2020 Absentee/Early Voting thread

[GeneralMacArthur]

Reminder to everyone:

Verify your voter information through whatever means are available to you.  In WA state it is an easily-Googleable website that takes ten seconds to verify.

Fill out your paperwork and get your ballot as early as possible.

Follow-up on your ballot, through whatever system is available in your state, to ensure that it is properly received and counted.

DO NOT GET COMPLACENT.  If you're in WI and Fox says WI is +10, vote anyway.  If you see early voting results that say Biden is winning your state by double-digits, vote anyway.  If you live in a solid D/R state, vote anyway.  It's important that Trump lose by as large a margin as possible and that Biden's mandate be as strong as possible and a +8 NPV victory is very different from a +4 victory.

Make sure all your friends and family vote.  You are on Atlas, which means you are following politics more closely than 99% of the country.  As such it is your responsibility to expand your impact beyond yourself.  If you don't, there's no other highly-informed highly-motivated guy who's gonna do it for you.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Yep we can't get complacent, but I think pretty much everyone on Atlas eligible to vote will vote. We need to work to spread the message outside of just Atlas.

Call your friends and your family, get them engaged with the election NOW and keep the pressure on to make sure they are registering and voting as soon as they can in their states.

Be proactive about shooting down the common voter-suppression myths.  No, voting isn't difficult or confusing.  No, both sides aren't the same.  Yes, your vote still matters even if you don't live in a swing state.  No, this harebrained scheme to force Democrats to the left by re-electing Trump doesn't make any sense.  Make sure everybody in your circle of influence votes for Biden and votes straight-D downballot as early as possible

[GeneralMacArthur]

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?

[GeneralMacArthur]

Yeah but it's not like there is a huge difference. According to the stats posted last page the rejection rate is 3% for whites and 7% for blacks.

If 50% of people vote early, and Blacks are supposed to make up 50% of the Dem vote, that 4% difference as an entire 0.5% Biden loses just from higher rejection rates for Blacks.

North Carolina is going to be really really close both at the presidential and the senate level.  Just losing 0.5% due to some stupid s--t like this isn't trivial at all.

[GeneralMacArthur]

The Pennsylvania secrecy ballot stuff is worrying.  The letter says 6% of ballots were rejected in previous elections for this reason alone, and that a higher share will be rejected this time around since there are more first-time voters.

If half of PA votes by mail and the VBM share is 70% D, 30% R, and 10% of ballots are rejected, that is a 2% swing in Trump's favor.  That could easily be enough to decide the election.

Hopefully the Biden campaign is ready to absolutely spam the airwaves with instructions on how to vote properly in Pennsylvania.  Get some hashtags going on social media as well.  Get celebrities to show the kiddies how to vote.  Send out physical media and put up billboards in the cities.

And make sure to not tell the rurals... they voted for these Republicans who actively want to disenfranchise voters, so it's only fair for them to be the first group disenfranchised.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Are there any websites similar to http://georgiavotes.com/ but for other states?

[GeneralMacArthur]

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)?

[GeneralMacArthur]

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.

I see.  About 75% of Americans are registered to vote, so when we talk about the typical 60% of eligible voters who vote in presidential elections, that's really 80% of registered voters.  So 80% is the target number, and Democrats would like to see above 80% in favorable areas.

[GeneralMacArthur]

I think it's hard to make any sort of determinations based on the numbers so far.

Yes, the early vote demographics clearly favor Democrats.  What does that mean for the election?  Does it mean Democrats are turning out in huge numbers?  Or does it just mean that lots of Democrats are voting early/VBM while lots of Republicans are planning to vote in-person day-of?

[GeneralMacArthur]

The only part of Trump I like is that he has not been a war monger and has even disparaged the troops! That is a HUGE plus in my book.

His "not a war monger" involves letting Russia and Turkey do whatever they want in the Middle East, abandoning our key allies in the war against ISIS, and abandoning Syria to genocide and ruin.  Think the Kurds will want to help us next time there's an ISIS in the area and we need their help?  Nope.  That's what happens when you have no principles and betray your allies.

