2020 Absentee/Early Voting thread

[Stuart98]

https://twitter.com/alesia369/status/1308174109977841665

Seeing all those one candidate races on that ballot was saddening. Wisconsin gerrymandering...

[Rep Jessica]

988 votes by Mail + 36,740 in person in Virginia
1,180 votes in Michigan
3,397 votes in Wisconsin
350 in south Carolina

[Adam Griffin]

[The Other Castro]

https://twitter.com/electproject/status/1308400076767797249?s=21

[Landslide Lyndon]

https://twitter.com/electproject/status/1308400076767797249?s=21

I'll ask again: is there a similar procedure in Pennsylvania for the people who sent the naked ballots?

[DINGO Joe]

https://twitter.com/electproject/status/1308400076767797249?s=21

I'll ask again: is there a similar procedure in Pennsylvania for the people who sent the naked ballots?

I'm 90% sure that the answer is no.  Because of the twitterings of miles and friends it seems to be a likely point of litigation.

[Ferguson97]

https://twitter.com/redistrict/status/1308434599832322049

[kph14]

The Pennsylvania secrecy ballot stuff is worrying.  The letter says 6% of ballots were rejected in previous elections for this reason alone, and that a higher share will be rejected this time around since there are more first-time voters.

If half of PA votes by mail and the VBM share is 70% D, 30% R, and 10% of ballots are rejected, that is a 2% swing in Trump's favor.  That could easily be enough to decide the election.

Hopefully the Biden campaign is ready to absolutely spam the airwaves with instructions on how to vote properly in Pennsylvania.  Get some hashtags going on social media as well.  Get celebrities to show the kiddies how to vote.  Send out physical media and put up billboards in the cities.

And make sure to not tell the rurals... they voted for these Republicans who actively want to disenfranchise voters, so it's only fair for them to be the first group disenfranchised.

I think we should keep some facts in mind before jumping to the conclusion that this is yet another nefarious Republican plot to steal the election:

• The PA Supreme Court is 5-2 Dem and upheld the secrecy envelope requirement.
• The secrecy envelope is included in the mail ballot materials (see https://www.phillymag.com/news/2020/05/14/pennsylvania-mail-in-ballot-instructions/)
• Biden/the DNC/Mike Bloomberg/whoever is free to run ads reminding people that this is a requirement. Lisa Murkowski was able to get a plurality of Alaskan voters to write her in and spell her name correctly. It can't be that hard to get people to put a mail-in ballot in two envelopes.

Why is there no fat "Put your ballot in here before you return it" on the secrecy envelope? Pennsylvania is setting up its voters to fail here. It just says "Official Election Ballot"

Dude, come on. It's common sense here. Why would they send you the ballot with an envelope that says Official Election Ballot  if they didn't want you to put it in there?

We have the same secrecy envelope system in Germany. The blue envelope, which is the secrecy envelope, has instructions on it. 5%-10% are not using it correctly, that does not sound like common sense.

[Landslide Lyndon]

I still don't get why the Biden campaign didn't spend a bit of its money on educating voters how to mail correctly their ballots. 

[wbrocks67]

I still don't get why the Biden campaign didn't spend a bit of its money on educating voters how to mail correctly their ballots.  

They are. I just got a mailer the other day directly from Biden/Harris with an absentee request form and all the info on what you have to do to vote by mail. Wouldn't expect Dave Wasserman to know that since he just wants to traffic in hysterics and wild scenarios.

[bilaps]

If people aren't capable of voting by mail like they should, their vote should still count, there are a lot of dumb people voting anyway. They should just vote in person instead.

[Crumpets]

I've voted by mail for years and I had no idea that putting the ballot in the secrecy envelope was required. I always did it and I suspect Washington is more lenient than Pennsylvania regardless, but it definitely isn't clear that it's not just "here's a thing to put your ballot in before it goes in the bigger envelope."

[Holmes]

Yeah, the secrecy envelope is a thing in California too and also it's a no brainer. These states that are just beginning VBM this year have a lot of.... special people.

[Horus]

This is why you don't vote by mail if you're in a swing state. Way too much on the line, far too many points of contention and state officials just itching to reject ballots. Just do it in person, especially if you're young.

[Babeuf]

https://twitter.com/electproject/status/1308400076767797249?s=21

I'll ask again: is there a similar procedure in Pennsylvania for the people who sent the naked ballots?

I'm 90% sure that the answer is no.  Because of the twitterings of miles and friends it seems to be a likely point of litigation.

Wasserman says there isn't a similar cure process to NC: https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1308470944462237696

[wbrocks67]

I've voted by mail for years and I had no idea that putting the ballot in the secrecy envelope was required. I always did it and I suspect Washington is more lenient than Pennsylvania regardless, but it definitely isn't clear that it's not just "here's a thing to put your ballot in before it goes in the bigger envelope."

