wisdom, and it's gotten worse in the last few years.  This kind of uncivil behavior is, well, deplorable.  People, including politicians, should be able to appear in public without that kind of harassment.  (However, I strongly doubt that it changes anyone's voting intention.)  

EDIT: That looks more even-handed than I intended.  It should also be noted that although incivility has been on the rise, nobody has fomented and encouraged it over the last couple years more than Donald Trump.

[GeorgiaModerate]

This is a pretty interesting bit from Ralston's early vote in Nevada blog:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

If an uninspiring candidate like Rosen can pull this off with new voters and "missing" voters, just imagine what dynamic candidates like Abrams and Gillum can do.

Or maybe Rosen just isn't the weak candidate Atlas thinks she is? Crazy thought, I know, but I like to be Bold.

Will Wacky Jacky end up smitin' the titan?

[GeorgiaModerate]

A cautionary note to keep in mind regarding early voting numbers: the party breakdown is informative but not definitive.  All it tells you is how these voters are registered, or possibly which party's primary they last voted in, but it doesn't tell you how they actually voted in this election.

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/republicans-outpacing-democrats-early-voting-key-states-nbc-news-finds-n922881?cid=sm_npd_ms_fb_ma

GOP-affiliated voters have surpassed Democratic-affiliated ones in early voting in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Montana, Tennessee and Texas, the data showed.

I mean, isn't that expected in all of those states? If Dems are winning any of those states it's going to be due to good to amazing margins among independents.

Democrats typically have big leads in the early vote. In 2012, I remember they touted how Romney won the election day vote in Iowa. In 2016, they were excited over the early vote in Florida showing them winning. And for example in 2014:

http://time.com/3551146/early-voting-turnout-north-carolina-elections/

That there are big Republican leads in the early vote suggests a #RedWave

Please check your facts.  I don't know about all the states in your list, but Democrats definitely do NOT typically lead the Georgia early vote.  I'm pretty sure they don't in Florida, either.

[GeorgiaModerate]

The numbers in Arizona are brutal -
http://www.arizona.vote/early-ballot-statistics

Republican landslide in Maricopa county, 117,000 to 75,000.

As others have pointed out, these numbers are worthless unless you include how they compare to previous years.

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/electionsmith/status/1054567507086970880

[GeorgiaModerate]

I'm going to add a disclaimer to the thread title because I'm sick of people posting to this thread to tell us to stop talking about the early vote.

I like it.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Nevada Dems lead is at 11k now. Hillary only won by 20k votes in 2016, so that seems pretty good right now assuming Indies also break for Dems.

What are you talking about?

We have to remember that Hillary only won by 20k votes. So an EV lead right now for Dems of 11k without indies is not bad if that stays throughout the entirety of EV, assuming Indies also break for Dems, which according to most polling, looks likely this year.

Ralston said in his morning blog post that the Clark County Dem Firewall keeps building. Up to 10,000 now. Said that Democrats would like for it to get to 40,000. This weekend will be key. Also he said that the Washoe numbers should worry Republicans, but they are doing very well in the rurals.

Got a link?

Bookmark this one: https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/the-early-voting-blog

[GeorgiaModerate]

Democrats cannibalizing AA Vote here I think. Hillary tried to win FL with the Early Vote in 2016, it failed.

Obama tried the same thing, and in that case it succeeded, twice.

Yeah, call me crazy but it could be that AA turnout % in florida may be a little higher than in 2016 with an african-American candidate.

Well, you might be crazy, but your point is still valid.

[GeorgiaModerate]

What would this data imply? I get the primary part, it shows that many non-voters are coming into the election, but what about the ages? What was it like in 2016/2014?

I don't know any specific #s for 2016/2014. Unfortunately TX has pretty bad/limited data.

Generally, it probably suggests what you would think it would - if those voters are younger, then probably the voters without primary voting history skew a bit more Dem. No doubt there are also many Rs among them, though.

In any election, younger voters will be more likely than older ones to have no primary history, simply because they've had fewer opportunities.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Harris is lower than 2016 in comparison to other counties because of voter suppression by the Republican County Clerk, who is apparently closing the polls there several hours earlier than everywhere else in TX.

Can you provide more details on this?

[GeorgiaModerate]

Wouldn't it be nice if we could look at the early voting data and not freak out trying to read tea leaves or argue? That would be nice.

It would be nice, but it wouldn't be Atlas.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Right, the EV is certainly not at the point where Rosen is guaranteed to win, but from the hysterical reactions of some of the posters here you would think Heller already had it in the bag. And yes, the early reactions were also hysterical. I guess that's the one common thread here.

To me, it seems perfectly reasonable to by hysterical if Rosen is not guaranteed to win. Rosen should be guaranteed to win by all rights. It is not about Heller having it in the bag. It is about Rosen not having it in the bag, which is really pathetic. Don't succumb to the soft bigotry of low expectations.

Eh, fair enough I guess. I guess if you were hoping for/expecting a massive wave something like this would put a damper on it, but I never expected it to be a tsunami. And to me Rosen still looks on track to win, albeit by a smaller margin than I would've predicted a week ago.

Plus, we still have a lot of time left before this EV data is final.

A wave isn't winning by large margins...a wave is when all the close states break your way. NV and AZ were never going to be large margin wins...but in a wave they will both break to the DEMS.

AZ was never going to be a large win? Atlas told me otherwise in the summer, lol.

I believe most people, with the exception of a few wildly overoptimistic Democrats, said that Sinema would win by a large margin if Ward or (especially) Arpaio was her opponent, but that it would be much closer against McSally.

[GeorgiaModerate]

To respond to bilaps, I've acknowledged that the numbers aren't looking as rosy for Democrats as they did on Saturday, I'm just saying that while Rosen isn't looking like she'll win by 10, I'd still rather be her than Heller. Anyone who thought that breakdown by party ID alone would suggest a Democratic wave was engaging in some pretty wishful thinking. If there is a blue tsunami (big if) it's probably because Independents are breaking heavily for Democrats and there's some crossover voting. I wouldn't bet on that, but that was always going to be necessary for a 60+ seat tsunami for the Democrats.

Anyway, more Clark absentees are in, Democrats gained about 100 more, and are now just shy of a 3.5K lead statewide. Hopefully we'll get a Clark turnout update in about an hour or so.

It is 3 PM in Nevada (Anybody know why they use PT when MT seems more reasonable geographically?), so we might get one soon.

Presumably because both Vegas and Reno are very near to California (granted I’ve alwayd found that odd too)

The Pacific time zone is appropriate for Nevada.  Each time zone should be 15 degrees of longitude wide (360 degrees/24 hours).  With GMT centered around 0 degrees longitude, Pacific Time (the 8th time zone west of it) should be centered around 120 W, ideally from 112.5 W to 127.5 W (of course the zone boundaries are adjusted for geographic regions).  Reno is almost exactly on 120 W, and Vegas is at 115.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Is there a way I can put this entire thread on ignore?

Don't read it?