2020 Absentee/Early Voting thread

[n1240]

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. 

Yeah it's hard to compare since early in-person was a far more dominant mode of voting in North Carolina in 2016, where 3 million voted early in-person and 200k voted by mail, so it's possible that mail-in vote totals exceed what they were in North Carolina 2016 by the end of the week. Dem votes have already shattered the 2016 total where there were about 60k dem votes (currently 84k) but we already knew mail-in vote would have a heavy Dem lean and it's such a small percentage of the electorate that it is hard to draw meaningful conclusions as is

[n1240]

https://twitter.com/stephanixmedina/status/1309119179610632193

what do they mean by "in dupage of all places"?

They're probably stuck in 2012 and don't realize how strongly educated suburbs like DuPage have shifted.

[n1240]

If I had to guess, the early vote modeling people are freaking about in Michigan and Wisconsin is crudely putting overall voter registration stats on the requested/returned ballots, most likely by age cohort or race. This would be very misleading. We know that Democratic voters are way more inclined to use absentee ballots than Republicans this year and vice versa. Older voters are still dominating in requests and returns, and their overall registration stats may be Republican-leaning, but we know for sure that those older voters are disproportionately Democratic because they've chosen to take absentee ballots.

Just look at this stat from tonight's Glengariff poll of Michigan:

Among those that have already cast their ballot, Joe Biden holds a 60-point lead of 74.6%-14.1%.

Even considering the margin of error and the possibility of Biden winning significant chunks of Independents and Republicans that number is simply implausible with NBC's model.

Yeah the TargetSmart modelling in states that don't aren't reporting returns by party registration is wildly contradictory with states that are reporting returns by party registration, and polling that indicates Dems do significantly better among absentee voters, definitely seems like it's running under assumptions that an old electorate cannot be overwhelming Dem, even though NC and FL have mail-in votes being 50%+ Dem by party reg while also being 50%+ 65+ in age.

[n1240]

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

[n1240]

Dems lead Rep by 394.3 k in early voting. Dems lead Rep by 74.7 to 17.0 in terms of percentage.
In Philadelphia 156 k people have already voted.
Allegheny 190 k
Chester 49k
Lancaster 36 k
Northhampton 36 k

Some of these PA counties are taking forever to report their numbers, especially the Philly burbs. It’s annoying.

Totally  agree with you. Bucks has 0.6 % return rate
Montgomery has 1% return rate

I think both counties had delays sending out their ballots, apparently most weren't sent until just a few days ago.

[n1240]

Historically early vote rate slows down a bit on weekends in Texas (more so on Sundays because of limited hours) , but the pace is still pretty solid and many counties are clearly on pace to pass 2016 total vote by the end of the early voting period, especially with the extended week of early voting. I think a relative lull is quite possible next week but it wouldn't be less than 50% of daily totals from this week, which would still be an impressive pace.

[n1240]

NC early in-person more favorable for GOP yesterday than two days ago, D+9 on ballots returned 10/16 vs D+20 on 10/15, white/black share at 67/23 compared to 59/31. Total vote is similar (322k vs 332k)

[n1240]

Sample in NYTimes/Siena WI/MI polls are fairly small but they clearly paint a different picture than whatever TargetSmart thinks of the early vote electorate in those states. In both states the voters who have already voted are disproportionally white and old, which TargetSmart seems to be expecting to be a GOP favorable demographic, but the voters are still disproportionally Dem in the NYTimes/Siena data. In Michigan, the poll suggests 54% of people who have already voted are 65+ and 85% are white (25% and 77% overall respectively), while the party ID split among early voters is 53/18/29 D/R/I (32/33/29 overall). In Wisconsin it is 47% 65+ and 93% white (31% and 87% overall respectively) and party ID split is 56/11/33 (29/29/35) overall.

[n1240]

https://twitter.com/HarrisVotes/status/1317497769964244992

Early vote rate seems slower in Harris County today compared to weekdays over past week (usually had around 34k-35k at noon report, but this tweet says 11 am so maybe this is slightly outdated?) but still fairly strong.

[n1240]

https://twitter.com/HarrisVotes/status/1317497769964244992

Early vote rate seems slower in Harris County today compared to weekdays over past week (usually had around 34k-35k at noon report, but this tweet says 11 am so maybe this is slightly outdated?) but still fairly strong.

Come on it's Saturday. People get up and do things later on Saturdays compared to weekdays.

I'm clearly not painting is as a bad thing but as I previously stated early vote on weekends have been historically weaker in Texas compared to weekdays and expectations that the weekend vote would be better than what occurred during the week seemed bullish to me.

[n1240]

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

Is this more Target Smart crap?

Yep, highly educated suburbs that are clearly trending D are overtly GOP in TargetSmart's obscure modelling.

