US Election Week 2020

[Sheilbh]

So this is interesting - I saw it on Twitter as an observation of a trend but quickly checked to make sure it's not bullshit.

But basically in Miami-Dade and a few of those Texas counties that have been circulating, Biden's vote basically just matched Clinton's. But turnout was significantly higher and Trump won basically all of the new voters. Now probably if that was the other way round there'd be lots of shouting about fraud, but I swear I've read a lot about Trump basically never shutting his campaign down so he always had field offices going out registering voters etc.

It seems like a basic thing and worth doing but also strange that it's seen as sort of unusual rather than routine

Edit: And I think the Dems made a huge mistake stopping door knocking (which is outside and distanced :blink - this and watching US news does give me more sympathy with AR's frustrations) v just spending lots of money and focusing on the air war.

[OttoVonBismarck]

So Dave Wasserman is saying Georgia's outstanding vote totals are not likely to be accurate, he says his sources say the absentee file isn't fully up to date in Georgia, and there's likely more than 50,000 votes out there not counting overseas military, that aren't reflected in the absentee data (because that data isn't up to date.)

Wasserman also thinks the outstanding ballots listed for Philadelphia is incorrect, because it would represent a net turnout decline in the city from 2016, and as we've seen like every other city has had significantly increased turnout from 2016 including other cities in Pennsylvania. He said if the number of outstanding ballots there  is in line with the turnout you'd expect, Biden would flip PA from Philadelphia ballots alone, since those have been going to him 90-10.

[DGuller]

I just hope that no one fucked up and counted all ballots that could potentially be returned as "outstanding".  That would be a disaster.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Right, I think we're pretty comfortable with PA right now but that's the fear, if some idiot has the total outstanding wrong suddenly it's a lot less comfortable. We do know that sources inside the equivalent of the Pennsylvania Secretary of State's office already told Biden's team that based on their progress they expect he finishes Pennsylvania up 100-200k.

Georgia I think favors Trump now unless Wasserman is right about those extra ballots, which keep it more in play for Biden.

While PA is going to be counting throughout the day, they haven't really been very open imo with when they are updating and when they stop. I never even saw a firm indication of when they quit last night, but I checked the feed of their vote counters and saw none were there after like 9:30pm so I'm guessing that is when they stopped. When I woke up this morning the totals in PA hadn't changed since then so I guess I was right. Considering the importance it'd be nice if election officials would put out some release of when they're done and when they're starting etc. It's also annoying Arizona basically won't report data again until 9PM ET. We may resolve Nevada today if their claims of having all the counting done by this afternoon and reported all at once are true, but NV is only marginally important. Without PA Biden would need AZ as well, and with PA NV is irrelevant.

[alfred russel]

Never mind, I can do this. The AJC just put out an updated summary map of where the ballots are outstanding.

51k are outstanding total, Trump 18k ahead.

Including:
Fulton (Atlanta): 25k
Chatham (Savannah): 17k


THAT seems very doable, but close as fuck. If there are really 25k in Fulton, that should shrink Trump's lead to about 3k statewide with 26k remaining. Chatham should give Biden about a 3k boost. That leaves it a dead heat with 10k votes to count.

Most of the rest seems to be from the greater atlanta area. Biden should get there, but this could be Florida 2000 type of close.

However,  the number outstanding contradicts what the Fulton elections chief said that status was at 4:30 am - he said 10k are uncounted, the secretary of state says 25k are uncounted.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Yeah, it feels like GA is going to come down to how many ballots are out there and for some reason we can't get a straight answer on it.

[Sheilbh]

Do you know if they're mail-in ballots and how they're breaking in Georgia? Is it in a similar way to, say, Pennsylvania and the Mid-West (strongly for Biden and better for Biden even in Republican areas - because the President told his supporters not to use mail-in ballots) or more like Arizona where they vote by mail all the time so it's more mixed, and the later ballots favoured Trump? Or do we just not know?

But Georgia seems very, very close - I wonder impact these votes could have on the Senate race though

[OttoVonBismarck]

So the remainder would probably need to break like 78% for Biden, a few batches ago the remainder would have needed to break 79% for Biden, so that suggests they're breaking enough for him to lower the % needed. Nate Silver seems to be saying 78% is very in line with what we've seen, but a percentage either way could be decisive and we have no clue what's going to happen.

[DGuller]

Right, I think we're pretty comfortable with PA right now but that's the fear, if some idiot has the total outstanding wrong suddenly it's a lot less comfortable. We do know that sources inside the equivalent of the Pennsylvania Secretary of State's office already told Biden's team that based on their progress they expect he finishes Pennsylvania up 100-200k.

Georgia I think favors Trump now unless Wasserman is right about those extra ballots, which keep it more in play for Biden.

While PA is going to be counting throughout the day, they haven't really been very open imo with when they are updating and when they stop. I never even saw a firm indication of when they quit last night, but I checked the feed of their vote counters and saw none were there after like 9:30pm so I'm guessing that is when they stopped. When I woke up this morning the totals in PA hadn't changed since then so I guess I was right. Considering the importance it'd be nice if election officials would put out some release of when they're done and when they're starting etc. It's also annoying Arizona basically won't report data again until 9PM ET. We may resolve Nevada today if their claims of having all the counting done by this afternoon and reported all at once are true, but NV is only marginally important. Without PA Biden would need AZ as well, and with PA NV is irrelevant.

I think NV is important because it then turns the remaining three states into instant wins for Biden.  Given that any one of those three states could have a surprise, it would make for a clear triple redundancy.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Sorry, Nate is saying as per AJC figures the remaining ballots would need to be Biden by 68%, not the 78 I said. This is in line with lots of previous ballot batches in GA as most are coming from ATL area.

[Caliga]

If we're in the time for making observations, I noticed a couple of funny things going state by state, and it's that some of them can easily be labelled as one party states, given that either Dems or Reps won in every single county. For instance, Hawaii, Massachussets and Rhode Island are 100% Dem states, while West Virginia and Oklahoma are 100% Rep.

Uh, yeah... what's funny about that?

When I lived in Mass., pretty much all Republicans were crazy fringe people.  The only elections that usually mattered in the state were Democratic primaries, since there was zero chance of the Republican nominee actually winning in the general.  That said, the state likes to elect Republican governors from time to time (e.g. Mitt Romney), and somehow a Republican got elected to the Senate for a single term about a decade ago (Scott Brown).

[OttoVonBismarck]

So after a confusing morning--even the Georgia Secretary of State has now updated its official totals of outstanding ballots to the 50,000 or so number that has been going around.

[DGuller]

They just want to enjoy their 15 days of fame, don't they?

[OttoVonBismarck]

Keep in mind Georgia's ballots do not include provisionals, overseas, or cured ballots. While it's impossible to guess how those would shift, they will come into play if this is a FL2000 situation in Georgia. Overseas military hasn't been as strong for Trump as is historical for a Republican, and provisionals and cured ballots historically break Dem.

[celedhring]

They just want to enjoy their 15 days of fame, don't they?

Georgia feels like me when I tell my employer that I'm almost done but then I take 2-3 extra days to actually turn in the work.