I mean, it doesn't really make sense to just send your ballot back by itself though? Especially if you are dropping it off at a dropbox or even mailing it back. You're not gonna dump the ballot into a drop box if it can easily be opened without being sealed in any way.

Like really, I don't see why anyone would think it wouldn't need to go into the envelope that literally says "Balot"

[bilaps]

So, I looked at this very early numbers from FL and 2% return rate from Sarasota has caught my eye so I checked and the reason they have such big rate is because it says that number of requested ballots is like 2500. Some other counties also have small number of requested ballots while some have huge numbers. Why? Is there a different way these counties are taking up requests or?

[Crumpets]

I've voted by mail for years and I had no idea that putting the ballot in the secrecy envelope was required. I always did it and I suspect Washington is more lenient than Pennsylvania regardless, but it definitely isn't clear that it's not just "here's a thing to put your ballot in before it goes in the bigger envelope."

I mean, it doesn't really make sense to just send your ballot back by itself though? Especially if you are dropping it off at a dropbox or even mailing it back. You're not gonna dump the ballot into a drop box if it can easily be opened without being sealed in any way.

Like really, I don't see why anyone would think it wouldn't need to go into the envelope that literally says "Balot"

I can't speak for how it works in Pennsylvania, but in Washington, you are sent an envelope inside which are two more envelopes - a secrecy envelope and a return envelope - as well as the ballot. When you drop off your ballot either at the dropbox or mail box, you definitely put it in the larger, official-looking envelope, and that is the envelope you have to sign for them to verify your signature. But, I can easily see someone just doing that without also putting it in the secrecy envelope which, here in Washington, serves the sole purpose of making it so that someone like a mail carrier can't hold the ballot up to the light to see how you voted and throw it out, and is just labeled "secrecy envelope." It doesn't provide any additional level of "sealing" as it's just effectively a sleeve of two sheets of paper.

Here's a picture of the envelopes we get. The top one is the return envelope that everyone will definitely use, and the bottom one is the secrecy envelope.



Also looking at that image, it does appear in Washington they accept ballots returned without the secrecy envelope.

[Non Swing Voter]

Seems like the early vote numbers aren't increasing all that much lately.  When are large amounts of ballots/early votes expected to come in? 

[Bootes Void]

Seems like the early vote numbers aren't increasing all that much lately.  When are large amounts of ballots/early votes expected to come in? 

there is over 255 thousand votes, obsviously I dont know how we could compare it to other years but it doesnt seem like things are slowing down.

[Holmes]

Seems like the early vote numbers aren't increasing all that much lately.  When are large amounts of ballots/early votes expected to come in? 

What were your expectations? If Virginia is giving voters 6 whole weeks to vote along with voting by mail, then I doubt everyone would be rushing right away to vote. It'll be a gradual process.

[wbrocks67]

Seems like the early vote numbers aren't increasing all that much lately.  When are large amounts of ballots/early votes expected to come in? 

I don't think most places update the #s daily

[Non Swing Voter]

ok actually there was a fairly large update today.  Over 150,000 people have voted in North Carolina.  When can we start extrapolating anything from this?  I don't buy the Wasserman theory that early voting turnout doesn't matter.  Dems like Obama warned that the numbers in NC were weak and it preluded to crappy Dem turnout.  150,000 seems pretty good at this point but not sure what to compare it to.

[DINGO Joe]

ok actually there was a fairly large update today.  Over 150,000 people have voted in North Carolina.  When can we start extrapolating anything from this?  I don't buy the Wasserman theory that early voting turnout doesn't matter.  Dems like Obama warned that the numbers in NC were weak and it preluded to crappy Dem turnout.  150,000 seems pretty good at this point but not sure what to compare it to.

There is nothing to compare to this. North Carolina also provides considerable in person early voting too (which hasn't started yet).  Maybe the metric of new voters would mean something but then you'd have to know what a normal % of new voters are each election. 

[n1240]

ok actually there was a fairly large update today.  Over 150,000 people have voted in North Carolina.  When can we start extrapolating anything from this?  I don't buy the Wasserman theory that early voting turnout doesn't matter.  Dems like Obama warned that the numbers in NC were weak and it preluded to crappy Dem turnout.  150,000 seems pretty good at this point but not sure what to compare it to.

There is nothing to compare to this. North Carolina also provides considerable in person early voting too (which hasn't started yet).  Maybe the metric of new voters would mean something but then you'd have to know what a normal % of new voters are each election. 

Yeah it's hard to compare since early in-person was a far more dominant mode of voting in North Carolina in 2016, where 3 million voted early in-person and 200k voted by mail, so it's possible that mail-in vote totals exceed what they were in North Carolina 2016 by the end of the week. Dem votes have already shattered the 2016 total where there were about 60k dem votes (currently 84k) but we already knew mail-in vote would have a heavy Dem lean and it's such a small percentage of the electorate that it is hard to draw meaningful conclusions as is