2020 Absentee/Early Voting thread

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

https://twitter.com/HarrisVotes/status/1316490663907786753

200k in two days in one county.

America's 3rd largest county, with a population comparble to Kentucky.

More than Kentucky lol

[Adam Griffin]

The GA SoS portal for absentee voter files was down pretty much all of last night, so it took until today to get firm reports of Tuesday's turnout.

141,646 votes were cast in Georgia on Tuesday (this includes in-person and mail ballots: not sure of the in-person number). This is slightly less than Monday, where 162,229 votes were cast (126,876 in-person + 35,353 mail ballots). It's perfectly normal for second day turnout to dip given GA has 16 days of in-person voting + no-excuse mail voting.

Some interesting facts as of Tuesday night:

• There have been 261,156 new mail ballot requests over the past 48 hours in GA: looks like those unnecessary multi-hour waits convinced voters to wise up. This is more than 15% of all mail ballots requested for the entire cycle (which includes the 500k mostly senior ballots automatically mailed).
  
  
• Between ballots cast (in-person & mail) and ballots requested (mail), approximately 2,050,000 ballots are now in the system (742,893 cast + ~1,300,000 mail ballots requested but not returned). This is equivalent to 52% of all ballots cast in 2018 and 50% of all ballots cast in 2016.

[TrendsareUsuallyReal]

https://twitter.com/RonBrownstein/status/1316525375246102528

If it hits 1.7 million, Trump is f’d. There’s no way he can maintain 40% in Harris with 400k new votes that are overwhelmingly Dem coming in. My earlier prediction of 60-39 Biden here might be a low ball.

For reference, Trump got 40k votes LESS than Romney did. If you want to be generous and assume Trump increases his vote total from 546k to 600k, then that’s still only a mere 35% of the county’s vote, and would be about a 500k vote deficit in Harris. To be clear, I AM NOT predicting Biden winning Harris by 500k. I think a 300k margin out of there would put him on track for at least 50-50 odds statewide. 500k would seal the deal.

[Adam Griffin]

Harris was 15% of TX votes in 2016 and Clinton lost by 800k votes; adding 135k in the margin for Dems would only close the 2016 margin by 17%, which is almost proportionate with its statewide vote share in that contest. You'd either need comparable improvements in virtually every county or even larger improvements in other urban counties to offset potential losses elsewhere.

Of course, using the 2018 Beto baseline would mean such an improvement in Harris alone would close the margin by over 60% sans any GOP swings elsewhere.

[TrendsareUsuallyReal]

Harris was 15% of TX votes in 2016 and Clinton lost by 800k votes; adding 135k in the margin for Dems would only close the 2016 margin by 17%, which is almost proportionate with its statewide vote share in that contest. You'd either need comparable improvements in virtually every county or even larger improvements in other urban counties to offset potential losses elsewhere.

Of course, using the 2018 Beto baseline would mean such an improvement in Harris alone would close the margin by over 60% sans any GOP swings elsewhere.

I’m using the 2018 baseline for the big counties as I don’t see any realistic way Trump does better than Cruz in DFW, Houston, Austin or San Antonio metros. Biden winning Harris County at a fairly conservative 60-39 clip when you factor in that surge of votes nets him over 350k out of Harris, compared to O’Rourke’s 200k.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Can we have a rundown on how voting is going in WI, MI, PA and NC? I haven't heard much about those states in over a week, and the ElectProject numbers recently seem to have stalled. Is it due to lags in reporting or have those states just blown their load already?

[Non Swing Voter]

https://twitter.com/HarrisVotes/status/1316503969812840451

[Non Swing Voter]

https://twitter.com/davebjerke/status/1316488931668615169

43% turnout already in one of the most democratic areas of the state...

[libertpaulian]

If Harris County gets 1.7 million votes, can Biden win 1 million votes in the county?

[Gass3268]

Can we have a rundown on how voting is going in WI, MI, PA and NC? I haven't heard much about those states in over a week, and the ElectProject numbers recently seem to have stalled. Is it due to lags in reporting or have those states just blown their load already?

