2020 Absentee/Early Voting thread

[GP270watch]

 Got my ballot today and already filled it out. Gonna wait for family members to fill out theirs and all meet-up and go drop them off in person.

[GP270watch]

251,103 people have voted in Florida

Democratic 135,509 (54.0%)
Republican 70,103 (27.9%)
Others 45,491 (18.1%)

Google Doc: https://tinyurl.com/y2wulups

Before today Miami-Dade had only sent out ballots for overseas voters.
https://wsvn.com/news/local/over-530000-mail-in-ballots-to-be-sent-out-in-miami-dade-county/

And Orange County (Orlando) did not sent out ballots until yesterday.
https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/orange-county-rolls-out-historic-number-of-mail-in-ballots

Many Democratic voters have not even gotten their ballots yet.

 Democrats in Florida are actually doing a great job mailing back ballots. Usually we have a terrible time getting people to mail them back. Also I believe many African Americans will still be voting in person after Church services on the weekends when early in person voting starts. Some people are worried that we are pulling votes forward but that's stupid. A banked vote is better than anything. Florida GOP does a great job with turnout and has closed the registration gap so it's going to be a battle in Florida like always.

[GP270watch]

Do Dems need to net 600k from mail ballots alone, or is it mail+early voting?

 I have no idea where this 600k number was pulled from regarding Florida.

 In 2018 Democrats had a mail-in+early vote advantage(by Party ID) of 31,641 and lost the Senate and Gubernatorial races by 10,033 and 32,454.

https://dos.myflorida.com/media/700669/early-voting-and-vote-by-mail-report-2018-genpdf.pdf

 In 2016 Democrats had a mail-in+early vote lead of 96,450 and Clinton lost to Trump by 112,911.

https://dos.myflorida.com/media/697363/early-voting-and-vote-by-mail-report-2016-gen.pdf

 Every election is different and it's clear that more people are voting early and we can only guess who independants will break for by what the polls are saying. In 2016 indies and undecideds voted for Trump.

[GP270watch]

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/early-voting-was-a-misleading-indicator/

 This is an interesting article with actual vote totals from North Carolina for 2016. I don't think anybody has really found a reliable way to model early voting info into prognostication forecasts.

[GP270watch]

More important than the raw numbers in Florida is the return rate (ballots returned/ballots requested).  In past elections Republicans have returned a higher percentage of requested ballots than Democrats. With the expanded use of VBM Democrats can't let that happen this year.

But all this information is muddy. You can request a mail in ballot go vote early in person and you are counted as an early in person voter. How many people do this, I'm not sure. The problem with this information is there are too many variables.

[GP270watch]

 For Nevada definitely follow Ralston. He isn't blinded by partisanship like some of the state "experts" or reporters.

[GP270watch]

I wonder if there will be any counties out there that report 100% returns before Election Day and effectively don't need to do anything on Election Day but count ballots.

 I doubt any sizable county will ever have this happen. Too many old people are set in their ways and will only vote on election day, you have people who are undecided, and procrastinators who will always wait until the last possible moment.

[GP270watch]

 Democrats surpass 200k lead by party ID in Florida.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17YKazYaUMZ33vmd4YHDKcVdlTkP5DmnHQQlAttwOzL0/edit#gid=1837208868

[GP270watch]

Democrats surpass 200k lead by party ID in Florida.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17YKazYaUMZ33vmd4YHDKcVdlTkP5DmnHQQlAttwOzL0/edit#gid=1837208868

Even given Dems propensity with mail in this time around, this seems significant, since historically, Dems take their time to return them in FL don't they?

Yes, Dems are usually stronger with early voting in Florida. We'll see how things fall into place when early voting begins on the 19th.

Yes and no. I follow our elections and we usually lose the earliest voting because they start reporting VBM ballots first and Republicans had dominated those in return rate and overall. Then Democrats usually catch up and build a small lead when early voting starts and hope that lead holds on election day. These are also generalities based on party ID assuming that most will vote on party ID, it doesn't tell us how NPA(no party affiliation) are voting, NPA make up a huge share of the vote.

