2020 Election: Predictions, Results and Reactions

[Dave_LF]

There absolutely was fraud in the MI election, but the other way:
https://www.michigan.gov/ag/0,4534,7-35 ... --,00.html

[elengil]

I'm seeing a lot of conservatives continuing to complain about ballot counting not being transparent enough, even though most or all jurisdictions allow an equal number of representatives from both parties to monitor the process.

Once again: Republicans illegally stormed a closed committee meeting claiming they weren't allowed in, when some of those who were claiming that were on the committee and entitled to be in if they had chosen to do their jobs instead of grandstanding.

[Túrin Turambar]

... Georgia (Is that the name of a country or soul music ballad? If not, it should be).

It is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_(country)

I actually meant "There's always Georgia", which seemed like it could be crooned at the end of every chorus.

So sorry if it's already been brought up but I haven't been following super closely - what's the deal with nevada? AP is showing that they've only counted 76% of their votes, which is way lower than everybody else.

I noticed that the percentages don't seem to change when new results are announced. I know that Nevada is only releasing totals once per day, at midday EST, but you'd expect the total percentage to change when they do. Unless they underestimated how many ballots there were in the first place, and so had the wrong number for 100%.

[Jude]

Cold be hand and heart and bone,
And cold be sleep under stone,
Ooooh, there's always Georgia,
Never more to wake on stony bed,
Never, till the Sun fails and the Moon is dead.
But, ya know, there's always Georgia.
In the black wind the stars shall die,
and still on gold here let them lie,
Baby, there's always Georgia,
'Til the Dark Lord lifts his hand
Over dead sea and withered land,
Mah Precious, there's always Georgia.

Georgia, Georgia, Geooooooooorgia,
There'll always be a Georgia.

[N.E. Brigand]

There absolutely was fraud in the MI election, but the other way:
https://www.michigan.gov/ag/0,4534,7-35 ... --,00.html

Oh that's right! I totally forgot about Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl, who have also been charged by the district attorney right here in Cleveland, Ohio for similar robo-calls that engaged in voter suppression.

There's a former federal prosecutor now in private practice in Los Angeles named Ken White who co-hosts a podcast for radio station KCRW called "All the President's Lawyers." White had joked for a couple years that Wohl, a notorious (but still quite young) mischief maker on the right, would someday go too far and break the law, or as he put it, commit a "big boy federal crime." White recently indicated his disappointment that these antics that got Wohl in real trouble are only state crimes.

The problem is, just as with Russia's interference in 2016, it's nearly impossible to quantify what effect these ploys have on the vote. In the case of Russia, researchers have said the phony messaging they created was viewed hundreds of millions of times on Facebook alone. But how many votes for Trump did that translate into? (Whether by changing minds, getting a Trump-leaning viewer to vote for him, or getting a Clinton-leaning viewer to stay home.)

[elengil]

White recently indicated his disappointment that these antics that got Wohl in real trouble are only state crimes.

Yeah, but president can't pardon state crimes.

[Impenitent]

Here is what blows my mind: no matter what the end result, Donald Trump received 5 MILLION more votes in 2020 than he did in 2016.

5 million people who did not vote for him in 2016 (maybe did not vote at all) were moved to do so this year - despite everything.

Despite his negative rating in opinion polls, his support has grown - not proportionally, but certainly in terms of raw numbers

There is something going on with the zeitgeist. Something that I don't understand though we all see the inexplicable evidence of it before our eyes. Over the last year this has led me repeatedly to state my belief that Trump will win, though I continue to hope that I will be proved to be a crazy lady indeed.

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[elengil]

Here is what blows my mind: no matter what the end result, Donald Trump received 5 MILLION more votes in 2020 than he did in 2016.

There is something going on with the zeitgeist. Something that I don't understand though we all see the inexplicable evidence of it before our eyes. Over the last year this has led me repeatedly to state my belief that Trump will win, though I continue to hope that I will be proved to be a crazy lady indeed.

