2020 Absentee/Early Voting thread

[ProgressiveModerate]

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.

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.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Thread of Early Voting lines in GA
https://twitter.com/nicolecarrwsb/status/1315626970953256960?s=21

Ofc GA was going to have it's fair share of problems

On the bright side, it seems like people are very eager to vote, which is a good thing.

[ProgressiveModerate]

https://twitter.com/KevinCate/status/1317448995569094656

This makes me optimistic about Florida...

I did no realize there was such a significant turnout difference between democrats and republicans in FL 2016...  Do we have the numbers for 2018?

Not sure but I think the common wisdom in Florida is that republicans can only win if democratic turnout is lower than theirs.  Biden seems likely to win Florida independents so that’s probably especially true this year.

I found this:  Tampa Bay largely mirrored the rest of Florida. Republicans’ turnout rate was about 68 percent, compared to 60 percent for Democrats. https://www.tampabay.com/florida-politics/buzz/2018/12/21/florida-republicans-turnout-beat-democrats-except-among-young-voters/

I could not find data for FL, but from the article it's pretty clear that even in 2018 republicans had a several points higher turnout than the democrats.

That's pretty much always the case in Southern States during off years. If GA had full turnout in 2018, Abraham's prolly would've won, but instead we only saw a 4% shift from 2016

[ProgressiveModerate]

Another note on Texas...

In like a week, Texas has jumped to the 2nd highest percent of the 2016 vote at 38.3%.  Only trailing Vermont.  Obviously Texas is a rapidly growing state but still it seems clear that GOP efforts to suppress the vote have failed spectacularly.  

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

Texas typically has lower turnout in Presidential cycles; some of the worst, so it's good to see that this cycle, that is likely to change as TX is more competative and has gotten more national attention.

[ProgressiveModerate]

In a normal year Texas wouldn’t start early voting until this week.   So 43.2% turnout in 2020 vs roughly 0% (probably some mail ballots) at this moment in 2016 is amazing!

If you believe TargetSmart Texas is in the bag for Republicans

3,199,795 VBM & In-Person Ballots returned

89 % In-Person / 11 % VBM

There won't be many VBM Ballots in TX because it's not allowed. Either you vote Early In-Person or on E-Day

Breakdown by Party (CNN 2016 Exits)
52 % R (38 %)

39 % D (29 %)

9 % I (33 %)

Breakdown by Age (CNN 2016 Exits)

18-29 9 % (18 %)

30-39 12 % (19 %)

40-49 15 % (20 %)

50-64 30 % (28 %)

65+ 34 % (15 %)

Gender (CNN 2016 Exits)

Women 55 % (53 %)

Men 45 % (47 %)

Assuming TargetSmart has modelled this right there is NO CHANCE Biden wins the State and all the Pollsters showing Sleepy Joe within range are BOGUS. Texas stays in the Pipe Dream for the Democrats.

Target smart has a terrible reputation though. Not trusting statewide polls either though since pollsters really don’t know how to poll Tx yet. Until then, I kind of have to speculate

[ProgressiveModerate]

In a normal year Texas wouldn’t start early voting until this week.   So 43.2% turnout in 2020 vs roughly 0% (probably some mail ballots) at this moment in 2016 is amazing!

If you believe TargetSmart Texas is in the bag for Republicans

3,199,795 VBM & In-Person Ballots returned

89 % In-Person / 11 % VBM

There won't be many VBM Ballots in TX because it's not allowed. Either you vote Early In-Person or on E-Day

Breakdown by Party (CNN 2016 Exits)
52 % R (38 %)

39 % D (29 %)

9 % I (33 %)

Breakdown by Age (CNN 2016 Exits)

18-29 9 % (18 %)

30-39 12 % (19 %)

40-49 15 % (20 %)

50-64 30 % (28 %)

65+ 34 % (15 %)

Gender (CNN 2016 Exits)

Women 55 % (53 %)

Men 45 % (47 %)

Assuming TargetSmart has modelled this right there is NO CHANCE Biden wins the State and all the Pollsters showing Sleepy Joe within range are BOGUS. Texas stays in the Pipe Dream for the Democrats.

Target smart has a terrible reputation though. Not trusting statewide polls either though since pollsters really don’t know how to poll Tx yet. Until then, I kind of have to speculate

Republicans have a Registration Advantage in Texas!

