2020 Absentee/Early Voting thread

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71,674 returned ballots in Wisconsin, almost double of what it was yesterday. 6.42% of all absentee requests and 2.41% of all 2016 votes cast. Numerically Dane County leads the way with 16,010 returns. Percentage wise, Douglas County has returned 21.27% of their ballots or 7.34% of the total votes cast in 2016. Let me know if theres is anything else you'd like detailed.

Which counties had the highest return rates prior to Election Day in 2016?

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I'd wait until we get at least 1 million votes in NC (and 2 million in FL) before analyzing any of the data. Even then, the early vote in those states still isn't as good of an indicator as to how the results will look as the early vote in NV.

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Also, when one of the most democratic areas in the state is approaching 20% turnout over a month before the election, it's hard to argue that there's no enthusiasm for Biden (or at least for voting Democrat / against Trump).

When we talk about turnout as a %, are we talking about turnout relative to the last election, turnout of relative voters, or turnout of all people eligible to vote (basically all citizens over 18)?

I believe it's the % of registered voters.

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Still too early to just to any conclusions, but we are getting close to 1.5 million votes in FL, and once we get to 2 or 3 million, we might be able to say something about turnout, and Republicans will probably want to start narrowing the gap in terms of % before then.

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Not sure if anyone has posted this, but Ralston has started talking about the NV ballots so far. This is a state where the early vote is a somewhat good indicator of how things will go.

https://twitter.com/RalstonReports/status/1317221593525886976

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Not sure if anyone has posted this, but Ralston has started talking about the NV ballots so far. This is a state where the early vote is a somewhat good indicator of how things will go.

https://twitter.com/RalstonReports/status/1317221593525886976

Anyone know where we were in Nevada at this point in 2016?  Those look like really good numbers for Democrats so far.

It's an apples-to-oranges comparison, since early voting was (AFAIK) mostly in-person in 2016, and only absentee voting has happened so far this year (I think in-person starts tomorrow), but here's the data from Week 1 of 2016:

https://www.nvsos.gov/sos/home/showdocument?id=4543

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Nevada is far from the most “likely” Clinton state to flip, and the Democrats have a sizable lead in votes cast so far overall. Not sure what’s so hard to understand about this.

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Nevada is far from the most “likely” Clinton state to flip, and the Democrats have a sizable lead in votes cast so far overall. Not sure what’s so hard to understand about this.

What's the most likely Clinton state to flip then?  Seems like Minnesota and Nevada are the only ones Trump is still competing in and there's been articles suggesting that the Trump campaign thinks it's over in Minnesota.

Possibly NH, or it could be MN, but we go through this every cycle with NV. Polls consistently overestimate Republicans in the state, and people are always shocked when it votes further left than expected, and then forget all about it two years later and keep overestimating Republicans in the state. It happened in 2012 (people thought it was more likely to flip than OH), 2016 (people thought Trump would win it while losing the election, and that the Senate race would go Republican while Democrats took the Senate) and 2018 (people thought it was more likely to go Republican than AZ-SEN, IN-SEN, and MO-SEN.

While Trump would have a “minuscule” chance here in a neutral year, there’s absolutely no way he wins while he’s down 5-6% in polling, when he’d probably need to be ahead by that much to win the state. Not to mention, population growth and registration chances in the state do not favor Republicans at all. It won’t vote as far left as VA, but I think it could vote left of ME.

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Nevada is far from the most “likely” Clinton state to flip, and the Democrats have a sizable lead in votes cast so far overall. Not sure what’s so hard to understand about this.

What's the most likely Clinton state to flip then?  Seems like Minnesota and Nevada are the only ones Trump is still competing in and there's been articles suggesting that the Trump campaign thinks it's over in Minnesota.

Possibly NH, or it could be MN, but we go through this every cycle with NV. Polls consistently overestimate Republicans in the state, and people are always shocked when it votes further left than expected, and then forget all about it two years later and keep overestimating Republicans in the state. It happened in 2012 (people thought it was more likely to flip than OH), 2016 (people thought Trump would win it while losing the election, and that the Senate race would go Republican while Democrats took the Senate) and 2018 (people thought it was more likely to go Republican than AZ-SEN, IN-SEN, and MO-SEN.

While Trump would have a “minuscule” chance here in a neutral year, there’s absolutely no way he wins while he’s down 5-6% in polling, when he’d probably need to be ahead by that much to win the state. Not to mention, population growth and registration chances in the state do not favor Republicans at all. It won’t vote as far left as VA, but I think it could vote left of ME.

