2020 Absentee/Early Voting thread

[they don't love you like i love you]

How are these numbers generated, by the way?  Are they demographic/location-based estimates or do people have to state their party when they request a ballot, and then their names are listed and their voting patterns can be looked up?

It's based on party registration. Thus only in states with that will we get this info.

[they don't love you like i love you]

THIS ONE IS FOR DADDA ROBINETTE B!TCHES!

On a note before anyone else does this I'd advise to look at the law in your state.

Upon a quick search it is legal to share ballot photos in Texas...but only of mail-in ones. It's not legal to take pictures in the polling place. So this post is legal but be aware.

[they don't love you like i love you]

[they don't love you like i love you]

Just dropped off my ballot. Huge turnout and the parking lot was full. I even had to briefly wait in line for drop-off.

Turnout in Minneapolis isn't a problem.

[they don't love you like i love you]

The idea that early voting means nothing is crazy.  Democrats are banking tons of votes in some of these states.  They can just check these voters off the list and focus on others.  Republicans need to make sure they get a huge turnout on Election Day during a pandemic, while their candidate is turning everyone off to politics and when the campaign is financially strapped compared to Democrats. 

Yes the "early voting means nothing" canard is based on the assumption that both parties equally engage in early voting. That's just not true this time.

[they don't love you like i love you]

Minnesota's weekly update came in:
https://www.sos.state.mn.us/election-administration-campaigns/data-maps/absentee-data/#

Requests up to 1,410,011. 336,017 have been accepted.

Of those 102,904 are in Hennepin County. This is out of 405,039 requested. Total ballots returned in Hennepin County is already past 1/7 of 2016's total turnout of 679,977.

Ramsey County has 43,687 returned of 153,177 requested. That's almost 16% of 2016's 273,143.

[they don't love you like i love you]

Does high turnout in wisconsin around the board benefit dems or repubs? dane had 218k votes in 2016, curious to see how far they can go if they break 80-20 for biden.

Wasn't some of the post-2016 analysis that low turnout in Milwaukee really hurt Clinton?  I'm keeping my eye on turnout in places like Milwaukee, Philly, Detroit, Minneapolis. 

I presume college educated white suburban voters are already turning out no matter what.

https://twitter.com/CodyHausman/status/1311867765859520513?s=19

[they don't love you like i love you]

Does high turnout in wisconsin around the board benefit dems or repubs? dane had 218k votes in 2016, curious to see how far they can go if they break 80-20 for biden.

Wasn't some of the post-2016 analysis that low turnout in Milwaukee really hurt Clinton?  I'm keeping my eye on turnout in places like Milwaukee, Philly, Detroit, Minneapolis. 

I presume college educated white suburban voters are already turning out no matter what.

https://twitter.com/CodyHausman/status/1311867765859520513?s=19

God yes.  Would be great if Biden can put away this state early.

Anecdotally the parking lot was almost full when I went to drop off my ballot and I had to wait in line albeit briefly, but dropping off a completed ballot is just a campaign worker verifying the outer envelope is properly filled out and putting it in a box. Took like 30 seconds.

Minnesota updates early voting numbers Friday and I posted them here: https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=392429.msg7618641#msg7618641

That would imply Biden is putting away the state early. Also consider that Hennepin County received so many mail-in ballot requests they were still sending them out a week after they started (they started on September 18, mine was postmarked September 25), and while my ballot is included in this total it just barely made the cut being processed October 1.

Also worth noting: lots of rural areas in Minnesota are VBM only, basically any rural township outside incorporated cities and towns that lacks a suitable voting location (which is most of them since townships in Minnesota are geographically small), yet turnout as noted is somewhat weak in rural areas. That could mean that lots of those counties offices' just haven't started seriously sending out or processing ballots yet, but who knows if the anti-VBM rhetoric is affecting things. Theoretically those people can vote "in person" by dropping off their ballot like I did, but they'd have to drive to their county's government office to do so, way less convenient than it was for me. Those make up about 200k of the 1.4 million requests total (they're not actually "requests" as any registered voter in such a locale automatically gets sent a ballot.)

So these numbers probably aren't too useful yet since it's likely rural areas haven't started seriously reporting yet, but having such a head start is never a bad thing.

[they don't love you like i love you]

Minnesota came in strong. Hennepin and Ramsey are looking strong at nearly 50% returned each.

Also 43% of all ballots returned. In 2016 they made up 31% of total returns.

[they don't love you like i love you]

Pardon my ignorance but are election procedures at the discretion of states according to the constitution, or more specifically, what prevents Congress from enacting legislation to standardize federal election procedures across the US to avoid all these peculiarities?

Congress actually does have wide authority to regulate voting, it just never really has. The broadest such use of this power is the Voting Rights Act.

Any bill about standardizing things like early voting times and procedures is probably DOA because some state won't like the changes and all their reps would oppose it including Democrats and getting Republicans on board would probably require things like banning ballot harvesting alienating more Democrats. Rick Scott actually just proposed a bill requiring that results be done completed counting and called in 24 hours. That sort of stuff is what Republicans would push for, Democrats would push for expansion, any type of Moderate Hero compromise won't get either.

FWIW I believe Pelosi did try to get some sort of expanded mail-in voting passed in the stimulus bill but of course Republicans got it stripped out.

[they don't love you like i love you]

https://twitter.com/MNSteveSimon/status/1317114971029909504?s=19

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How is Biden triaging Texas?

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https://twitter.com/HarrisVotes/status/1317521265687695360

All are at 0-24 minutes which is a good thing considering Abbott's dropbox limiting insanity.

[they don't love you like i love you]

So...let me get this straight.
It is apparently a good thing for Democrats that there is extremely high in-person voter turnout in Texas....but in nearly every other state we have data, Republicans outnumber Democrats with the in-person vote?

It's almost as if Texas doesn't have a wide Absentee system where Democratic votes will go. It's almost that way, because it is that way.

Also, the Texas early vote numbers are in places that are either heavily Democratic, or trending Democratic, so that's where the optimism comes from.

So you are correct, Texas requires an excuse for an absentee ballot, but they aren’t the only state.
Let’s look at the only real comparison we have which has partisan registration data (because Targetsmart is likely trash) which is Kentucky.

In Kentucky, in-person numbers are still small, but Democrats have about 45% of the vote while Republicans have 49%.
While KY is a ruby red state, Democrats still technically have a minor voter registration advantage (DINOs mainly)

Even with a slight voter registration advantage, Democrats still lag in in-person voting in a state that requires an excuse for an absentee ballot. Now there is one caveat, KY accepts Covid-19 concerns as an excuse and Texas does not, so that may have a small impact, but would it really be enough to change such a gap?

Uh, yeah? It's not a small impact.

Mail in votes cast in Kentucky: 289,220 (68.4 D-26.1R)
In person early votes in Kentucky: 108,922 (49.5 R-45.4 D)

[they don't love you like i love you]

I'm assuming that voting online will probably become a thing in the next couple decades, it's kind of the only current civic engagement you can't do online. This rendering these lines moot.

As of now I believe Estonia is the only country in the world that allows it, but I can't see it failing to spread.

[they don't love you like i love you]

Upon some research online voting actually IS legal in 20 US states, but only for people living internationally.

Estonia is still the only country to universally allow it, although Switzerland planned on doing so for their last election but canceled those plans after gaping security holes were found.

So it's still aways away. I'm just not convinced it'll never come.

[they don't love you like i love you]

Philadelphia is already past 50% of 2016.

[they don't love you like i love you]

Minnesota's weekly update is in. Up to 1,186,522 (a 275,137 increase) and at almost 40% of 2016 turnout, an almost 10% increase.