[n1240]

NC early in-person more favorable for GOP yesterday than two days ago, D+9 on ballots returned 10/16 vs D+20 on 10/15, white/black share at 67/23 compared to 59/31. Total vote is similar (322k vs 332k)

How does that compare to 2016?

I'll try and find partisan stats but about 160k ballots were cast total on each day of the first two days of early voting in NC in 2016, so early in-person vote rate is 2x as high thus far.

[n1240]

NC early in-person more favorable for GOP yesterday than two days ago, D+9 on ballots returned 10/16 vs D+20 on 10/15, white/black share at 67/23 compared to 59/31. Total vote is similar (322k vs 332k)

How does that compare to 2016?

I'll try and find partisan stats but about 160k ballots were cast total on each day of the first two days of early voting in NC in 2016, so early in-person vote rate is 2x as high thus far.

First day of in-person early vote 2016 (10/20)
Dem 86715 (52.4%)
Rep 40631 (24.6%)
Una 37983 (23.0%)

Second day of in-person early vote 2016 (10/21)
Dem 75060 (48.4%)
Rep 42178 (27.2%)
Una 37745 (24.4%)

Third day of in-person early vote 2016 (10/22, first Saturday)
Dem 109854 (49.1%)
Rep 58464 (26.1%)
Una 55468 (24.8%)

After considering mail-in votes (which were 32/40/29 D/R/I in 2016) the overall composition of absentee voters (mail + in-person) in NC two days into the early in-person voting period is roughly the same as what it is now, but the number of votes cast is still vastly different (1.25 mil after yesterday vs 387k in 2016)

[n1240]

NC 10/17, day 3 early in-person vote:

Dem 72506 (42.4%)
Rep 52366 (30.6%)
Una 46197 (27.0%)
Total 171042

Current Total (in-person only)

Dem 363665 (44.0%)
Rep 244289 (29.6%)
Una 217699 (26.4%)

Current Total (cumulative absentee)

Dem 665013 (46.5%)
Rep 355632 (24.9%)
Una 408012 (28.6%)

Dem share is a bit stronger compared to yesterday and vote total about half of what it was yesterday (counties generally had polling places open 4-6 hours less compared to Thursday/Friday).

[n1240]

NC 10/17, day 4 early in-person vote:

Dem 41868 (46.8%)
Rep 23277 (26.0%)
Una 24293 (27.2%)
Total 89438

compared to day 4 in 2016

Dem 11323 (56.9%)
Rep 3620 (18.2%)
Una 4972 (25.0%)
Total 19915

Current Total (in-person only)

Dem 405533 (44.3%)
Rep 267566 (29.2%)
Una 241992 (26.4%)

Current Total (cumulative absentee)

Dem 708355 (46.6%)
Rep 379640 (25.0%)
Una 433498 (28.5%)

[n1240]

One interesting thing I've noticed between the early in-person and absentee electorate in NC is that despite mail-in voters being older, more white, and more Dem, the proportion of voters who didn't vote in 2016 is reasonably higher among the mail-in voters compared to the early in-person voters (27% vs 19%). I may try and perform a more discrete analysis to determine the demographics of the new voters in NC.

[n1240]

It's just a few hours into the first day of in-person early voting in Florida, but anyone know why the Dem vote in Duval so strong thus far? Most other large counties appear not to vary too much based on how you'd expect the counties to vote overall.

source

[n1240]

I don't know if this was expected/known or not, but St. Pete's last FL poll (that had Biden up) had Repubs outnumbering Dems in who was planning to vote early, 22R, 19D, 18I. So I guess it shouldn't be a surprise to see them leading.

http://stpetepolls.org/files/StPetePolls_2020_State_President_October12_H5NX8.pdf

There can be quite a bit of crosstab noise tbh, Siena found something similar to what's being observed based on party reg (while by party ID it's about D+7), but subsamples are still small.

https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/1318272593313599490

[n1240]

NC 10/19, day 5 early in-person vote:

Dem 111782 (38.2%)
Rep 99545 (34.0%)
Una 81422 (27.8%)
Total 292749

compared to day 5 in 2016

Dem 78803 (46.7%)
Rep 49831 (29.5%%
Una 40022 (23.7%)
Total 168656

Current Total (in-person only)

Dem 517315 (42.8%)
Rep 367111 (30.4%)
Una 323414 (26.8%)
Total 1207840

Current Total (cumulative absentee)

Dem 833736 (45.1%)
Rep 486672 (26.4%)
Una 526355 (28.5%)
Total 1846763

Best day thus far for GOP for early in-person votes in NC but they still trailed behind Dems. Total early in-person votes wasn't as large as first two days of early voting in the state but only slightly smaller (290k vs 320k).

[n1240]

Harris County thinks the final early vote will be higher than the 2016 cumulative vote, but that seems too optimistic to me unless we get a few more 100K days next week. We would need about 600k more for that to happen.