My Wisconsin Spreadsheet

[Bootes Void]

If Harris County gets 1.7 million votes, can Biden win 1 million votes in the county?

clinton got 700k from this county but Biden can get up to 1 mill fairly easily if the enthusiasm continues

[Brittain33]

MONTGOMERY COUNTY (Houston suburbs)
2012:   15,021       5.7%
2016:   20,432       6.6%
2018:   20,158       6.0%
2020:   20,874       5.7%

LOL, one of the counties showing no bump is one of the Republican bastions of the state. They'd better hope the voters show up on Election Day now that the rest of Texas is becoming a functioning democracy for the first time.

[republican1993]

Can we have a rundown on how voting is going in WI, MI, PA and NC? I haven't heard much about those states in over a week, and the ElectProject numbers recently seem to have stalled. Is it due to lags in reporting or have those states just blown their load already?

My Wisconsin Spreadsheet

can you provide me access

[Gass3268]

https://twitter.com/tbonier/status/1316549314286682113?s=20

[Gass3268]

Can we have a rundown on how voting is going in WI, MI, PA and NC? I haven't heard much about those states in over a week, and the ElectProject numbers recently seem to have stalled. Is it due to lags in reporting or have those states just blown their load already?

My Wisconsin Spreadsheet

can you provide me access

Does the link not work?

[Beet]

I don't understand why you'd want to have your vote sitting in some warehouse for 3 weeks. If it gets lost, do they even have a separate system to track that? And even if they do, there's nothing to stop someone from surreptitiously breaking in, changing some votes, and replacing them. I can't imagine the software on this stuff in particularly well encrypted.

[Ferguson97]

What margin does Biden have to win Harris County by that he'd likely win the state?

[republican1993]

Can we have a rundown on how voting is going in WI, MI, PA and NC? I haven't heard much about those states in over a week, and the ElectProject numbers recently seem to have stalled. Is it due to lags in reporting or have those states just blown their load already?

My Wisconsin Spreadsheet

can you provide me access

Does the link not work?

it's telling me it was will notify me via email when you accept access to the sheet

[libertpaulian]

How did Target Smart do in 2018?

[Antonio the Sixth]

Can we have a rundown on how voting is going in WI, MI, PA and NC? I haven't heard much about those states in over a week, and the ElectProject numbers recently seem to have stalled. Is it due to lags in reporting or have those states just blown their load already?

My Wisconsin Spreadsheet

So Dane's still leading the pack by a wide margin, Milwaukee is also above average in its return rate, and other leading counties are also largely Dem-friendly (although WOW is also in there). That makes sense.

I feel like these totals have barely gone up in the past few days, though. Is that normal? Or am I mistaken?

[The Mikado]

Judge Clay Jenkins is proud.

https://twitter.com/JudgeClayJ/status/1316546214222008325

[TrendsareUsuallyReal]

What margin does Biden have to win Harris County by that he'd likely win the state?

Anything over 300k and I think he’s sitting pretty.

[Gass3268]

Can we have a rundown on how voting is going in WI, MI, PA and NC? I haven't heard much about those states in over a week, and the ElectProject numbers recently seem to have stalled. Is it due to lags in reporting or have those states just blown their load already?

My Wisconsin Spreadsheet

So Dane's still leading the pack by a wide margin, Milwaukee is also above average in its return rate, and other leading counties are also largely Dem-friendly (although WOW is also in there). That makes sense.

I feel like these totals have barely gone up in the past few days, though. Is that normal? Or am I mistaken?

It's slowing down a little bit:

9/22-9/29: 270,511 new votes
9/29-10/6: 236,794 new votes
10/6-10/13: 171,815 new votes

With Monday being a Federal holiday, I think that explains a significant portion of the decline in week 3. If you count the ballots added today (meaning counted on Tuesday) it goes up to 210,858 new votes.

Wisconsin has one more week of only mail absentee voting, starting next Tuesday in person absentee voting starts. I would expect the pace to pick back up again. Today is also the last day to request a mail absentee ballot and register to vote online. Folks can still register to vote in person during the early vote window and on election day.

Fingers crossed Dane County can hit 50% before early voting starts. I think they'll get close, but they would need to pick up the pace a bit to hit the mark.

[forsythvoter]

How is turnout in the Rio Grande Valley looking? If I were the Biden campaign, I might invest in trying to juice up mail-in turnout in counties like El Paso, Hidalgo, Cameron as well. It seems like they punch way below their weight given their populations.

[Non Swing Voter]

https://twitter.com/HarrisVotes/status/1316553809511018496