SSCReader
15d ago
Lots of them were in Philly. I pointed out before the count was finalized that turnout did not seem that high to me, just from eyeballing it compared to 2020. And I was correct. We already knew mail in ballots were down as well. My wife voted but numbers of her friends did not and she had very little queue time, compared to 2020 when she queued for 2 hours.
I had a post a couple of months back that I was observing an enthusiasm gap for Harris in the black community, and again that appears to have been borne out. I think I even got an AAQC for it.
Trump held his numbers in Philly compared to 2020, Harris dropped somewhere near 80,000 votes compared to Biden, just in Philly.
Overall in PA black voters went from being 11% to 9% of the total from 2020 to 2024. In 2016 they were 10% for comparison.
Given Floyd (May 2020) and BLM energized those communities in 2020, i don't know how much is just reversion to the mean, and how much is Harris though.
In fact according to Reuters the black share of the vote dropped from 13% to 11% nationwide. Thats, what a few million votes right there?
SSCReader
15d ago
We had fewer mail in ballots and the split between Republicans and Democrats was smaller than in 2020 for those ballots. Because they take longer to count (and PA can't start preparing them before the election), those are the ballots that come in late to the count. In 2020 that meant it was always going to get better for Biden as the night went on. Harris does not have that same split to rely on. If she is not up on "on the day" voters there are not enough mail in ballots to save her (unless a lot of registered Republicans got mail in ballots then switched to her from Trump, which seems..unlikely). Down over 600,000 compared to 2020 and the split was less than 2-1 in favor of registered Democrats, compared to more than 3-1 in 2020.
It may be that Trump shifting gears in his PA rallies and telling his supporters to vote however they can including mail in ballots might have been enough. Of course if he had said that in 2020, the split might not have been as big as it was in the first place. Potentially exonerating those PA Republicans who opened up mail-in voting in 2019 just prior to Covid. Without Trump encouraging his supporters not to use the mail-in ballots, it might be their plan to boost rural elderly turn out is finally successful, just 4 years down the line.
Also while Harris is running ahead in some counties, she is running below Biden in 2020. Unless Philly has huge turnout (and it didn't seem THAT busy to me), you'd rather be in Trump's shoes than hers right now.
SSCReader
15d ago
That is the problem in some cases that is the law. For example in PA they cannot pre-canvas with Postal ballots until 7AM on election day. But they do give a count of how many there are already. "The election code also stipulates that the county board of elections will announce the unofficial number of absentee ballots and mail-in ballots received for that election by 12:01 a.m. on the day after the election."
Postal ballots also take longer to count because they have to be opened, signatures checked and that all the various steps have been taken (envelope dated etc.) which don't have to be done for the ballots on the day. The Florida approach is much superior I agree, but all attempts to change that law in PA have failed. And even if you could, what could you do about it when it emerges that some of your municipalities actually missed some ballots they had in a box so your tallies ARE actually out? It's not like all the ballots in PA are physically moved to a single location. All central counts are predicated on the accuracy of the local reports. There are 67 counties tallying votes in PA alone, all with varying levels of resources. Northampton county will be counting in their cafeteria for example. It is likely at least one of them will make some kind of mistake.
Even if you start counting both sets of ballots at the same time, you will end up taking longer to get through an equal number of mail in ballots than those on the day. And this is in tension with speed. The quicker you get more ballots counted the quicker you can declare a winner. So if you count the normal ballots first, you'll get closer to being able to declare faster. If there is a big enough gap the mail in ballots may not even matter. But if you do that, then you'll be skewing when the results drop if there is a difference in preference between on the day and mail in ballots.
Remember those running the polls are not unilaterally in charge of the laws, and those laws differ state by state. They may HAVE to count those post marked by Election Day. They may HAVE to not do a thing with a million ballots in advance even though it would make sense to do so. They are not operating without constraints. The poll workers are largely trying to deal with counting millions of votes with multiple things being voted on, with all the normal things going wrong that happen in something of this scale, all with varying court cases going on to determine if say a ballot received on November 2nd, can be counted because it looks like the voter dated the envelope as November 7th or not.
