site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  22hr ago (text post)   12827 thread views

U.S. Election (Day?) 2024 Megathread

With apologies to our many friends and posters outside the United States... it's time for another one of these! Culture war thread rules apply, and you are permitted to openly advocate for or against an issue or candidate on the ballot (if you clearly identify which ballot, and can do so without knocking down any strawmen along the way). "Small-scale" questions and answers are also permitted if you refrain from shitposting or being otherwise insulting to others here. Please keep the spirit of the law--this is a discussion forum!--carefully in mind.

If you're a U.S. citizen with voting rights, your polling place can reportedly be located here.

If you're still researching issues, Ballotpedia is usually reasonably helpful.

Any other reasonably neutral election resources you'd like me to add to this notification, I'm happy to add.

Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Whenever I see the guys on TV doing the county-by-county comparisons in Pennsylvania, it looks pretty grim for Trump. Why are the PA markets at 80%? What am I missing?

What am I missing?

Whatever you're missing, I'm missing it, too.

But if Kamala's team also missed it...

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.

I, too am not understanding county turn out.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats