2020 Absentee/Early Voting thread

[DINGO Joe]

Early voting numbers for day 1(09/19) :
Virginia : 34684
https://twitter.com/Elections2020Us/status/1307660200527175680

What?  Something seems off.  They said only 1500 voted in Fairfax on day 1, by far the largest jurisdiction, with huge lines.  Either that's wrong or the 34,000 number is off.  Hard to believe both are correct.

I haven't seen a county breakdown on the VA website and the 34,000 is possibly for two days and may not even include all counties.  As for Fairfax, they apparently only ran one room the first day and added a second room to expedite things the second. 

[DINGO Joe]

Early voting numbers for day 1(09/19) :
Virginia : 34684
https://twitter.com/Elections2020Us/status/1307660200527175680

What?  Something seems off.  They said only 1500 voted in Fairfax on day 1, by far the largest jurisdiction, with huge lines.  Either that's wrong or the 34,000 number is off.  Hard to believe both are correct.

I haven't seen a county breakdown on the VA website and the 34,000 is possibly for two days and may not even include all counties.  As for Fairfax, they apparently only ran one room the first day and added a second room to expedite things the second. 

The 34,000 number is apparently right (not sure about 1 day or 2) because it's now on VPAP.org which is usually extremely reliable.  Maybe the Fairfax number floating around twitter was off.  I found it odd that it would be that low.

That's where I saw the number too, and it says the Va Dep of elections is the source, but I can't find anything on their page that gives a daily or a county/city breakdown. 

[DINGO Joe]

Early voting numbers for day 1(09/19) :
Virginia : 34684
https://twitter.com/Elections2020Us/status/1307660200527175680

What?  Something seems off.  They said only 1500 voted in Fairfax on day 1, by far the largest jurisdiction, with huge lines.  Either that's wrong or the 34,000 number is off.  Hard to believe both are correct.

I haven't seen a county breakdown on the VA website and the 34,000 is possibly for two days and may not even include all counties.  As for Fairfax, they apparently only ran one room the first day and added a second room to expedite things the second. 

The 34,000 number is apparently right (not sure about 1 day or 2) because it's now on VPAP.org which is usually extremely reliable.  Maybe the Fairfax number floating around twitter was off.  I found it odd that it would be that low.

That's where I saw the number too, and it says the Va Dep of elections is the source, but I can't find anything on their page that gives a daily or a county/city breakdown. 

I checked too.  I just saw a graphic that had totals by congressional district.  The Northern Virginia districts clearly had the largest shares but it's unclear if that is early voting or early voting + absentee.  It's also not surprising as the 3 Northern Virginia districts are significantly more populated than the other districts due to population growth since the last census.

Vpap is a nice source but God they love their graphics, which is annoying when a simple table will do

[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.

[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. 

[DINGO Joe]

The Iowa SOS has started to publish their absentee numbers today.

https://sos.iowa.gov/elections/pdf/2020/general/AbsenteeCongressional2020.pdf

545k requested ballots (roughly 35% of total 2016 turnout)
357k already sent

Numbers are surely high this early on but look still very managble for IA's system. In 2018, IA sent out 576k absentee ballots

IA has an actual history of people voting absentee, almost 700,000 requested ballots in 2016 (650,000 returned) so it gives you something to compare with.  In 2016 the requests were 286000 to 236000 in the Ds favor in the midterms it was 248000 to 199000 in the Ds favor.  At this point it's 301,000 to 154,000 in the Ds favor.  While all 4 districts are more D compared to 2016, the 3rd is way, way more D, driven by requests in Polk and Dallas.  Polk and Dallas have had the biggest increases in voter registration over the last 4 years because of pop growth and they have became more D in that period.

I assume the advantage will narrow, unless Rs who previously voted absentee suddenly don't because of Trump.  Also, the Rs have a history of doing better on election day, but thus far the Ds have done a very good job of driving requests in metro Des Moines as well as across the state.

[DINGO Joe]

Is there a discrepancy in how fast returned ballots are processed in urban/suburban counties vs rural counties? I’m noticing rural counties are lagging compared to the rest, which we did see in the spring, but some rural counties much more than others. I wonder if it’s because they’re slower to process in those counties? Some rural counties in northern WI especially have really low return rates atm.

Without any actual knowledge, I'd assume that larger jurisdiction have enough staff to report this every day, while smaller counties have more of a mom and pop operation and will report less frequently.  Even in NC which has been doing this for more than a week there are counties that have reported nothing.