Having run elections myself and been in charge of the central counting facility for a mid-sized city. I didn't have time to think about, "Oh maybe it would look suspicious if we counted this box from X before this box from Y." I am just trying to get all the votes counted with as few errors as possible while dealing with volunteers, people on overtime who want to go home, and the pressure of not messing up a national election. And that was without having to contend with the complexity of US ballots. For mine, I had 1 pile for votes for each candidate and we were done. Easy peasy in comparison.
And the problem is that lets say you fix that, you figure out to assign 2 counters to on the day ballots for every 3 on mail in ballots such that you will count them roughly at the same speed. Well now you will run out of mail ins first, so that the opposite will happen and now the LAST batch of votes you count will skew the other way. (PA only has approx 20% of votes by mail in for example). Which the other side will see as suspicious. Because now in the middle of the night the other share will start going up faster than it was earlier.
Once people are suspicious of the voting process, I do not believe it is possible to placate that suspicion, without having unilateral control over how the ballots are counted, handled and due, and setting a nationwide standard. And neither side has that. And couldn't have that without changes to the Constitution. Indeed they don't even have control over their own local parties, seeing as how PA Republicans did something that ended up causing problems for their own side in 2020 and probably this year as well (though the skew appears to be less heavy).
SSCReader
16d ago
Election Day (tuesday): conservative-guy leads by 100 (out of like 15k) votes, we have 500 not-in-person ballots left to count which we will get around to next Sunday
Friday: oops, actually now we have 650 ballots to count, TTFN :)
Sunday afternoon: wow, left-guy pulled 66% of these totally-secure ballots that people literally phoned-in and we filled out ourselves -- left-guy wins by 20 votes, left-party now has a single-seat majority
This is absolutely a problem man -- if this happens today it's treading awfully close to a "Jan
It's a problem if the ballots are fake yes, it should not be a problem if they are real. If voting habits are different across different groups, then that is something that both sides must price in. If postal ballots are allowed and take longer to process and skew left (or indeed right in some counter-factual world), then that is something that must be dealt with. You can deal with it by counting the ballots first, so you can put them all in on day 1, that is a good idea, just like Florida does. But that is being prevented by Republicans in some places.
Given that restriction, what else would you suggest? Postal ballots are legal in PA, due to a law passed by Republicans prior to Covid, they vote down changes to the law to allow postal ballots to be counted early. So Postal ballots WILL be added to the count late.
With those restrictions what is your suggestion? How should Democrats deal with that to increase legitimacy?
SSCReader
16d ago
I wouldn't disagree to be honest. If you are going to have mail in and early ballots and you want an outcome quickly then doing some work to them prior to the election is just good sense.
SSCReader
16d ago
The important issue on the skewed late vote is not that it exists, it's why does it exist -- there's no particular reason it should be to the left, indeed AIR it used to be considered more likely to be to the right due to age distributions and old people not liking to leave the house.
Well in 2020 probably because Trump was saying mail in ballots couldn't be trusted. He created a partisan difference. And if you create it it, you don't get to complain when it comes home to roost is my point. Notably Trump has taken a different tack this time, and the gap is now smaller than it was last time. It isn't as you point out some immutable trend, it is a result of actions and beliefs. But it also isn't necessarily a problem. If you are counting all the votes which ones you count first or last is irrelevant. Which is why in many places they only announce the final results, not the play by play.
SSCReader
16d ago
I think it is certainly fine to prefer the former. I am just pointing out it isn't that insane as long as you don't count election day as something special. It is just a day we choose votes to be cast by. Therefore if we choose to allow mail in votes (and we don't have to!) and we want to make sure that the most eligible votes are counted, then saying votes must be sent on or before election day isn't in and of itself crazy. Predicated on the idea you are not expected to have a result on election day.
For the running club let's say you told them votes must be cast on or before November 3rd. And you can cast them at the club in a box, or by handing them to Walterodim or SSCReader for people who live closer to them than the club house. We will then get together on November 5th and count the ballots.
