2020 Election: Predictions, Results and Reactions

[elengil]

I hereby claim Colorado!

No reason really, just think it's a nice place.

It is awfully high. *wink wink nudge nudge*

[Inanna]

NJ also voted to be recreationally high. Given that I can already smell Weed every summer evening on the hudson waterfront... it was already pretty much there.

[River]

I hereby claim Colorado!

Can't. It's mine. I was here first.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Despite the fact that Fox and the AP have called Arizona for Biden, it doesn't appear to be in the bag. A large batch of ballots was just announced and it was 44,000 for Trump and 30,000 for Biden. If the rest of the outstanding ballots went for Trump at the same rate, it would be just enough to overcome Biden's lead.

Yike.

[Túrin Turambar]

Despite the fact that Fox and the AP have called Arizona for Biden, it doesn't appear to be in the bag. A large batch of ballots was just announced and it was 44,000 for Trump and 30,000 for Biden. If the rest of the outstanding ballots went for Trump at the same rate, it would be just enough to overcome Biden's lead.

Yike.

On the other hand, there's still a lot of ballots from Pima County too, which is bluer than Maricopa. But yes, the AZ call is looking premature, even though Biden is still probably the favourite.

[River]

According to Nate Silver's Twitter feed, Biden is on a pace to take the lead in PA and maybe win GA. Georgia is almost certain to go into a recount, though it might be like Wisconsin, where it's close enough to make demanding a recount a sensible move but wide enough that the result is highly unlikely to change.

[Túrin Turambar]

Pretty much all commentators in the U.S. are asleep (4:30 am EST Thursday), and we didn't get the promised final results from Fulton County, GA, or the final results from AZ. I've noticed people in the UK logging onto Twitter and wondering why nothing seems to have progressed since they went to bed last night. There's a lot of interesting things we can already see about demographics, but we can talk about them later. Last projection from Nate Silver is that Biden remains on-track to overtake Trump in PA, and has a solid chance in GA. Some commentators seem to be suggesting Trump will get back ahead in AZ, but it isn't certain. I'll be going to bed soon - maybe I might wake up to a result tomorrow.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

While we wait for more national results, here is a good one from Ohio.

The sheriff fired her because she’s a lesbian so she ran against him. She’ll be the new sheriff now.

[Inanna]

That’s awesome. Thanks V

[River]

My understanding of the PA situation is very little pre-processing of absentee ballots was done before Election Day. The State Legislature refused to change the law and thus the log-jam. If verifying signatures was one of the steps they couldn't take before Election Day that would lead to one mighty hold up.

Advil. Those teams are going to need lots and lots of Advil.

Hopefully their ballot sorting machines are up and running. Otherwise it's going to get really slow.

[Inanna]

Allegheny, PA not counting 29,000 votes today because of the legal challenge. 6,000 will have to be counted manually - they are also not being counted today. No one knows why. People will be doing administrative work.

[Sunsilver]

Yup, that's REALLY a good result!

I saw a post on FB where the poster said Trump had gained votes amongst non-white voters by spreading disinformation about Biden. As the poster gave nothing to back it up, I went digging for information, and sure enough, I found it. In some of his ads, Trump likened Biden to 'ruthless Latin American caudillos like Castro and Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela.' He spent millions of dollars wooing support from both blacks and Latinos, while Biden did not.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics ... iden-trump

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Allegheny, PA not counting 29,000 votes today because of the legal challenge. 6,000 will have to be counted manually - they are also not being counted today. No one knows why. People will be doing administrative work.

I can't find any confirmation of this. Do you have a link?

There was a ruling stopping the counting in Philadelphia that was overturned by the state supreme court, according to this report:

https://twitter.com/MauraBarrettNBC/sta ... 3922579457

But this report seems to contradict that:

https://www.wpxi.com/news/top-stories/e ... ZTOL4UQ7I/

[Inanna]

V, I saw it on CNN, let me see what I can dig out.

[Dave_LF]

Nevada is basically in the bag for Biden and will probably start being called soon per multiple commentators who know what they're talking about. PA looks pretty solid too, and GA has a good chance. It's taking forever, but this could yet end up being a pretty decisive win in both the popular and electoral vote.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I saw that Nate Silver is suggesting that Fox and AP are reluctant to call Nevada for Biden because then they would have to call the election for him based on their premature call of Arizona, which is probably the state left (other than NC and Alaska) most likely to end up in Trump's column (though I don't think it is that likely).

[Dave_LF]

Yeah; I thought of that little potential wrinkle last night, and here it is playing out. I kind of thought PA would be callable first and they'd be able to do an end-run around the issue, but here we are.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I just saw that the counts in Pennsylvania are going faster than planned, and they hope to get most of them done today.

This election will be called for Biden today. I guarantee it.

There won't be the usual concession speech, however, and the Trump campaign will continue to file lawsuits as fast as they can get dismissed (there were lawsuits dismissed today in both Georgia and Nevada).

ETA: And in Michigan.

[N.E. Brigand]

Allegheny, PA not counting 29,000 votes today because of the legal challenge. 6,000 will have to be counted manually - they are also not being counted today. No one knows why. People will be doing administrative work.

I can't find any confirmation of this. Do you have a link?
There was a ruling stopping the counting in Philadelphia that was overturned by the state supreme court, according to this report:
https://twitter.com/MauraBarrettNBC/sta ... 3922579457
But this report seems to contradict that:
https://www.wpxi.com/news/top-stories/e ... ZTOL4UQ7I/

As I understand it, the situation in Allegheny County (Pittsburgh) is that the vendor who produced the ballots screwed up in the case of about 29,000 voters, sending them ballots that had local races for other districts. So all those voters were sent a second ballot. But some of those voters might have sent in just the first ballot, and those ballots have to be processed manually because their choices still count for president. Other voters might have send in both ballots, and the county has to remove the first ballots from the mix and make sure no one's vote is counted twice. But the state rules say that when there are ballots like these deserving special scrutiny, the county has to wait until the Friday following the election to meet to approve the staff who will handle that process.

What I'm curious to know is if this is the same company, based here in Cleveland, that was reported in late October to be far behind deadlines in producing ballots needed by a number of Pennsylvania counties. That company had a Trump flag flying, so there was some suspicion about what was causing the delay.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Thanks, N.E.B.!