2020 Presidential Election

[Cerin]

The Supreme Court has ruled 5-3 that ballots in Wisconsin must be in by election day, not six days after. Presumably, the principle will hold across the board when the other state cases reach the court. I'm tremendously relieved by this, because having ballots come in for days would have guaranteed no result on election night, and now I have hope that we may have a result that night or next day.

[elengil]

I'm tremendously relieved by this, because having ballots come in for days would have guaranteed no result on election night, and now I have hope that we may have a result that night or next day.

But you're against counting ballots early.

[Cerin]

Now that it's been explained to me, that it works without results being leaked, I can see the sense of beginning counting early. (The article Voronwë posted explained that the suit in question was about the procedures being used in that particular case).

[River]

The Supreme Court has ruled 5-3 that ballots in Wisconsin must be in by election day, not six days after. Presumably, the principle will hold across the board when the other state cases reach the court. I'm tremendously relieved by this, because having ballots come in for days would have guaranteed no result on election night, and now I have hope that we may have a result that night or next day.

So when results get called on election night, it's not because all the ballots have been counted. It's because not enough are left to change the outcome (ie, if Candidate A is 5000 ahead and there's 4500 left, it really doesn't matter who that 4500 voted for because Candidate A still wins). Several days of lag in the final tally is unlikely to make a difference for a statewide race but it could be a huge issue for something more local.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The Supreme Court has ruled 5-3 that ballots in Wisconsin must be in by election day, not six days after. Presumably, the principle will hold across the board when the other state cases reach the court.

The court already blocked the Pennsylvania GOP's attempt to stop Pennsylvania from counting ballots beyond election day, with Chief Justice Roberts siding with the more liberal justices in a 4-4 tie that kept the lower court's ruling intact (as I posted about earlier). The issues differ from state to state. The Pennsylvania GOP, however, is trying again to get the high court to review the matter now that Barrett will be on the court. That will be a very telling decision.

ETA: More details about Roberts' explanation as to why he voted differently in the two cases:

Unlike the Pennsylvania order last week, the Wisconsin order Monday concerned a ruling from a lower federal court, not a state court, and Chief Justice John Roberts said that made a difference.
A federal district court in Wisconsin had sided with the Democrats to allow mail-in ballots to be received up to six days after Election Day, but an appeals court blocked that order and the Supreme Court upheld the block.

The federal district court, Roberts wrote in a concurring opinion, "intervened in the thick of election season" to block a state law. He said the case represented "federal intrusion on state lawmaking processes."

The Pennsylvania case, on the other hand, concerned a decision by the state's highest court. Roberts said that decision "implicated the authority of state courts to apply their own constitutions to election regulations."

"Different bodies of law and different precedents govern these two situations and require, in these particular circumstances, that we allow the modification of election rules in Pennsylvania but not Wisconsin," Roberts wrote.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/26/politics ... index.html

I doubt that Barrett will agree with him.

[Túrin Turambar]

So I watched the President's trainwreck 60 Minutes interview. At other times, this would be big news, but now it hardly rates a mention. The President's supporters are hailing it as some sort of victory, where he stood up to the biased corporate liberal media. I'm still impressed by Mike Pence's calmness and ability to think quickly under pressure. On the flipside, Joe Biden performed pretty well, but I thought Kamala Harris' laughter in response to straightforward questions came across as really strange.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Correct. 538’s simulator (the one where you can assign states to candidates) takes those correlations into account and *won’t* let you make such assignments.

I played around with it. I didn’t see a path without PA.

Nate Silver was kind enough to address this very question today.

Is Joe Biden Toast If He Loses Pennsylvania?

Bottom line?

So here’s a question we can ask with our nifty scenario generator. Is Pennsylvania a must-win for Biden?

No, not quite. It is close to being a must-win for Trump, who has only a 2 percent chance of winning the Electoral College if he loses Pennsylvania. Biden, however, has a bit more margin for error. He’d have a 30 percent chance if he lost Pennsylvania, which isn’t great but is also higher than, say, Trump’s overall chances on Election Day 2016.

[elengil]

Ballot confirmed as accepted. I can now confidently say I have voted.

[Maria]

Mine too.