At that point the ballots given to me or you would not reach the club house until November 5th, where we would add them to those in the box and count them. So as long as the ballots were entrusted to us (or the box) by November 3rd, the fact they don't get added to the big pile until we go to count them is not a problem. They are still eligible ballots cast by the members, who found it easier to give them to us than put them in the box themselves. November 5th is then the important day. November 3rd is just the cut off for them being submitted to the process set up.
And if that process was instead the mail then it is certainly feasible to say it must be mailed by November 3rd and received by November 5th when we actually go to count them. That they are received by the time the count is expected to end is really the important part. Having a cut off, is just a way of trying to ensure we aren't counting ballots until December. The cut off isn't the ends, it is the means.
SSCReader
16d ago
I think it is ok to either have the cut off being received by election day or being mailed by election day, depending what the state or municipality prefers. I was defending that one of those is patently wrong. I think both are defensible. The second would have the trade off of taking more time in close elections, that is true. But as I point out elsewhere that isn't necessarily a problem. It's just a problem if you choose a course of action that will make it slower, THEN claim the very slowness is evidence of possible fraud.
SSCReader
16d ago
Not sure why you are so supportive of PA Republicans -- maybe they have undesirable goals here?
Well my point is that they obviously don't think counting the votes faster is necessarily better. They also didn't think that mail in ballots were less secure, when they thought that increase would help them.
So if Republicans claim to be worried about the length and security of the process, but do things that make it longer and less secure when they believe it is of benefit to them, then it points to a certain direction about their motivations.
So given that, it is up to the Republican party to manage those expectations about how long it will take and that yes, later counted votes will skew Democrat, and that this is entirely normal given the situation they themselves set up. If they don't want to make it easier/more secure, but won't tell their supporters what that outcome will entail, then they are part of causing the problem themselves.
Otherwise what you are saying is that the actions of Republicans in PA will lead to an increase in civil strife therefore the state governments must spend more money and time, in order for Republican supporters not to think the election is rigged. You can see how that is potentially an issue? It leaves no incentives for the party to actually do things better.
SSCReader
16d ago
Not counting valid votes from legitimate voters, can also be irresponsible for legitimizing your democracy. That's the tension. There is nothing special about election night. Nothing changes for a couple months. It's just an arbitrary cut off point, and if it takes days afterwards to declare a winner, it doesn't actually cause any real problems.
So there is nothing fundamentally wrong with saying that if you allow mail in ballots, those posted by the election day should count. You could even build that into the process. Election day is today. The Election decision day is November 10th. There doesn't need to be an expectation we will have a winner overnight. Indeed in close elections probably you want to take a few extra days for recounts and the like.
I don't think it a huge deal to only count those received on or before the cut off, but I don't think it a huge deal to choose mailed by the cut off either. They are both reasonable choices on how you are determining what makes it in time, based upon your preferences.
SSCReader
16d ago
Doesn't that just switch the incentives to swing states? Indeed PA has mail in voting because Republicans passed it in 2019 prior to Covid, because they thought it would help rural turn out, to make the state more Red. Obviously that is not what came to pass, but that was the intent.
SSCReader
16d ago
Typically there will be exit polls, but with an increase in mail in voting, they are less and less accurate. in PA at least there will be around 2 million postal ballots to count, which is lower than 2020 by about half a million. About 20% of registered voters are using mail in ballots. So far about 56% are from Registered Democrats and 32% from Registered Republicans (although that of course does not mean that is who they are voting for). But mail in ballots are likely to lean Democrat still, by around 2 to 1 or perhaps slightly less.
SSCReader
16d ago
Why? Nothing changes if you don't know the outcome the same night. The switchover doesn't happen for months. Why spend more budget on counting faster when it doesn't actually change anything. It is ok if it takes a few days before the outcome is decided.
And if Republicans want the answers faster they could allow PA to start counting votes earlier exactly as Republicans in Florida decided. It was Republicans in PA that keep voting against that change. So clearly they aren't that invested in a swift outcome. So why should the city or state spend more to get it faster?