You can be wrong without being crazy. That isn't crazy at all. I have no idea - to reference your other post - how to bridge a divide between two groups that seem to fundamentally disagree on what reality is.

[Cerin]

Logically speaking, the mainstream media narrative being pushed now is probably just as accurate as the polling narrative they pushed for months, considering that the underlying bias is the same.

[N.E. Brigand]

Logically speaking, the mainstream media narrative being pushed now is probably just as accurate as the polling narrative they pushed for months, considering that the underlying bias is the same.

They weren't pushing a polling narrative.

The pollsters were reporting the actual responses of the many thousands of people they contacted. And they made serious efforts to retool their methodology from 2016 (when a number of state polls were wrong) to account for education. After 2016, that was widely recognized as a problem: the polls had too many people with college degrees. This time, that problem wasn't there. But it turns out there's some other problem with the polls. Apparently people who lean toward Trump were less likely to respond to the polls at all. You can only work with the data you have! And really, we're talking about the polls on average being off by 5% or less. That's enough to swing an election, so it matters, but consider an analogy Chris Hayes offered today:

Suppose you're in a large room and there are 100 other people in there, 48 of whom are wearing t-shirts, but 52 of whom are wearing sweaters over their t-shirts, while the other 48 are not. Suppose you step out of the room for a few minutes, and while you're gone, five people who were wearing sweaters take them off. When you come back, would you even notice the difference? And if you did, would you think the composition of the room had changed in any important way?

Of course not. But when it's five percent of the voters who change, if you don't notice it, you've made a huge error! Because of the effect that small change can have for the country.

[elengil]

Because of the effect that small change can have for the country.

Not discounting also that a person can answer a poll but be prevented from voting or having their ballots counted, which would also nudge a close election. Late ballots, undelivered ballots, ballots thrown out for non-matching signature, ballots of people who died between voting and actual election day, ballots destroyed when someone decided to set a box on fire, people who were robocalled and told to 'vote tomorrow' to avoid the long lines, people who were unable to wait for hours in a line, legal voters who were nonetheless purged from voter rolls,...

Or people who answers polls, then just don't vote at all.

[Dave_LF]

Nate Silver just retweeted himself from 2012: "On the wall, the writing is."

[Túrin Turambar]

There certainly has been a systemic polling error this year, as there was in 2016 (but not, funnily enough, in 2018). I was more willing to trust the polling averages this year because they were right in the mid-terms. But having Donald Trump on the ballot seems to make polling very difficult.

That said, the error was not consistent. Texas, Georgia, Nevada and Arizona are looking like they will finish within a percentage point or so of where the 538 average predicted. The misses were the upper Midwest (again) where Biden has won narrowly states he was expected to win comfortably, and Florida, which was about four points off.

[Inanna]

Or lie on the polls.

[River]

Been wondering the same, Inanna. It's a problem not just for the public but for the campaigns as well. Apparently the internal polls the campaigns were running (different firms, data rarely shown to public) were also screwy. Political strategists in both parties are probably freaking out about where and how to find reliable data now.

Impy, turnout in this year's election was astronomic. Trump picked up 5 million more votes than he did in 2016, yes...but Biden picked up 8 million more than Hillary.

[yovargas]

"Polling is difficult and imperfect, which is evidence that mainstream media outlets are dishonest and biased" is certainly a very post-Trump way of viewing the world.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I was surprised and pleased to see this from Rick Santorum:

Trump's claims of election fraud are "shocking" and "dangerous," former GOP senator says

[Voronwë the Faithful]

And this from a federal judge in Philadelphia appointed by George W. Bush:

Federal judge confirms Trump election observers in Philadelphia are being treated fairly

I particularly enjoyed this bit of nonsense:

When the judge pressed the Trump campaign lawyer if there were observers in the room from the campaign, the lawyer, Jerome Marcus, said, "There's a non-zero number of people in the room."

[elengil]

"There's a non-zero number of people in the room."

[River]

"Non-zero" covers a range between one person and everyone on the planet. What kind of answer is that and how does it advance his argument?