US Politics: Election Impending

[DMC]

5 minutes ago, Makk said:

I would have thought that they could count all the early votes in a single day? Why are these more difficult than votes cast on the day? 

First, what Kal said above.  Second, there's obviously a tonnage more mail-in ballots to count in every state than usual which is time consuming.  Third, in the three states I mentioned, they can't even begin processing mail-in ballots until election day, which is also time consuming.  See here for further details:

Quote

In many states, processing of absentee ballots can begin before they are actually counted. “Processing” means different things in different states, but typically the first step is comparing the affidavit signature on the outside of the return envelope against the voter’s signature on record to ensure a match, or otherwise verify the voter’s identity. See the section titled, “Processing, Verifying, and Counting Absentee Ballots.”

In some states once the signature is verified the envelope can then be opened and the ballot prepared for tabulation. In essence, states that begin processing before Election Day can “tee up” absentee ballots so that they are ready to be counted as soon as the law allows. By permitting election officials to do a lot of the work ahead of time, the counting process on Election Day (and election results reporting) are quicker. Results are not released ahead of time.

 

[Varysblackfyre321]

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/im-here-to-remind-you-that-trump-can-still-win/
 

[The Anti-Targ]

5 hours ago, Makk said:

Are early votes not counted on Tuesday?

Could be different in different places, but for our election if you cast an early vote in your electorate then it was counted on election day. If it was cast early outside of your electorate then it is a special vote, and here the special votes are going to be reported this Friday.

[Ran]

Morning Consult final polls are in:

 

[Varysblackfyre321]

38 minutes ago, Ran said:

Morning Consult final polls are in:

 

This looks too good to be true.

I want them to be on point lol

[Ran]

The Trafalgar guy has been on FOX saying that Trump is ahead in PA but that Democrats wll try to employ massive voting fraud to steal the state.

Nate needs to ban that poll going forward. It's one thing to weight partisan polls differently, but when it's such an obvious hack they just shouldn't be included at all.

[Varysblackfyre321]

11 minutes ago, Ran said:

The Trafalgar guy has been on FOX saying that Trump is ahead in PA but that Democrats wll try to employ massive voting fraud to steal the state.

Nate needs to ban that poll going forward. It's one thing to weight partisan polls differently, but when it's such an obvious hack they just shouldn't be included at all.

This kinda gives the impression that he doesn’t think Trump will get the state.

 

[IheartIheartTesla]

Morning Consult has Biden up by 9 in PA, and Monmouth up by 7 (high turnout) and 5 (low turnout). I think the latter made a snarky comment about how low turnout at this point would be if many of the mail-in ballots wouldn't be counted.

I've seen enough polls of PA to be confident that the 'true' result is a Biden win. The final 5-6 margin is also consistent with a national lead of 8.5 and a partisan lean of ~3. Hopefully one of the other moderate sized states will come through for PA to not be critical to Biden's victory.....

[BigFatCoward]

I feel sick with anxiety, I cant imagine what you lot are going through. 

Good luck for tomorrow. 

[Mindwalker]

3 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

I feel sick with anxiety, I cant imagine what you lot are going through. 

Good luck for tomorrow. 

Same here, LOL.

[Rippounet]

1 minute ago, BigFatCoward said:

I feel sick with anxiety, I cant imagine what you lot are going through. 

Good luck for tomorrow. 

Same here.

If I get this right, it might all boil to which ballots are counted first in key states, whether there is a"blue shift" or not, because if Trump has the lead on election night he'll declare victory, thus creating unimaginable chaos.

[Heartofice]

10 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

I feel sick with anxiety, I cant imagine what you lot are going through. 

Good luck for tomorrow. 

Yeah same. Had argument with mate over weekend who genuinely thinks Trump is a better candidate than Biden, based almost solely on the Hunter Biden stuff which made me just put my head in my hands. I would think that sort of thing would only really give momentum to existing Trump supporters rather than convert anyone.

But yeah , it is quite stressful and even in the UK.

[Guest]

17 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

I feel sick with anxiety, I cant imagine what you lot are going through. 

Good luck for tomorrow. 

Considering taking my daughter and staying at a hotel tomorrow evening. My other kids live with their mom, and she's apolitical, but I'm a pretty outspoken lefty in a sea of red in my neighborhood.