SSCReader
16d ago
In 2020 PA was not called until November 7th and may well be similar this year if it is as close. We are not allowed to start counting mail in ballots in advance as some other states are (like Florida I believe), so it is likely we won't be done counting for a few days. The State might still be called in advance of the count being complete if the gap is wide enough of course.
SSCReader
16d ago
2500 were suspicious, but after review 50% were confirmed legitimate, 25% were incomplete but not suspicious and the remaining 25% were being further investigated (so some number of these could be fake).
As was mooted at the time the organization involved pointed out as per PA law they have to turn in all registrations they collect whether incomplete or inaccurate because they are not allowed to filter those out.
So how many are actually fake is up in the air.
SSCReader
16d ago
Except this is already the case because different states have different rules and in some cases so do different muncipalities within states.
Which isn't to say whatever the rules are shouldn't be followed, but your example would suggest there is already built in unfairness due to the fragmented nature of your electoral law and procedures.
SSCReader
16d ago
Note the PA case is about undated/wrongly dated ballots, not ballots that arrive after election day. Meaning they wouldn't be counted if undated even if they arrive BEFORE election day, which is why it was being challenged. Because obviously you know that an undated ballot that arrives before election day was mailed in time. There has been significant debate about that clause in the law by Republicans when they were the ones expanding mail in ballot access to help rural turn out, when they were on the pro side.
Note that the US. Supreme Court may have overruled the PA one and allowed the undated ballots to be converted to provisional ballots for the November election:
SSCReader
16d ago
Trump won in 2016 by ~50,000 votes across 5 states. The other primary candidates who would have likely been the alternatives would have lost badly because they would have picked the wrong topics to focus on and they weren't going to flip rustbelt states which were required to win the presidency for the first time in the generation with another Romney 2.0. A guy like Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush wouldn't have even won in Ohio demonstrated by Romney loss there in 2012.
But would Romney have lost in 2016, after a two term Democratic president? That is the question. The pattern is that after two terms the leadership usually swings. So yes my contention is that Romney probably would have won Ohio in 2016. 2012 was a different election with different fundamentals.
My experience with being in politics is that people vastly overrate the ability of the media and politicians to gaslight the people. At best we hope to find something that resonates then run hard on it, but we have much less power to actually persuade people than is commonly believed. I know, it used to be my job. It isn't Trump's charisma that drove his win, because he inspires hate in about as many people as he does adoration. Look at Brexit, despite the media going hard, it still happened. The people have their own opinions formed by their social groupings much more than driven by the media or politicians in my direct experience.
Put it this way if we had two boring uncharismatic, candidates in this election, with the economy as it is, with Biden being dumped for Boring Dem 2.0, who would you put your money on? I submit the smart money would be on Republican 2.0 all else being equal. High inflation, low economic confidence, some push back on woke stuff like trans, a one term President who can't run for a second term because he can barely cope with a debate. Setting aside who is running, the fundamentals I think lean Republican.
SSCReader
17d ago
I've never voted for a generic anybody, because they don't exist. They're a theoretical comparator. I have voted for both left and right wing actual candidates though, both at local and national levels.
Being behind Trump in a primary against Trump does not mean that you would run behind a Democrat in the general.
Most people vote for parties not candidates, the impact of charisma is not zero, but it is massively overrated in my opinion. Fundamentals and political coalitions are the building blocks of political success. Charisma is at best a tie breaker when fundamentals are balanced. Trump won in 2016 largely because he was a Republican following two Democratic terms with a not great economy. A generic Republican probably would have won, though with a different voter spread.
GOTV is also overrated in my opinion (and I say that as someone who has organized such things in the past). Even our best internal measures showed it had very little impact. But politicians and political consultants like myself (albeit retired now) are reluctant to stop them, because what if this is the one time it does make a difference. No-one wants to be the one who broke from tradition and got hammered because of it. Plus of course consultants and strategists can rake in big bucks for organizing them.