 Obviously in this 2020 pandemic year everything is flipped on its head, still the Democrats should see signs of hope and still organize so we get more early voting totals from the African American community and others who like to vote in person. We have to also run through the finish line and finish strongly on election day.

2016 VBM and Early Vote breakdown by party ID

https://dos.myflorida.com/media/697363/early-voting-and-vote-by-mail-report-2016-gen.pdf

2018 VBM and Early Vote Breakdownby party ID

https://dos.myflorida.com/media/700669/early-voting-and-vote-by-mail-report-2018-genpdf.pdf


 

[GP270watch]

Texas has also started to report their earlier ballots. On Oct 13, in-person early voting is going to start.

https://earlyvoting.texas-election.com/Elections/

So many counties...

[GP270watch]

 Miami-Dade is always slow with everything, even in prior years with the VBM and early vote updates. They always use a separate system as well for reporting with the state. Other county supervisors usually have a nice tracking app on the elections website that updates hourly.

[GP270watch]

Michael McDonald
@ElectProject
·
4m
#earlyvote cast as a percentage of *total* 2016 vote is truly amazing

SD: 22.8%
VA 20.7%
WI: 20.6%
WY: 14.9%
VT: 14% (report from yesterday)
MI: 13.1% (report from yesterday)
ND: 12.1%
NJ: 12.3%
FL: 12.3%
MN: 11.3% (report from last Fri.)

https://electproject.github.io/Early-Vote-202

https://electproject.github.io/Early-Vote-2020G/index.html

link in post was incomplete.

[GP270watch]

Milwaukee topped 100,000 returned ballots! Really impressed with their performance over the past week. They are now now returning more ballots than Dane County every day and are in the Top 10 for % of 2016 vote returned. Dane County will pass 30% of registered voters voted already tomorrow and will in all likelihood pass 40% of 2016 votes by Monday. Far northern Wisconsin has also been really strong. Ashland, Bayfield, Douglas, Iron, Oneida, Sawyer, and Vilas counties are all over 20% of 2016 voters returned. The weakest areas really appear to be central and western Wisconsin.

 So is the Koch voting juggernaut in Wisconsin lagging or are Democrats just that enthused?

[GP270watch]

There’s either going to be an unprecedented, massive partisan gap in person mail in voting or there’s going to be an unprecedented, massive democratic wave

The first.

Polls show that Biden wins mail-voters 80-20.

Trump wins Election Day voters 70-30.

In person early voters are more of a mixed crowd.

Every election is different. Obama in Florida had strong Election Day performance in many counties to pull out victories even if he didn't outright win Election Day. Clinton got shellacked by Trump on Election Day 2016 in Florida, that might not be the case this year for obvious reasons.

 How Hillary Clinton lost Florida (Hint: It happened on Election Day)

 By Party ID Democrats had a 90k lead in 2016, but the real lead of actual voters was around 250k. But Trump had a swing of 360,000 on Election Day alone.

[GP270watch]

I think Democrats will get the coveted 600k vote lead in Florida before Election Day...  still not sure where 600k came from though...

I am very hesitant to assume anything from EV reporting, other than this is likely to be one of the highest turnouts overall in the modern era.  Election day could be near unanimous for Trump in states with no-excuse EV and VBM.

I don't think it's going to be that extreme on election day. With a lot of minority groups, there is a legitimate fear that their ballots won't be counted if they vote by mail. Lots of those folks will vote early, but a number will vote on election day too.

 On top of that Hillary still left a lot of vote on the table in 2016. All around the world despite the high stakes and turmoil of the last five years we've seen young voters stay home and let older people decide their future. Biden campaign needs to do whatever outreach they can in these last 25 days to young voters.

[GP270watch]

Finally received my ballot. I am excited to vote.

Yesterday you said tomorrow, so JUST DO IT!

[GP270watch]

Florida Democratic early vote lead now around 360k

https://electproject.github.io/Early-Vote-2020G/FL.html

At this rate it probably will hit the 600k number in a couple weeks.

