GA-SEN 2022 Megathread: Werewolves and Vampires

[Adam Griffin]

Glad to see all the pollsters are adjusting to Warnock +4 or +5 in line with what the private polling showed several days ago. Salvage those reputations, y'all!

[NOVA Green]

So... for those of us on the West Coast.

When does GA first dump votes?

Are there State laws which prevent EV's appearing prior to ED votes?

So... West Coast if polls close at 4 PM in GA do I gotta split work early to see early voting results?

[Adam Griffin]

So... for those of us on the West Coast.

When does GA first dump votes?

Are there State laws which prevent EV's appearing prior to ED votes?

So... West Coast if polls close at 4 PM in GA do I gotta split work early to see early voting results?

2021 election law changes harmonized poll closure times (a little-known fact, but prior to such, ATL proper - 5% of the state's vote - didn't close its polls until 8 PM ET, while the rest of the state closed at 7 PM ET).

In November, we saw Fulton and inner urban areas dump a ton of votes very early on (within 20 minutes of polls closing), thereby eliminating and even reversing the vote counting bias that existed for eons prior (i.e. historically, R & rural votes dumped earlier, D & urban votes dumped later). Prior, many of these urban votes were among the last to be counted.

Warnock was ahead initially by like 2:1 & remained ahead virtually the entire night except for a handful of dumps closer to the end from big R counties; historically, it was more like VA where Rs build a huge early lead and D votes trickle in, resulting in people watching with baited breath to see if Democrats could overtake the R vote lead.

I'm not sure if this is a permanent trend, but we may be looking at a D counting bias in Georgia going forward as opposed to an R counting bias (like VA) that existed for many years prior to 2022.

The only formal changes to election laws - which led to a ton of vote coming in from places like Dekalb and Fulton early in November - are below:

Local officials can now begin to process absentee ballots up to 2 weeks before the election.

Local officials are required to report the total number of early, absentee, and provisional ballots by 10 pm on election night. [no longer do we have to wait on urban D county vote counters who leave at 11 PM only to resume the next day and spend several days more counting, unless their election boards want to be dissolved and appointed by state decree]

Counties must finish tabulating votes by 5 pm of the day after the election. [this obv excludes provisional ballots and overseas/military ballots - though GA implemented three-preference IRV for that latter group in 2021, so many of those votes will already be "in" by the time the polls close if they ranked candidates [1] [2] and/or [3] on their Nov general election overseas/military ballots]

Clarification on the above changes wrt counting/poll management:

A change local officials embrace is a section that allows them to begin processing, but not tabulating, absentee ballots starting two weeks before the election. There's extra incentive to do so, by way of a new requirement that counties count all of the ballots nonstop as soon as polls close and finish by 5 p.m. the next day or potentially face investigation.

Another change that was proposed last year and is now law would require large polling places with long lines to take action if wait times surpass an hour at certain times during the day. Those massive polls with more than 2,000 voters and wait times longer than an hour would have to hire more staff, add more workers or split up the precinct after that election. More than 1,500 of Georgia's precincts have over 2,000 voters.

Poll workers, in short supply for the June 2020 primary because of the pandemic, may now serve in adjoining counties.

https://www.gpb.org/news/2021/03/27/what-does-georgias-new-voting-law-sb-202-do

[Adam Griffin]

So... for those of us on the West Coast.

When does GA first dump votes?

Are there State laws which prevent EV's appearing prior to ED votes?

So... West Coast if polls close at 4 PM in GA do I gotta split work early to see early voting results?

Much detail provided in the previous post (edited multiple times), but:

In November: almost 60% of the vote was in by 9 PM ET (T+2 hours from polls closing), and virtually all that could be counted at the time (98%+) was in by 1 AM ET (T+6 hours).

If it works how it did last month, votes of all types will be coming in very quickly - at least compared to previous cycles of counting in Georgia. This might be the one good thing these election law changes accomplished: putting pressure on otherwise laissez-faire election workers to count the votes!

[Adam Griffin]

My final view of the race: I've been wrong before many times on the broader outcome in elections - mostly many years ago when I was substituting pragmatism for optimism in Georgia contests - but I will say this: I've never felt more confident about a Democratic victory in Georgia since I joined this forum in 2004.

I had modest confidence of a narrow win in Georgia for Biden in 2020 based on private polling and EV data. Somewhat more so for the 2021 runoffs (though I genuinely thought Ossoff would eke out a slightly larger margin than Warnock: something I'm glad to be wrong about because it means the state is evolving faster in some respects than an old fart like me expected).

Warnock is going to win this comfortably (80% chance), win this by less than Ossoff did last year (10% chance), or we're about to see a gigantic ED turnout and/or unprecedented EV/ED gap (one that'd put the 26-28 point 2020/2022 differentials - or even the 40-point 2021 runoff differential - to shame) where Walker manages to squeeze by (10% chance).

Contrary to my reputation on some matters forum-wide, when it comes to RL electoral predictions ahead of results, I'm not particularly braggadocious or a betting type of guy. With that being said, I haven't been prognosticating for the past week on a Warnock victory or changed my signature without knowing my state at a fundamental level through experience and available data. It's going to take a huge upset for this to go to Walker at this point - and if that somehow happens, well...god love them: I guess the GOP deserves some kind of win after the horrible midterm they had!

My prediction (which I usually never do, let alone to the decimal point): Warnock +4.4.

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

Rise and shine, y'all!

The season finale of the 2022 midterms is here!

[Kabam]

Honestly I'd be a bit surprised at this point if it's below Warnock +5.

[Eraserhead]

Do we know if they're doing an exit poll?

[South Dakota Democrat]

Do we know if they're doing an exit poll?

Not 100% sure, although there was one in 2021.