During the 2018 Midterms the Party Breakdown was 38 % R / 34 % / I 27 %
Cruz won R's 91-8
O'Rourke won D's 92-8 and I's 50-47

The Youth Vote which helped O'Rourke a lot 2 years ago seems also down according to TS. Biden would need a similar Party ID O'Rourke had in 2018 + he would need to win Independents by high single digits to have a chance. NOPE, won't happening!

Target Smart isn't the end all be all.

[ProgressiveModerate]

In a normal year Texas wouldn’t start early voting until this week.   So 43.2% turnout in 2020 vs roughly 0% (probably some mail ballots) at this moment in 2016 is amazing!

If you believe TargetSmart Texas is in the bag for Republicans

3,199,795 VBM & In-Person Ballots returned

89 % In-Person / 11 % VBM

There won't be many VBM Ballots in TX because it's not allowed. Either you vote Early In-Person or on E-Day

Breakdown by Party (CNN 2016 Exits)
52 % R (38 %)

39 % D (29 %)

9 % I (33 %)

Breakdown by Age (CNN 2016 Exits)

18-29 9 % (18 %)

30-39 12 % (19 %)

40-49 15 % (20 %)

50-64 30 % (28 %)

65+ 34 % (15 %)

Gender (CNN 2016 Exits)

Women 55 % (53 %)

Men 45 % (47 %)

Assuming TargetSmart has modelled this right there is NO CHANCE Biden wins the State and all the Pollsters showing Sleepy Joe within range are BOGUS. Texas stays in the Pipe Dream for the Democrats.

Target smart has a terrible reputation though. Not trusting statewide polls either though since pollsters really don’t know how to poll Tx yet. Until then, I kind of have to speculate

Republicans have a Registration Advantage in Texas!

During the 2018 Midterms the Party Breakdown was 38 % R / 34 % / I 27 %
Cruz won R's 91-8
O'Rourke won D's 92-8 and I's 50-47

The Youth Vote which helped O'Rourke a lot 2 years ago seems also down according to TS. Biden would need a similar Party ID O'Rourke had in 2018 + he would need to win Independents by high single digits to have a chance. NOPE, won't happening!

Target Smart isn't the end all be all.

According to TargetSmart Clinton was going to win Florida by 10%.......

TargetSmart tends to be off in both directions depending upon the circumstances; they're just bad, not partisan like Trafalgar polls.

[ProgressiveModerate]

In a normal year Texas wouldn’t start early voting until this week.   So 43.2% turnout in 2020 vs roughly 0% (probably some mail ballots) at this moment in 2016 is amazing!

If you believe TargetSmart Texas is in the bag for Republicans

3,199,795 VBM & In-Person Ballots returned

89 % In-Person / 11 % VBM

There won't be many VBM Ballots in TX because it's not allowed. Either you vote Early In-Person or on E-Day

Breakdown by Party (CNN 2016 Exits)
52 % R (38 %)

39 % D (29 %)

9 % I (33 %)

Breakdown by Age (CNN 2016 Exits)

18-29 9 % (18 %)

30-39 12 % (19 %)

40-49 15 % (20 %)

50-64 30 % (28 %)

65+ 34 % (15 %)

Gender (CNN 2016 Exits)

Women 55 % (53 %)

Men 45 % (47 %)

Assuming TargetSmart has modelled this right there is NO CHANCE Biden wins the State and all the Pollsters showing Sleepy Joe within range are BOGUS. Texas stays in the Pipe Dream for the Democrats.

Target smart has a terrible reputation though. Not trusting statewide polls either though since pollsters really don’t know how to poll Tx yet. Until then, I kind of have to speculate

Republicans have a Registration Advantage in Texas!

During the 2018 Midterms the Party Breakdown was 38 % R / 34 % / I 27 %
Cruz won R's 91-8
O'Rourke won D's 92-8 and I's 50-47

The Youth Vote which helped O'Rourke a lot 2 years ago seems also down according to TS. Biden would need a similar Party ID O'Rourke had in 2018 + he would need to win Independents by high single digits to have a chance. NOPE, won't happening!

Target Smart isn't the end all be all.

According to TargetSmart Clinton was going to win Florida by 10%.......

TargetSmart tends to be off in both directions depending upon the circumstances; they're just wrong.