I really think New Hampshire and Maine are going to vote for Biden by a much larger margin than this board thinks.  I do think Biden is a strong favorite in Nevada but there's a lot of uncertainty there with Las Vegas layoffs and stuff.  I think Biden is on pace to win New Hampshire and Maine by double digits.  He's a perfect fit for both states.  I just don't see Biden anywhere near those kinda margins in Nevada.

I’d say that layoffs will absolutely hurt Trump, and I think it’s NV which will go for Biden by double digits, assuming he does win the PV by high single-digits. He’ll easily win NH and ME as well in this kind of year, but I don’t think he’s necessarily a better “fit” for those states than NV, nor do I really think candidates being a “good/bad fit” for states is really a thing.

Either way, the only ones who think the EV so far in NV is good for Republicans are those with bad reading comprehension. The numbers in most states don’t tell us much yet, but NV is a state where it pays to pay attention to the EV, and the fact that Democrats already have almost the same lead in raw votes as they did by the end of early voting in 2016 is bad for Republicans no matter how you cut it.

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We’re finally starting to get our ballots here in Washington. I’ll be sending my vote in tomorrow.

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Ralston’s updates look pretty good for Democrats so far — they’re leading 2 to 1 in Washoe right now and almost 3 to 1 in Clark. In 2016 with about 10 percent of the vote in, they had a 2,200 ballot lead in Washoe; this year it’s almost 12,000. Still very early, but I don’t see how this is a sign Trump’s on any kind of path to flip Nevada.

Ralston noted earlier in his blog that the majority of the current vote comes from mail, which is overwhelmingly Democratic. In-person early voting in Washoe was narrowly GOP, and I think the vote will tighten over the next few days. Though no matter what, I think the Democrats have built up enough of a freiwal in Clark to keep the state for Biden.

Yes, he does keep stressing that “this election is an apple and the others are oranges,” and I agree that it’ll probably tighten up. But we’ll see how things look next Saturday in Clark, which I think is traditionally the Dems’ strongest day of early voting. (Second Saturday of EV, right?)

From what I remember, the last two days are typically the strongest for Democrats, but who knows how it will be this year.

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Daily Arizona update...

https://twitter.com/sfalmy/status/1318230224052518912

If Democrats continue to outpace Republicans in Maricopa (where some Romney/Clinton voters probably haven't changed their registration yet), that's very bad news for Trump.

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https://twitter.com/abc7/status/1318176906932588544?s=21

Are California dropboxes under video surveillance?  Georgia ones are required to be.  If so, I hope they catch the perpetrator and send them to prison for a long time.

And I hope that they can figure out whose vote got destroyed so that those people can send in new ballots.

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https://twitter.com/RalstonReports/status/1318373388289667072

Jesus they might hit the 70k firewall before Thursday

Spoiler alert: Trump isn’t going to win Nevada and it’s not even going to be close. Not like that’s surprising.

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Turnout among Dems is still strong in AZ: https://www.saguarostrategies.com/arizona-ballot-returns

Statewide:
Democrats 370,045
Republicans 276,305
Other 192,310

Maricopa:
Democrats 281,525
Republicans 218,631
Other 154,484

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Wow. So Republicans narrowly winning the in-person vote in FL while Democrats continue to pad to their overall advantage by winning the mail vote by a wide margin means FL is Safe R now? I get being cautious about making conclusions about the Democratic turnout advantage so far, but wetting the bed because of these numbers? Get a grip, Atlas.

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I believe that with VbM, Democrats are still up 10K in Washoe, so calm down everyone.

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Gonna need to move NV to “Safe D” soon.

Already done that . Trump was never going to win NV while losing AZ/MI/PA/WI, and in this kind of environment, NV isn't competitive.

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https://twitter.com/RalstonReports/status/1319060884006711297

And Ralston is usually pretty cautious. Nothing surprising about this, but Biden is set to win big in Nevada. Any gains Republicans are making in the in-person vote so far is getting completely wiped out by huge margins for Democrats voting by mail. Trump also almost certainly isn't winning Independents by double digits this year, like he did in 2016 (people often forget how things really broke Trump's way in 2016, and that still wasn't enough for him to win NV.)

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at least 6 states over 50% of 2016 totals now: Texas, Montana, New Mexico, New Jersey, Vermont, North Carolina.

A bit of a strange group (I'm looking at you, NM, NJ and VT)

NJ and VT are doing all-mail ballot elections, so it's not a surprise that they are high up.

Yep, it's also why WA and OR are quickly catching up to other states after only a few days of receiving ballots.

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Washington votes by mail, so it's no surprise that ballots are coming in quickly, but after less than a week, we're already approaching 50% of 2016 turnout, and I'm pretty sure we'll pass it tonight.