Election 2018 Open Thread - Part 1

[lfromnj]

Wow. Honestly, as a Democrat, we all have A LOT to be happy about.

Our strength in the house continues to grow with multiple surprise victories. Kendra Horn in Ok ( !! ), Lucy McBath in GA ( !! ), and more.

We've won 7 governors seats and, let's be honest, the RINO Governors in many blue states aren't really a danger to a Democratic agenda.

It increasingly seems like we'll keep Republicans to a single seat gain in the Senate, - or maybe even keep it to the status quo. That's a HUGE victory. Nevada was won easily. Arizona looks like a likely gain. And Florida is increasingly looking like a surprise HOLD while even the Governors race could, in a recount, flip!

This will make retaking the Senate in 2020, imo, LIKELY.

And if we take the Presidency in 2020, bam, you have Democratic control of all 3 branches of government.

This was entirely a blue wave, maybe not everywhere -- but in enough places to matter.

lol @governor race in Fl flipping. I can see some path for Nelson but Gillum is done. He doesn't even have the voter error.

[Thatkat04]

I really dont see a path for Gillum, but I do think Nelson has one, albeit a very narrow one.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

I don't care about Florida at this point. Can someone say something about AZ?

OK, something about Arizona.

Mark Kelly, an Astronaut from Arizona who previously launched into space from Cape Canaveral in Florida, might potentially run for Senate in Arizona in 2020.

If he does so, he would be the second Senator to have launched into Space from Cape Canaveral in Florida - and depending on the outcome of the 2018 Senate race in Florida, he might serve simultaneously with his colleague Bill Nelson, Senator from Florida who also launched into space from Cape Canaveral. Voters love Spacemen, you know.

Have you had your Arizona fix, and now can we get back to Florida?

What about Harrison Schmitt?

I do agree though that Kelly would be far and away the best possible Dem candidate for this seat.  Absolutely a dream recruit.

And for people complaining there isn't enough AZ info here, why not just check out the designated AZ thread?

[ag]

American ballots are, frankly, horrible. I understand, many races are run at the same time and having a separate ballot for each race may be somewhat impractical, but these are monstrosities. I mean, have you seen a Mexican ballot?

[No War, but the War on Christmas]

American ballots are, frankly, horrible. I understand, many races are run at the same time and having a separate ballot for each race may be somewhat impractical, but these are monstrosities. I mean, have you seen a Mexican ballot?

It is nice looking. Can you not cross party vote in Mexico though?

[Thatkat04]

American ballots are, frankly, horrible. I understand, many races are run at the same time and having a separate ballot for each race may be somewhat impractical, but these are monstrosities. I mean, have you seen a Mexican ballot?

Wanna hear something even worse, the Florida ballot was 5 pages long double sided. Even worse, the little cubicles most Florida polling states employ are much too short, so the ballot cant even be layed down flat to fill it out.

[ag]

American ballots are, frankly, horrible. I understand, many races are run at the same time and having a separate ballot for each race may be somewhat impractical, but these are monstrosities. I mean, have you seen a Mexican ballot?

It is nice looking. Can you not cross party vote in Mexico though?

You can. There were 6 races that day and we got 6 ballots each: nice and simple. Just mark each ballot separately for whatever party (or independent) you like.

The only complication is that if multiple parties nominate the same candidate, you could vote for that candidate either by marking just one party, or by marking both (or all three): the vote is still valid and it matters for parties' future government financing. But a vote for multiple parties with different candidates would be invalid. Then, again, in my precinct exactly one out of nearly 400 voters made that mistake (I know: I was the president of the precinct this time, so I actually took out each ballot from the box and showed it to all those present).

[ag]

The experience of American democracy is much like that of living in an old, decrepit house in which nothing has been updated or replaced for years, or even decades. Conditions are uncomfortable and ugly, and few things work as intended. But it's rare for anything to be improved, because the tenants are too senile, lazy, impoverished, or stubborn to tolerate change. (And of course the landlord doesn't care as long as the rent check arrives on time each month.)