Meanwhile he assassinated Soleimani for no strategic reason, which caused military retaliation and escalation from Iran and brought us closer to war with that country than at any point in our history.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Just dropped off my ballot at the clerks office. This will be the first election I have voted by using an absentee ballot.

Welcome to the forum!

Straight D across the board?

[GeneralMacArthur]

Just dropped off my ballot at the clerks office. This will be the first election I have voted by using an absentee ballot.

Welcome to the forum!

Straight D across the board?

Yep Straight D.

Great work.  Now you have a full 4 weeks to spend recruiting every other person you know to do the same.  Vote vote vote vote vote, stack em high!  Only way to win.

[GeneralMacArthur]

How is that voter suppression lol, we have three weeks of early voting.  Nobody forced you to go out in day 1.  My family is helping with the polls in two counties this year, so I can provide updates on what’s going on.

2+ hour lines are absolutely voter suppression, and there is zero excuse for having multi-hour voting lines when literally every other democracy on Earth (hell, many other states!) don't have them.

We have early voting for the next three weeks, mail in voting, absentee ballots, ect.  Those people didn’t have to go wait in line on day ONE.

We only even have those thanks to Democratic efforts.  If it were up to Republicans, you would only be able to vote in one 8-hour window, and Republican counties would have 100 polling locations while Democratic counties would only have 1, if they had any at all.  And when you got to the window you'd have to show your birth certificate.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Just voted in Washington.  Can confirm ballots are arriving.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Just a reminder, pirate Russell Crowe was elected 139,188 to 119,992.  It wasn't some big landslide victory.  FiveThirtyEight is projecting him to win by over 20 points based purely on fundamentals and there's been zero polling.  If Harris County is really blowing up, it's entirely possible he could go down.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Guys, don't use TargetSmart.  You may as well just pick random numbers out of a hat and say Republicans are up 25 in Wisconsin.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Texas has temporarily surpassed Vermont as the leader with 43.2% of 2016's early vote numbers now in.

Harris County is now at ~600K early votes after 5 days, where 2016 took 8 days and 2012 13 days to reach that same figure.

Voting will be limited hours on Sunday and we can expect fewer ballots (Saturday only saw 75K in Harris compared to the 110K of Wed/Thu/Fri) and there will probably be a surge on Monday from people who didn't want to vote over the weekend, so Tuesday will be the next day we get a good estimate on the continuing trajectory.

What I would really be excited to see is 100% of 2016 turnout coming from early vote alone.  In Harris, that number is 1.5M.  If the current 100K vote/day trajectory continues we would easily reach that in 9 days.  However, there are 14 days until the election, so even if we decline to an average of 64K votes/day we'll still be on track.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Just to do a quick back-of-the-envelope estimate, the most recent statewide poll of Texas (YouGov, 10/8, Trump +5) gives us the following numbers for early vote:

Biden voters:  85% vote early
Trump voters:  64% vote early

So we can assume that Trump voters will outnumber Biden voters 36-15, or about 70/30 split, on election day.  Meanwhile, Biden voters outnumber Trump voters 85-64, or 57/43 split, in the early vote.

Let's suppose that the election-day vote is the same as in 2016.  In 2016, there were 4.5M early votes cast, out of 8.5M total votes, so 4M votes total on election day.  In 2018, 4.8M were early, with 8.3M total, so 3.5M votes total on election day.

If there are 4M votes total on election day (2016 figure), and they're split 70/30 Trump/Biden, that gives Trump a 1.6M boost over Biden.  If that number is 3.5M (2018 figure), it's a 1.4M boost.  If you want to assume that we'll see lower early voting than either year due to COVID and a longer early-voting period, Trump loses 200,000 marginal votes for every 500,000 lost on election day, e.g. 3M = 1.2M Trump gain, 2.5M = 1M trump gain, etc.

Right now there's 3.88M early votes in the bank in Texas.  Let's assume the poll is accurate and those are a 57-43 split for Biden.  That gives Biden a 2.21M - 1.67M = 0.54M vote lead over Trump.  We can continue this forecasting similarly.  If the early vote reaches 5M, Biden has a 700K lead going into election day.  And he gains 140K for every extra million who vote.  So 6M = 840K, 7M = 980K, 8M = 1.12M.