[DINGO Joe]

The early enthusiasm thing among Ds is universal.  In fast growing educated Dallas Co Iowa the absentee ballot requests are in the Ds favor 9856 to 5656.  In 2016 it was 6683 to 8141 in the Rs favor.  Now in part that is because the county has gone from a 7300 R voter advantage to a 3000 R voter advantage, but anyway you look at it, it's a big swing in enthusiasm at this point.

[DINGO Joe]

Falls Church, VA up to 14.4% turnout.

If they keep up this pace, turnout will be 140-150% by election day.

[DINGO Joe]

I voted a straight Democratic ticket (including Warnock for the special) yesterday.

What's it going to take for that rat Lieberman to drop out?

Not gonna happen

[DINGO Joe]

welp that didn't take long, Virginia has already surpassed NC for the most early votes at 261,000.  LOL, people in Virginia really really despise Trump.

NC is mail only right now, when it goes to in-person plus mail, you'll get a better feel for enthusiasm

[DINGO Joe]

For Virginia, part of the shift is just the sheer changes in population.  Loudoun county has added 43,000 voters since 2016 from 232,000 to 275,000.  Meanwhile, take three coal counties from SW Virginia, Buchanan, Dickenson, and Lee they've gone from a combined 42,000 voters in 2016 to 40,000 in the latest numbers.  So, Loudoun has literally added the voting equivalent of those three counties in just 4 years.  An extreme example, but very illustrative of Va.

[DINGO Joe]

Worrying numbers for Democrats in North Carolina detailed in this thread.

https://twitter.com/markjstephenson/status/1311301149295874051

Democrats lead in requests and returned, but of the ballots returned by Republicans, 7% are first-time voters. Just 5% of the ballots returned by Democrats are the same.

WWC surge?

It's hard to make anything of early voting

At this point it would mean 7500 new Democratic voters and 3400 new Republican voters (to the state).  That's about all it means

[DINGO Joe]

IA update today.

Just for frame of reference, Iowa had 650,000 early voters in 2016 and that was 41% of the total vote.  The D advantage in the early vote that election was 42,000.  So, obviously, the 150,000+ advantage right now is a huge head start for the Ds.  If I have time this evening, I might try to do a deep dive into IA.

[DINGO Joe]

Regarding voter registration, I've spent some time trying to parse the voter registration shifts in Iowa and it is difficult.  since Oct 1, 2016 the Ds have added 70,000 voters the Rs 50,000 the NP has declined 30,000 and Other has increased 5,000 (voter registration in Iowa is roughly 1/3D, 1/3R and 1/3 NP/O).  But the actual growth in voters occurs in the large metro counties (Polk, Dallas, Story, Linn,  Johnson, Scott) which account for about 78,000 of the statewide increase of 95,000 and as you might expect the registration advantage skews heavily to the Ds with increases of 60,000 Ds 8,000 Rs 7,000 NP and 2,000 other.  That leaves D +10000 Rs +42000 NP down 37,000 Other +3,000, changes that are driven more by party switching than new voters. That doesn't mean that there aren't party switchers in the metro or new voters in the rurals, but it's much more likely that voters that are new to their party in the rural parts of the state are more likely to have been a voter in 2016 and probably for whatever party they've since shifted to.  Probably means the potential pool of crossover voters have shrunk considerably, especially in rural areas.

[DINGO Joe]

I'm in line for early voting in McKinney and it's an hour long wait. This is insane.

you can vote by mail, vote on election day or wait a few days... LOL

I mean, I understand the concept of your answer, but two things can happen at once. You could wait till another day to vote, sure, or vote a different way... but at the same time, there's no reason why there isn't more sites in MANY states right now to vote. One drop box in a whole county is insane. Just like in GA, there should've been more remote sites to early vote at.

It's a fundamental Republican philosophy to make it harder for people to vote.  This is why Election Day still isn't a national holiday...it's the ONLY reason they're railing against mail-in ballots...it's why there are hours long lines to vote...it's why they purge voter rolls...it's why they decrease polling sites and limit the ways in which we can cast our ballots.

They know that they're quickly losing demographics and they're grasping at whatever threads they can.

Eventually the only way they'll be able to stay in power is by outright cheating.

It should be quite difficult for people to vote, and suffrage in general needs to be scaled back a lot. Many people who vote should not be allowed to.