I know. And, in fact, it is hard to repair: each time you try to replace a particular tube, you risk the whole house collapsing. In this particular case, the only thing that prevents US elections from massive hacking is how disorganised they are: any hacker would have to separately deal with hundreds of completely independent systems. So, trying to make any centralised improvements may only make things worse. But, frankly, ballot design is not such a horribly complicated task - you do not need a Harvard Ph.D. to come up with something more sensible.

[Antonio the Sixth]

The experience of American democracy is much like that of living in an old, decrepit house in which nothing has been updated or replaced for years, or even decades. Conditions are uncomfortable and ugly, and few things work as intended. But it's rare for anything to be improved, because the tenants are too senile, lazy, impoverished, or stubborn to tolerate change. (And of course the landlord doesn't care as long as the rent check arrives on time each month.)

I know. And, in fact, it is hard to repair: each time you try to replace a particular tube, you risk the whole house collapsing. In this particular case, the only thing that prevents US elections from massive hacking is how disorganised they are: any hacker would have to separately deal with hundreds of completely independent systems. So, trying to make any centralised improvements may only make things worse. But, frankly, ballot design is not such a horribly complicated task - you do not need a Harvard Ph.D. to come up with something more sensible.

Well, the obvious fix to that is to discontinue all voting machines and move entirely to paper ballots, and have them be manually counted by real human beings from the start. You know, like most countries do.

[ag]

The experience of American democracy is much like that of living in an old, decrepit house in which nothing has been updated or replaced for years, or even decades. Conditions are uncomfortable and ugly, and few things work as intended. But it's rare for anything to be improved, because the tenants are too senile, lazy, impoverished, or stubborn to tolerate change. (And of course the landlord doesn't care as long as the rent check arrives on time each month.)

I know. And, in fact, it is hard to repair: each time you try to replace a particular tube, you risk the whole house collapsing. In this particular case, the only thing that prevents US elections from massive hacking is how disorganised they are: any hacker would have to separately deal with hundreds of completely independent systems. So, trying to make any centralised improvements may only make things worse. But, frankly, ballot design is not such a horribly complicated task - you do not need a Harvard Ph.D. to come up with something more sensible.

Well, the obvious fix to that is to discontinue all voting machines and move entirely to paper ballots, and have them be manually counted by real human beings from the start. You know, like most countries do.

It might, actually, be both cheaper and faster. There are ways of doing that voting machine thingy well (see India), but US has not mastered it.

[NOVA Green]

I don't care about Florida at this point. Can someone say something about AZ?

It's ironic how people here talking on and on and on about Florida when there's a race is Arizona that the Democrats are can (and maybe even slightly favored) to win.

Good point....  even in the AZ CD-08 SE it took some time to cast ballots that tended to skew heavily DEM towards the endgame of the vote count...

There was an extremely large thread on this subject barely six months back....

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=287204.375

[Blair]

Those ballots are hideously big- and so crowded. I would ask why you don’t have separate state and federal ballots but of course that would only lead to more problems.

[Ben.]

The experience of American democracy is much like that of living in an old, decrepit house in which nothing has been updated or replaced for years, or even decades. Conditions are uncomfortable and ugly, and few things work as intended. But it's rare for anything to be improved, because the tenants are too senile, lazy, impoverished, or stubborn to tolerate change. (And of course the landlord doesn't care as long as the rent check arrives on time each month.)

I know. And, in fact, it is hard to repair: each time you try to replace a particular tube, you risk the whole house collapsing. In this particular case, the only thing that prevents US elections from massive hacking is how disorganised they are: any hacker would have to separately deal with hundreds of completely independent systems. So, trying to make any centralised improvements may only make things worse. But, frankly, ballot design is not such a horribly complicated task - you do not need a Harvard Ph.D. to come up with something more sensible.

Well, the obvious fix to that is to discontinue all voting machines and move entirely to paper ballots, and have them be manually counted by real human beings from the start. You know, like most countries do.