With that in mind, assuming a 57/43 early vote split for Biden and a 70/30 early vote split for Trump, here is your table, with election day numbers on top and early vote numbers on the left.

*	1.5M	2M	2.5M	3M	3.5M	4M
4M	Trump	Trump	Trump	Trump	Trump	Trump
4.5M	Biden	Trump	Trump	Trump	Trump	Trump
5M	Biden	Trump	Trump	Trump	Trump	Trump
5.5M	Biden	Trump	Trump	Trump	Trump	Trump
6M	Biden	Biden	Trump	Trump	Trump	Trump
6.5M	Biden	Biden	Trump	Trump	Trump	Trump
7M	Biden	Biden	Trump	Trump	Trump	Trump
7.5M	Biden	Biden	Biden	Trump	Trump	Trump
8M	Biden	Biden	Biden	Trump	Trump	Trump
8.5M	Biden	Biden	Biden	Trump	Trump	Trump
9M	Biden	Biden	Biden	Biden	Trump	Trump

[GeneralMacArthur]

STOP

POSTING

TARGETSMART

NUMBERS

[GeneralMacArthur]

First day of early voting always has really long lines.  Don't read too much into it.

[GeneralMacArthur]

What I really want to see is Texas getting to 6.5 or 7 million early votes.

In that case, if the Biden/Trump ratios we've seen from polls hold, Biden would win unless turnout substantially exceeds 2016 in Trump's favor on election day.

[GeneralMacArthur]

What I really want to see is Texas getting to 6.5 or 7 million early votes.

In that case, if the Biden/Trump ratios we've seen from polls hold, Biden would win unless turnout substantially exceeds 2016 in Trump's favor on election day.

That’s exactly the posts that I’m warning you guys of ...

The early vote is not a monolithic bloc in favour of Biden !

We don’t know who these voters are, how many independents voted and how they voted !

The most recent poll I could find showed that, of voters who planned to vote early, 57% Biden and 43% Trump.

[GeneralMacArthur]

I voted straight R downballot except for Kulkarni and a local race where a Democratic friend of mine is running.  

You voted for Cornyn over Hegar?  boooo

thanks for the Kulkarni vote though

[GeneralMacArthur]

I voted straight R downballot except for Kulkarni and a local race where a Democratic friend of mine is running.  

You voted for Cornyn over Hegar?  boooo

thanks for the Kulkarni vote though

Did it just for you, MacArthur

I'm still a Republican at my core who wants a Republican Senate (House would be nice, too, bit that's not happening).   I will say that I have absolutely nothing against Hegar, though.  She's a super badass lady.  

I wouldn't mind a Republican senate so much, but this Republican senate, with these Republicans?  Just kill me.  Two years of Biden being obstructed at every turn by Mitch, while the rest of them cry crocodile tears about the national debt and constitutional norms after being enablers for Trump for the last four years (maybe they'll even have the balls to say "you did it to Trump so we're doing it to you"), just sounds like a national nightmare to me.

[GeneralMacArthur]

If Biden triages Pennsylvania, he deserves to lose the election.

TBH I don't know how to interpret Florida numbers at all.  Do we have any polls showing the expected partisan split of VBM/Early/E-Day?  If Trump is going to win election day 70-30 (as in Texas), then it's bad news for Dems that VBM is already drying up.

On the other hand, it's tough to really say anything definitively when Broward and Miami-Dade have such outsized influence.  Broward is at 28.8% and Miami-Dade 26% of registered voters, while the entire state is at 28.1%.  So it's not like Democrats have already burned through their Miami/Broward vote cache.

This is in opposition to Texas, where you can clearly see the Democrat early-vote advantage based on geography.  The suburbs are already getting close to 100% of their 2016 turnout, well ahead of the state as a whole, which tells us that suburban Democrats are enthusiastic and turning out early, aligning with the expectation that Democratic constituencies will represent an outsized portion of the early vote.