I don't give a rat's ass about Yellowhammer, but one person recommend this post--Jessica.  Which is interesting because just 5 days ago Jessica posted this

Voting should be by mail in every state. I am a conservative but I believe everyone should have a right to vote and it should be easy!

Please explain yourself

[DINGO Joe]

I'm in line for early voting in McKinney and it's an hour long wait. This is insane.

you can vote by mail, vote on election day or wait a few days... LOL

I mean, I understand the concept of your answer, but two things can happen at once. You could wait till another day to vote, sure, or vote a different way... but at the same time, there's no reason why there isn't more sites in MANY states right now to vote. One drop box in a whole county is insane. Just like in GA, there should've been more remote sites to early vote at.

It's a fundamental Republican philosophy to make it harder for people to vote.  This is why Election Day still isn't a national holiday...it's the ONLY reason they're railing against mail-in ballots...it's why there are hours long lines to vote...it's why they purge voter rolls...it's why they decrease polling sites and limit the ways in which we can cast our ballots.

They know that they're quickly losing demographics and they're grasping at whatever threads they can.

Eventually the only way they'll be able to stay in power is by outright cheating.

It should be quite difficult for people to vote, and suffrage in general needs to be scaled back a lot. Many people who vote should not be allowed to.

I don't give a rat's ass about Yellowhammer, but one person recommend this post--Jessica.  Which is interesting because just 5 days ago Jessica posted this

Voting should be by mail in every state. I am a conservative but I believe everyone should have a right to vote and it should be easy!

Please explain yourself

Honestly, there were good reason for the founders to make it land owning tax paying citizens. That was to prevent traitors and anti-Americans from getting control of the government. Well, look what is happening.  Of course, you think it is fine that cities are burning from people with little to no respect for the law and culture of our country. This is why I endorsed his post but also feel that people that do love this country should have an easy time with voting.

This is all I will say about it as this is off topic.

It's entirely on topic, and this goes on your permanent record.  Twenty years from now Mr. Morden will be to recall this exactly.

[DINGO Joe]

Maricopa
New update:
All: 169739  Dem: 78333  Rep: 53436 Other: 37970
Dem: 46.1  Rep: 31.5 Other: 22.4

Is that good for Dems or expected?

Probably, but everything is so scrambled this year you really can't go off past comparisons that much.

what kind of margin does Biden need out of Maricopa to win statewide?

Well, Trump won Maricopa by 45,000 votes last time and he won the state by 90,000, so.....

[DINGO Joe]

Todays update has been a bit of a letdown.  Yesterday we got about 3 million votes added.  Only 1.5 million so far today.  Hopefully more states report.

The guy does have a day job.  It's not a real-time display anyway.  I'm sure when you look at it tomorrow morning it'll be over 20 million and by the start of next week over 25 million.

[DINGO Joe]

Todays update has been a bit of a letdown.  Yesterday we got about 3 million votes added.  Only 1.5 million so far today.  Hopefully more states report.

The guy does have a day job.  It's not a real-time display anyway.  I'm sure when you look at it tomorrow morning it'll be over 20 million and by the start of next week over 25 million.

I thought he has scrapers that are pulling the data automatically, but maybe I misread something.

If he does, they aren't moving very fast, Iowa posted it's update at 11AM for yesterday's totals and it's still not showing on his site.

[DINGO Joe]

Who thinks we can hit 35 million votes by the end of next week?

I'd expect 40 million possible more as virtually every state will be reporting something by that point.

[DINGO Joe]

https://twitter.com/NCSBE/status/1316887674301652992

How does that compare to 2016?

2016 was 166,000

[DINGO Joe]

Louisiana issues first early report--175,000.  80,000 in person and 95,000 absentee.  By contrast, the total for all 2016 was 530,000.  468,000 IP and 63,000 AB.  Heavy D skew as elsewhere.  I guess most amusingly illustrated by St. Tammany which had a more than 2-1 R adv in 2016 starts off with a 5500 to 5000 R adv this time.

[DINGO Joe]

While the lines and early "returns" don't necessarily tell us much about the actual Election Night outcomes, they at least indicate an electorate that is eager to lock in their votes now.  To me, this suggests that there are far fewer undecideds in this race. 

Well, the D part of the electorate is motivated to vote early, the R part not so much, partly because Orange man says bad, though the Rs still send out emails begging their voters to vote early.

[DINGO Joe]

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

You need to keep your trash out of here