I'm aware im just giving an example and I remember that one the most

Ok cool. There's some people on here who say because pollster x was off by y % last time, it'll be off by the exact same amount this time, which i think is a poor way of looking at it.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Here's your weekly or daily reminder that all those high early D numbers don't mean anything if the Trump people vote on election day in hordes ...

(Besides, it is not even guaranteed that the early vote is so extremely pro-D as people believe. The Indys voting early might be less pro-Biden for example than what polls say ...)

Nonetheless, it's a good sign to see high early voting in a state like TX in counties like Harris, Travis, Dallas, and Tarrant.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Hurray, 30 million votes!
https://twitter.com/ElectProject/status/1318324373309296640

Wonder which state will reach 50% first.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Hurray, 30 million votes!
https://twitter.com/ElectProject/status/1318324373309296640

Wonder which state will reach 50% first.

Probably Texas

Tight race between VT, TX, and NJ. We might not truly know though since we don't have a live count, since they'll prolly all reach 50% on the same day.

[ProgressiveModerate]

3.023 million votes cast in FL now. 364K early in person votes, Dem and GOP virtually tied. Dems have a 16-pt lead combined.

https://twitter.com/mcimaps/status/1318548087409868806

I'm curious how Independents voted. This is also a tad misleading, because in a place like FL, there are going to be quite a few DINOs, especially in the panhandle, who are voting for Trump, while there are definately some older folk RINOs who are tired of Trumpism and like Biden. The question really is which group is larger.

[ProgressiveModerate]

MT's numbers are coming in pretty strong, which is a very good sign. 2018 proved there were A LOT of Democrats in MT who didn't show up in 2018.

Also; imagine if TX gets over 100% of it's 2016 total before election day. It's not impossible considering TX has historically low turnout rates but now that it's in the national spotlight that seems to be changing. Still very unlikely, but not impossible.

[ProgressiveModerate]

The Democrats lead is down to 11% in Florida!!! The In person vote is cutting into democrats lead slowly but surely...Can Trump close the gap? Hopefully but we will see!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17YKazYaUMZ33vmd4YHDKcVdlTkP5DmnHQQlAttwOzL0/htmlview?pru=AAABdWY-2lM*RELmuWopShoDq9-h3Bl_Tw#

F**k.
And to think people still believe Florida will flip.

If my memory is correct, Rs led in the FL early vote in 2016. Definately not great news for Ds, but also not the end all be all. Also, as pointed out above, Republicans tend to show up in larger numbers in FL, but not all Republicans vote party line

[ProgressiveModerate]

I hate this election already and not a single state has been called.

You’re going to say that no matter how much evidence points to a Biden win

[ProgressiveModerate]

Using the sunshine precedent, Dems need a 292K lead in NC.

What is their lead in North Carolina right now?

About 200k, 325k to 125k with a little over 200k undecides

[ProgressiveModerate]

Could TX and MT surpass 2016 total turnout just from early/mail votes?

[ProgressiveModerate]

Could TX and MT surpass 2016 total turnout just from early/mail votes?

I think it's a given that all the major growing urban counties in Texas will surpass 100% of 2016 final vote tallies before next Friday. Travis County will be flirting with hitting 400k today alone (total in 2016 was 469k and 2018 was 484k). Harris will likely surpass 1.3 million late next week, along with Dallas and Bexar, to say nothing of the major suburban counties like Williamson, Denton, and Collin, who will probably pass it this weekend.

Yep, the turnout numbers in the metro areas are insane, which is a good sign that Biden is at least highly competative in the state. People tend to forget how bad TX turnout has been historically. As for MT, I expect turnout to be a lot higher this time purely because of how many resources are being invested in the state this cycle, and how many people voted there in 2018. The MT Democratic Party has gotta be one of the best as turning out voters when needed.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Any TX people that can tell us what the early voting trends can tell us about congressional races?  I'm assuming boosted turnout in the cities and suburbs is not helpful for certain republicans.

From what I can determine, John Cornyn is on track for a 2002 or 2008-esque Senate victory, as there is a lot of ticket-splitting in the Dallas, Houston, Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio, and El Paso suburbs.

That seems unlikely. I think he has potential for a 5%+ digit victory, but I struggle to see how he gets passed a 10% margin in this sort of national environment in a state that looks very different than it did a decade or two ago. People really overestimate the number of “moderate suburban Republicans” there are who actual split ticket; most ticket splitting tends to come from lower propensity voters in states like WV and MT, who are more able to be persuaded by local politics