Only need pace of 55k a day, doesn't seem that unreasonable considering Sunday was the worst day with 42k in-person + mail combined. Looks like they're on pace to reach around 70k in-person today again as well. Unless there is a severe lull in voting later this week/weekend I think it's pretty reasonable to expect Harris County to exceed 2016 cumulative vote off early vote.

[n1240]

NC 10/20, day 6 early in-person vote:

Dem 99618 (35.4%)
Rep 101656 (36.1%)
Una 80452 (28.6%)
Total 281726

compared to day 5 in 2016

Dem 70132 (44.4%)
Rep 48998 (31.1%)
Una 38531 (24.4%)
Total 157661

Current Total (in-person only)

Dem 616933 (41.4%)
Rep 468767 (31.5%)
Una 403866 (27.1%)
Total 1489566

Current Total (cumulative absentee)

Dem 941926 (43.9%)
Rep 592220 (27.6%)
Una 613188 (28.6%)
Total 2147334

GOP gets their first single day early vote win in NC narrowly, but Dems still increase the total raw ballot lead slightly due to mail-in ballots

[n1240]

NC 10/20, day 6 early in-person vote:

Dem 99618 (35.4%)
Rep 101656 (36.1%)
Una 80452 (28.6%)
Total 281726

compared to day 5 in 2016

Dem 70132 (44.4%)
Rep 48998 (31.1%)
Una 38531 (24.4%)
Total 157661

Current Total (in-person only)

Dem 616933 (41.4%)
Rep 468767 (31.5%)
Una 403866 (27.1%)
Total 1489566

Current Total (cumulative absentee)

Dem 941926 (43.9%)
Rep 592220 (27.6%)
Una 613188 (28.6%)
Total 2147334

GOP gets their first single day early vote win in NC narrowly, but Dems still increase the total raw ballot lead slightly due to mail-in ballots

Is there a place you're taking this info from? Is it Election Project or the actual SoS data?

Also, what were the final numbers in NC in 2016?

I usually post soon after the SOS updates here, and just compare to the previous day's totals. They post other neat stuff (they have daily reports comparing to 2016 but only # of ballots) + past final absentee files here . For 2016 early vote I've just been filtering the 2016 data by date, should probably set up the code I wrote to better compare the cumulative totals on each date rather than just posting individual day comparisons.

[n1240]

Nevada early vote trend is barely concerning considering the large stream of mail-in ballots still coming in. The mail-in vote stream remains considerably large and any GOP gains from early in-person voting are dwarfed by the mail-in vote advantage Dems have built in Clark and Washoe.

[n1240]

NC 10/20, day 6 early in-person vote:

Dem 84162 (33.9%)
Rep 91231 (36.8%)
Una 72800 (29.3%)
Total 248193

compared to day 5 in 2016

Dem 61720 (42.7%)
Rep 46392 (32.1%)
Una 36438 (25.2%)
Total 144550

Current Total (in-person only)

Dem 701095 (40.3%)
Rep 559998 (36.8%)
Una 476666 (27.4%)
Total 1737759

Current Total (cumulative absentee)

Dem 1038752 (42.8%)
Rep 691114 (28.5%)
Una 698179 (28.8%)
Total 2428045

GOP chips away at the considerable Dem early in-person lead for second straight day, and slightly reduces overall lead (350k to 347k) and Dems hit 1 million votes statewide. Statewide total also surpasses 50% of 2016 total.

[n1240]

NC 10/20, day 6 early in-person vote:

Dem 84162 (33.9%)
Rep 91231 (36.8%)
Una 72800 (29.3%)
Total 248193

compared to day 5 in 2016

Dem 61720 (42.7%)
Rep 46392 (32.1%)
Una 36438 (25.2%)
Total 144550

Current Total (in-person only)

Dem 701095 (40.3%)
Rep 559998 (36.8%)
Una 476666 (27.4%)
Total 1737759

Current Total (cumulative absentee)

Dem 1038752 (42.8%)
Rep 691114 (28.5%)
Una 698179 (28.8%)
Total 2428045

GOP chips away at the considerable Dem early in-person lead for second straight day, and slightly reduces overall lead (350k to 347k) and Dems hit 1 million votes statewide. Statewide total also surpasses 50% of 2016 total.

Is this zeal from R voters or simply D voters moved to VbM?

Early vote values are still much larger than mail vote values (magnitude about 10x more or so), so Dems aren't moving to VBM that significantly, at least in North Carolina, although they're still dominating the mail-in vote there. The amount of voters going early has been steadily going down (excluding weekends) with today being the lowest weekday thus far (292k -> 282k -> 248k this week), so there are both fewer Dem and GOP voters, but the GOP vote isn't decreasing as much as the Dem vote so I wouldn't necessarily consider this zeal from R voters. Could argue Dems have done better at cannibalizing their vote earlier, but it's also plausible to anticipate that there may be another relative surge closer to election day among Dem voters.