I don't *think* my neighbors will actually do anything, but I *also* didn't think the POTUS would ever encourage his supporters to run the opposing candidate's campaign bus off the road or to encourage his supporters to shoot protesters without losing any support from them. So I guess I don't really trust them to *not* do whatever he tells them until I see evidence to the contrary.

ETA: The scary part is I was sure that would seem melodramatic to me after I read it back; it doesn't, really. 

[IheartIheartTesla]

Of course IBD/TIPP had to come out with their 4/3 national poll today.

Anyway, this is just a gut feeling rather than a detailed analysis of the polling coming out of Florida, but I am feeling a little better about Biden's prospects there. I think it will end up being Biden +3. Similar to 2016, I 'feel' there was a real movement away from Trump therein the last few days (indeed, the 538 average has gone back up to 2.4 from 1.8 which is still within the noise but I think some of the undecided PoC are finally coming home).

[IheartIheartTesla]

Should also add at this point we shouldnt be thinking about if Trump will lose or not, or rather what to do when he loses.

[Jaxom 1974]

8 hours ago, DMC said:

First, what Kal said above.  Second, there's obviously a tonnage more mail-in ballots to count in every state than usual which is time consuming.  Third, in the three states I mentioned, they can't even begin processing mail-in ballots until election day, which is also time consuming.  See here for further details:

 

Sooooo...if Biden wins and the Senate is taken, voting rights and laws to accommodate this shift in voting patterns has to be moved up the list of important things to think about, no?  Yes, it's a state by state thing, but shouldn't reinstating the Voters Right Act and somemother methods help put pressure on the states to adjust how they'll go about counting ballots, let alone approaching how they're collected?  If nothing else, the genie is out of the bottle and people are going to like the voting early idea from here on out and if Dems want to really make strides to help themselves in 2022 and beyond, making it easier to vote and count votes will be instrumental in making that happen...

[S John]

My gut instinct based on absolutely no solid empirical is that there will be enough people who are just flat out tired of the tone in the country since Trump has been elected that Biden will win. We know that Trump has his base and they will never falter, but US elections tend to be decided by moderates and independents. Of course it helps that the polls agree with me  but this is a feeling I’ve had almost since the beginning - that the novelty of Trump would wear off where it counts and I think it has. Still mentally preparing for any outcome, but one of those outcomes is that tomorrow is a great day.

[Fez]

Not election-related, but in a general bit of good news SCOTUS decided to not go full fascist in a pair of reversals of 5th Circuit decisions.

 https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/110220zor_08m1.pdf 

One was about not holding the organizer of a BLM protest liable for violence that he didn't commit, the other was about not giving qualified immunity to prison guards who tortured an inmate.

Both were 7-1 decisions with Thomas being the dissenter and Barrett not participating.

ETA: Actually on the prison one, Alito only concurred in judgment and his concurrence sucks. So there are at least two SCOTUS justices (Barrett may make three) who are fine with prison guards literally torturing inmates. Welcome to America.

[Maithanet]

1 minute ago, S John said:

My gut instinct based on absolutely no solid empirical is that there will be enough people who are just flat out tired of the tone in the country since Trump has been elected that Biden will win. We know that Trump has his base and they will never falter, but US elections tend to be decided by moderates and independents. Of course it helps that the polls agree with me  but this is a feeling I’ve had almost since the beginning - that the novelty of Trump would wear off where it counts and I think it has. Still mentally preparing for any outcome, but one of those outcomes is that tomorrow is a great day.

I agree, and the fact that this election is going to have ~20 million new voters that didn't vote in 2016, plus the ~8 million voters who voted third party in 2016, it is really hard to see how Trump's "my base is all that matters" is going to win over Biden's "return to normalcy/competence/decency" message.  If Trump gets every single voter from 2016 to back him again and no one else, he's at like 40% of the vote (because some have died).  Obviously he'll pick up a few more, but he needs a lot more than a few, he needs many millions. 

[IheartIheartTesla]

I know everyone has sort of given up on Texas, but I am still holding out a bit of hope:

Close enough means a lot of state house seats will flip. I was also struck by something Wasserman said, which is that the difference between 290 and 400 EVs for Biden (in terms of percentage points) is not that large. There are so many states that are close enough for such a wide spread.