It might, actually, be both cheaper and faster. There are ways of doing that voting machine thingy well (see India), but US has not mastered it.

But what would happen then to those tech companies that want to sell electronic voting systems to state governments?! And who wants to wait 8 hours to get a full result?!

It would be much easier, simpler and cheaper. Not going to happen though. Voting times should also be extended like in most other democracies, but I digress...

[American2020]

It'll be so close in Arizona.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/arizona-senate-race-democrat-kyrsten-sinema-small-lead-over-republican-martha-mcsally-live-updates-today-2018-11-08/

[Inmate Trump]

When will we know something substantial about Florida?

[wbrocks67]

At the very least, with nearly presidential-level turnout, Dems improved on Clinton's margins just about everywhere, which is reassuring. Both sides were energized, and dems improved their margins everywhere, and got VERY close in places like TX, GA, AZ (where we might still win), so that's good.

Really, the only dissapointing spots were obviously Indiana, Missouri, Ohio, and FL. And in those places, we still beat Hillary's margin.

Also, Donnelly is down less than 7 now in the IN race, which isn't horrific. In like a 75-80% of presidential level turnout, we took places where Trump won by 20 and cut that more than in half. Means Dems WERE energized and out there, but some places are just too red now where sometimes candidates don't matter anymore.

Still shook about my home state of PA. While I'm sad we just missed out on places like PA-1, PA-10, and PA-16, the margins for Casey and Wolf were massive for a swing state. Barletta was pretty much generic R to a tee and Casey still won by +13%. The margins were way higher in PA than WI and MI.

[Vega]

Those ballots are hideously big- and so crowded. I would ask why you don’t have separate state and federal ballots but of course that would only lead to more problems.

It would?

[AtorBoltox]

35+ seats in the house
At least a 7% popular vote victory
Net loss in senate of 2, maybe even 1 depending on Florida despite the worst possible map
7 governors mansions gained
This is a wave my friends

[wbrocks67]

I'm sorry, they are oddly under the impression that Walters and Kim won in CA:

"Mimi Walters [Republican, Calif.-45] ran a great campaign, won a very tough race in a tough district. She was outspent by almost $3 million. Young Kim [Republican, Calif.-39] was one of our biggest expenditures in Orange County. I think she will be a future superstar of the party, the first Korean-American woman ever elected to Congress."

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/11/09/democratic-republican-majority-house-election-2018-222400

[Gass3268]

I'm sorry, they are oddly under the impression that Walters and Kim won in CA:

"Mimi Walters [Republican, Calif.-45] ran a great campaign, won a very tough race in a tough district. She was outspent by almost $3 million. Young Kim [Republican, Calif.-39] was one of our biggest expenditures in Orange County. I think she will be a future superstar of the party, the first Korean-American woman ever elected to Congress."

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/11/09/democratic-republican-majority-house-election-2018-222400

It's amazing how many in the political media, who's job it is to cover congress, have no idea how the different state's voting processes work.

[Landslide Lyndon]

35+ seats in the house
At least a 7% popular vote victory
Net loss in senate of 2, maybe even 1 depending on Florida despite the worst possible map
7 governors mansions gained
This is a wave my friends

TBH, I'm a bit disappointed with the governors numbers. I expected at minimum 8 pick-ups.

[7,052,770]

MS: Likely R, close to safe
FL: Tossup
AZ: Lean D?

Looks like this prediction was pretty good

[Inmate Trump]

35+ seats in the house
At least a 7% popular vote victory
Net loss in senate of 2, maybe even 1 depending on Florida despite the worst possible map
7 governors mansions gained
This is a wave my friends

TBH, I'm a bit disappointed with the governors numbers. I expected at minimum 8 pick-ups.

Other than Florida, I wasn’t expecting too much more, honestly.

[Snipee356]

My opinion of the night has steadily gotten better over time.

[Badger]

Scott certainly doesn't sound like someone who is winning.

He sounds like a typical Republican whose God given right to Victory is being challenged.