Request figures seem not to be changing. Are those only updated weekly or something?

At this point I bet few new people are requesting ballots.  Anyone who wants to vote now is probably just waiting til early voting starts soon.

I feel like there are ordinarily lots of people requesting absentee ballots right up until the deadline. Not sure when that is in Florida but here in New York the deadline to request an absentee ballot is not until late October (though at that point you're cutting it very fine on getting your ballot in on time).

https://dos.myflorida.com/elections/for-voters/voting/vote-by-mail/

 Everything you probably need to know about Florida VBM requests.

[GP270watch]

Long lines & big crowds in Minnesota/Ohio/Virginia: "Look at all the enthusiasm! Dems are gonna do great here for sure!"


Long lines & big crowds in Georgia: "Voter suppression! See why Democrats are foolish in even contesting this state?!?"

Yea this is pretty annoying, people should wait to complain about said states until people are actually reporting actual issues.

 It's the fact that Georgia has such few places to vote early and in prior elections the GOP have actually closed voting locations for reasons that made no apparent sense.

[GP270watch]

 I think Democrats are just eager to voice there displeasure with Trump. There are Democrats in even the most Republican counties in the USA and vice versa.

[GP270watch]

I think Democrats are just eager to voice there displeasure with Trump. There are Democrats in even the most red counties in the USA and vice versa.

There are Reds in even the most Democratic counties?

My brain will never be able to reconcile red = Democrat. I've seen the old maps in news coverage and see they were used interchangeably. Plus I love the color blue.

[GP270watch]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17YKazYaUMZ33vmd4YHDKcVdlTkP5DmnHQQlAttwOzL0/edit#gid=1837208868

Dem lead 375k in Florida now.

Dems with a 7 point lead in Sumter county (The Villages) seems significant.

What we're seeing is many Democrats really don't like Trump but not much else yet to really know what's going on in Florida.

This is the total registered voters in Sumter:

Democrat: 24,932
Republican: 59,788
Others: 20,908

Total:105,628

 Democrats are already at 27.4% turnout vs. Republicans 9.6%.  There is a lot more Republican vote to go. The margin out of Sumter is killer it was 30k for Trump in 2016 and 31k Scott in the 2018 midterm.

[GP270watch]

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.

 What an abysmal post. To claim everyone should love America while alluding to "land owners" being the only ones who should have the right to vote.

[GP270watch]

https://public.tableau.com/profile/dave.trotter#!/vizhome/2020FloridaElectionData/VoteComposition

Somebody tweet this man and tell him Democrats don't have 9 million votes in Florida.

[GP270watch]

Dem ballot lead in Florida is getting really close to 400k now!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17YKazYaUMZ33vmd4YHDKcVdlTkP5DmnHQQlAttwOzL0/edit#gid=1837208868

Can we get the arbitrary 600 k?

I think we can.  Maybe we should up arbitrary goal to 700k?

Depends if you are looking at just Absentees or Absentees & In Person Early Voting. If it is just absentees 700K would seem to me to be the minimum since Democrats have requested nearly 800K ballots than Republicans.

Democrats are always left with a lot more unreturned ballots. We will really get a sense of where Democrats are when early voting starts in the big counties on Monday 19th.

[GP270watch]

https://twitter.com/LinaHidalgoTX/status/1316048235945959425

Can Texans drop off their mail ballots at these early vote locations?
If yes then Abbott's decision to limit drop boxes is just plain stupid and served only to inflame Democrats in big cities.

Why do you refer to them as drop boxes?

If you have an unvoted mail ballot, you can take it to an early voting site and surrender your ballot and vote in person.

If you have a voted mail ballot you can take it to a post office and drop it in the mail.

Or you can... drop off your ballot at a drop box. Just because you got your ballot by mail doesn’t mean you need to return it by mail.

 Living in Florida I have often returned my mail ballot to the Supervisor of elections office who have several drop boxes in the county and open even more during early voting, where you can still fill it out at home and drop it in the dropbox. It's convenient and increases civic participation which should be the goal of any Supervisor of Elections or similar official.