[QAnonKelly]

I do operation support on the flight attendant side for the airline that shall not be named and one who's based out of Minneapolis told me her work device has been spammed with texts about the runoff. 

[MR DARK BRANDON]

Rise and shine, y'all!

The season finale of the 2022 midterms is here!

And the last time I have to deal with loons on predictit

[South Dakota Democrat]

Should we post about results, turnout, etc. here or in the congressional results thread?

[MR DARK BRANDON]

I was here watching a stupid movie late at night hoping it’s gonna get better it don’t get better but you keep watching anyway. Cause the other night, the other night I was watching this movie — I was watching this movie called Fright Night, Freak Night or some type of night but it was about vampires. I don’t know if you know but vampires are some cool people are they not? But let me tell you something that I found out: a werewolf can kill a vampire did you know that? I never knew that. So I don’t want to be a vampire anymore I wanna be a werewolf.

But then anyway as I’m watching this movie and then you tell how stupid it is cause it’s one in the morning. So I’m watching my TV of these kids watching their TV of a vampire killed on their TV. So you know it’s kinda stupid, but I’m still watching though. As I’m watching this show what was funny was these kids had a vampire in their attic at their house. So they were watching their TV, now I’m watching my TV, they’re watching their TV, they see the vampire killed on their TV. So they win this contest to bring this actor — now y’all gotta stay with me — bring this actor who’s a vampire killer from that TV to get rid of this [unintelligible] vampire in their attic. So this actor comes into their home, he got all the right stuff. He got all the right stuff. Because you know, gotta have a stake, gotta have a thing to kill him in the heart. And he’s got a necklace of garlic, cause that work. I don’t know what it does but it work. Gotta have a cross, cause it burns, I know that works.

And then all of a sudden, this is what’s so funny about it: as they’re walking through the house, this, this guys got the holy water and he’s blessing the house, this actor now he’s all faith. He’s blessing the house with his holy water. He walked upstairs and this vampire looking real good in his black suit, whoa that sounds like Senator Warnock doesn’t it? Looking all good in his black suit. Floated from the ceiling , he floated from the ceiling looking good and cool. And I’m thinking “Whoa, they better get out of that house.” If somebody float from your ceiling, get out of that house. That’s not your house. But as he floated from the ceiling the kid jumped behind their hero, and they jumped behind their hero, the guy jumped in front of them with this holy water threw it on the vampire forehead, he covered his eyes. Then he took his hand away and started laughing. And he said “that don’t work.” He took the cross and put it on the vampire forehead and the vampire didn’t even do anything he said “that don’t work.” And that’s where it is in our life. It don’t even work unless you’ve got faith.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Should we post about results, turnout, etc. here or in the congressional results thread?

Either is fine.

[wbrocks67]

538 average up to Warnock +3.5

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/senate/2022/georgia/runoff/

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/GabrielSterling/status/1600129159472128000

[Xing]

I’m anxious for some Election Day reports so we can cling to single data points to jump back and forth between Warnock being doomed and set to win in a landslide.

[emailking]

We're flying a little blind here since we don't have the Guam results to analyze this time.

[wbrocks67]

We're flying a little blind here since we don't have the Guam results to analyze this time.

Or turnout allegedly cratering in Virginia to tell us that all 50 states were going to be disasters for Democrats!

[South Dakota Democrat]

We're flying a little blind here since we don't have the Guam results to analyze this time.

Or turnout allegedly cratering in Virginia to tell us that all 50 states were going to be disasters for Democrats!

I'll never forgive Wasserman for that.

[wbrocks67]

We're flying a little blind here since we don't have the Guam results to analyze this time.

Or turnout allegedly cratering in Virginia to tell us that all 50 states were going to be disasters for Democrats!

I'll never forgive Wasserman for that.

Yep. Though I've learned to not trust VA turnout reports specifically. Ben Tribbett was doing the same nonsense this year too, being incredibly overdramatic. He did it in 2017 too, saying that it looked terrible for Dems midday and then suddenly amazing in the afternoon.

[GALeftist]

We're flying a little blind here since we don't have the Guam results to analyze this time.

Or turnout allegedly cratering in Virginia to tell us that all 50 states were going to be disasters for Democrats!

I'll never forgive Wasserman for that.

Yep. Though I've learned to not trust VA turnout reports specifically. Ben Tribbett was doing the same nonsense this year too, being incredibly overdramatic. He did it in 2017 too, saying that it looked terrible for Dems midday and then suddenly amazing in the afternoon.

Turnout reports are basically always complete bunk. You should basically always just wait for actual results.

[wbrocks67]

We're flying a little blind here since we don't have the Guam results to analyze this time.

Or turnout allegedly cratering in Virginia to tell us that all 50 states were going to be disasters for Democrats!

I'll never forgive Wasserman for that.

Yep. Though I've learned to not trust VA turnout reports specifically. Ben Tribbett was doing the same nonsense this year too, being incredibly overdramatic. He did it in 2017 too, saying that it looked terrible for Dems midday and then suddenly amazing in the afternoon.

Turnout reports are basically always complete bunk. You should basically always just wait for actual results.

The only one that I found to be somewhat helpful this year was the Joshua Smiley guy on Twitter (and the Philly wards website) showing how turnout in Philly was doing throughout the day. And stuff like that is really only helpful to know whether Dem turnout is cratering or not.

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/gelliottmorris/status/1600154855363969027
https://twitter.com/gelliottmorris/status/1600156107682422785
https://twitter.com/gelliottmorris/status/1600157108665651200

[It’s so Joever]

Remember, Georgia is still a close state, the results are likely than not to be very close. Don’t let Atlas expectations of a D+5 win demoralize your if say Warnock wins by 1.5%. That is still more than Biden in 2020.