[River]

Mine as well. I was worried. My signature is horrible. It used to look like it could be words. Then, five years ago I got a job in the private sector and had to start signing off every single page in my lab notebook. Notebooks are 200 pages. I've filled around 30. And I counter-sign for coworkers. Only took a few months for "vaguely looks like words" to turn into "what is this supposed to be, exactly?" Seriously. It's bad. Among the worst in the county, actually. I can say that with authority now. And no, in case you're wondering, I never saw my own ballot. It was cleared by someone else. Or maybe by a team because those kind of messes get escalated.

[elengil]

Several years ago I got notified that my ballot was being held for being unable to match my signature. Seeing as it had been quite a number of years from the time I had originally registered to vote and that particular ballot, they were totally not surprised my signature had changed. I just went down to the city buildings, showed ID, and resigned my voter card with my updated signature.

Thankfully that signature - where I get bored with it half way through my first name and barely even get a letter formed on my last name - is still my current signature, and thus just about any scribble I put on the page is probably going to match

[River]

It happens. I've actually seen some cases where people were obviously trying to revert to a previous signature after apparently deciding their current one devolved too far into squiggle territory. In a couple cases, we still had to shunt them into the cure process. I've also seen a few where someone made a mark on their previous ballot and signed this one. Going into the records, we can make the match and both my partner and I like to see that, actually, because it means that whatever was wrong got better.

Honestly, the two groups of people I feel like my partner and I have flagged the most often are the new, young voters whose signatures are evolving and who may only have electronic pad puke on record and the very elderly who either can't write their names and won't just make a mark or who had their ballot signed for them not knowing that this is not okay. I've also seen a number of first generation Asian immigrants (can tell from the names) escalated because they'll print their names on electronic pads but sign on the ballots. Not sure what the story is with that behavior. Maybe a combination of cultural factors and the English alphabet being so very different. My partner and I will grumble but we can usually resolve it if there's an ink signature on file. Really, there's no reason they can't sign their name with their native alphabet. Legally, your signature is whatever you say it is and from the election judge POV it doesn't matter so long as it matches the records.

[RoseMorninStar]

I dropped off our ballots at the town hall on Sept. 20. MyVote tells me it was received, but I don't think I'll know if it was counted or rejected until it's too late to do anything about it.

[elengil]

I dropped off our ballots at the town hall on Sept. 20. MyVote tells me it was received, but I don't think I'll know if it was counted or rejected until it's too late to do anything about it.

Washington thankfully lets me know that it was accepted, but then we're 100% vote by mail here so we already had that system in place.

[Inanna]

Thanks, V. I actually meant Biden, because I saw those chances dropping to ~30% as soon as I gave PA to Trump.

[Dave_LF]

I gave PA to Trump.

Please take it back.

[Inanna]

Lol. Done.

[Túrin Turambar]

I gave PA to Trump.

Please take it back.

We do need to be careful with these "Party/Candidate X can't win without Swing State Y" propositions, simply because the demographics of party support changes. For much of the twentieth century, it was an iron-clad rule that no Republican could win a Presidential election without Illinois. George W. Bush in 2000 was the first-ever to do so. It was similarly seen as impossible for a Democrat to win without Missouri. Neither state is electorally important now.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I thought Kamala Harris' laughter in response to straightforward questions came across as really strange.

I've seen some of it, and based on what I did see, I strongly disagree with this. For instance, I thought that Harris' laughter in response to the question of whether she was a socialist, before giving a very unambiguous "no" was perfectly appropriate. And could you imagine the reaction if Trump had been asked if he was a fascist? Oh, the horror! And yet, Trump is much closer to being a fascist than Harris is to being a socialist.

[Túrin Turambar]

I thought Kamala Harris' laughter in response to straightforward questions came across as really strange.

I've seen some of it, and based on what I did see, I strongly disagree with this. For instance, I thought that Harris' laughter in response to the question of whether she was a socialist, before giving a very unambiguous "no" was perfectly appropriate. And could you imagine the reaction if Trump had been asked if he was a fascist? Oh, the horror! And yet, Trump is much closer to being a fascist than Harris is to being a socialist.

It wasn't so much that question, but more the "what do you bring to the ticket?" question and follow-ups, which is a normal and predictable thing to ask a VP candidate.