As an example Rishi Sunak's Tories got beaten by Kier Starmer's Labour, and would have if they were running a re-animated Maggie Thatcher, Tony Blair converted to the Tories or an Angelic Winston Churchill descended from Heaven (ok well maybe not the last one!) Because the economy was shot and the Tories were in charge at the time.
"It's the economy stupid" is the dominating factor. Candidates, GOTV, scandals, and the like are very secondary. In a bad economy (defined by how people feel, not actual measures) the incumbent party will be punished regardless of almost anything else. And inflation and living costs have been feeling very bad for large chunks of America right now.
Not-Democrat is going to be enough to get a lot of votes this electoral season, regardless of the candidates in question I think.
SSCReader
17d ago
They don't have to be GOP voters with the current economic woes. But even without Trump the GOP has a realignment which will last beyond Trump (see DeSantis et al). The GOP post Trump is not the same as the GOP pre-Trump.
SSCReader
17d ago
Trump, not because of the polls (too much herding means they are likely wrong in some way) or because of the match up, but because of the fundamentals which I think outweigh most other things. Inflation has hit pretty hard (even if that was likely to have been similar had Trump won in 2020, that doesn't matter to voters), the Democrats do not have the benefit of an incumbent, and the Senate races up for grabs heavily favor Republicans. Therefore like 2016 regardless of who the candidates are, the Republican should be favored to win.
The only headwinds are abortion, which seem to have driven turnout for Democrats in mid-terms and special elections and the like, and that Trump while popular with his base is also unpopular with others, even sometimes those not out and out Democrats. However I don't think those are enough to prevail over "It's the economy stupid", but they will probably make it closer than it would otherwise be.
Elseworlds prediction: A generic Republican would out-perform Trump. The fundamentals favor the Republican candidate enough and Trump is polarizing enough that any random Republican carries almost everyone Trump would have in this circumstance plus picks up some of the wishy-washy Democrats and Independents who are unhappy with the economy but also really dislike Trump. Sure his base would be less enthusiastic about Jeb 3.0 or non-Mormon Romney or whoever but they are still being hit by inflation and economic circumstance, so it is extremely unlikely they are a loss overall, and picking up even a few thousand votes in purple states is likely more valuable.
SSCReader
18d ago
Given the amount of effort I have to put in to secure my wife's herb and vegetable garden from squirrels, anyone running on a squirrel extermination or at the very least squirrel concentration camp platform, would carry my vote. They're a menace to good American produce.
SSCReader
24d ago
But that's kind of the point isn't it? Not all Jews or all black people agree they aren't American, certainly not by your definition. There is no-one who can speak for all black people in America, for you to take their word that they don't see themselves as American. Who is the "they" that told you otherwise? And does that mean that if I as a white person assert we are not Americans but rather Europeans, I should be taken to be speaking for you?
You see how that is a problem?
SSCReader
25d ago
But some of those who conquered the continent were Jews however, and there were Jews in America before it was America, so why don't they count? They were there before the nation was born, and bequeathed their part to their progeny, just as your ancestors did. What logic lets in your ancestors and not yours? Sure, white Europeans made up the bulk of settlers, but their were others. There were free Africans in the colonies as early as 1625, would their descendants not be just as American as you? And certainly African slaves were putting their blood and sweat into the continent before it was a nation.
What rule excludes descendants of Jews and Africans who worked to tame the continent prior to the nation being formed but includes only Europeans? Even if there are fewer of them, don't they have an equal claim?
Trump isn't an idiot and a buffoon at all. He's a narcissistic media personality (but that describes most politicians in my direct experience), but he isn't dumb by any stretch of the imagination. But his impact has been about realigning the Republican party, rather than being good at winning elections.
Almost every politician is inter-changeable when it comes to elections in general, Trump is just the one a lot of people either think is awful or great and so tend to either go in hard on how great he is, or go in hard on how terrible he is. I don't think he is either particularly, he has positive traits and negative ones, and they almost balance out.
I'll put it this way, there is basically no-one the Democrats could have run who could have won this election, and basically no-one the Republicans could have run who would have lost it. That's why I predicted a Trump win, and ignored all the polls and media.
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