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Election Battleground State Changes

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Re: Election Battleground State Changes

#31

Post by hsk »

tathougies wrote: post #20
some-guy wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Votes can arrive by mail later without being opened. Also counties may misreport how many ballots they originally had.

Why do the misreport them? Why don't we know? And I also don't really understand how mail can arrive later. In my state of Oregon which has mail-in only voting, ballots must arrive by 8PM on election day. That's it. Why do other states allow it to go past that? This is crazy. It's election day, not week.

Each state's legislature decides that, so naturally states will differ on deadlines for when mail can arrive. Also, the count dragging on is because counting hasn't finished on the sheer quantity of mail-in ballots received before election day, not after (which are insignificant in number).

Re: Election Battleground State Changes

#32

Post by qqqwerty »

tathougies wrote: post #15

Why do the estimated vote counts keep going up? Why has this process dragged on for days . Where do they keep losing ballots? Why isn't there a deadline? Why are only these states still counting? Great resource BTW!

Outstanding ballot counts are almost always estimates. Many states allow mail-in ballots as long as they have been postmarked by election day, which means there can be a week or more lag before the precinct receives the ballot. Additionally, provisional ballots are usually counted last, and the number of those isn't known until they start counting them.

The process is dragged on for days because Republicans prevented the States from passing legislation that would allow them to start counting the mail-in ballots early, among other reasons.

The deadline is December 8th.

A ton of states are still counting, see California for example. People are only interested in the swing states though.

Re: Election Battleground State Changes

#33

Post by leetcrew »

tathougies wrote: post #21
leetcrew wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why isn't there a deadline? there's a balance to be struck between counting every last mail-in ballot and concluding the election in a reasonable amount of time. it's probably worth erring in favor of counting everyone's constitutionally guaranteed right to vote, even if it means a week or two of nail biting over the outcome.

Why? This constant finding of ballots, along with the allegations of not being allowed to observe the counting by international election watching groups, and the withholding of counts (see AZ and NV), makes the process seem extremely opaque. This is what I expect of a 3rd world country, not America. It was not difficult to get your ballot in on time. They've been out for weeks.

there have been substantial delays in the mail (possibly by design). if a ballot is postmarked before the deadline, authorities are obligated to make every effort to count it.

I'm not sure what the deal is regarding the withholding of counts. seems unnecessary now that the polls are closed.

Re: Election Battleground State Changes

#35

Post by striking »

tathougies wrote: post #20
some-guy wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Votes can arrive by mail later without being opened. Also counties may misreport how many ballots they originally had.

Why do the misreport them? Why don't we know? And I also don't really understand how mail can arrive later. In my state of Oregon which has mail-in only voting, ballots must arrive by 8PM on election day. That's it. Why do other states allow it to go past that? This is crazy. It's election day, not week.

Because states have the right to choose their voting process as long as it complies with the 14th Amendment, and the process has worked for them as long as it has.

There's plenty of time between Election Day and when the votes actually have to be in, and it's actually unusual for all the votes to have been counted entirely by the end of Election Day even in a normal year from what I recall.

The votes aren't due for another little while anyway. So who cares whether Election Day is postmarked-by day or received-by day?

Re: Election Battleground State Changes

#36

Post by ericpauley »

Anechoic wrote: post #9

Keep in mind that these numbers may not be current. For example, as of right now (5:40pm EST), the estimated number of remaining votes in Pennslyania listed on the site is 431,723, but the PA Secretary of State put the number remaining as 326,000 an hour ago[1]. The NYT API may be using modeled numbers. [1] https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/politics/decision-2020/...

Not sure why everyone is still looking at the Secretary of State numbers when they have been clearly outdated throughout the count.

You can get a more accurate number by subtracting the mail-in votes counted (under PA results) from the total ballots cast. This gives 269888 ballots uncounted right now.

I've also taken these numbers and extrapolated the mail vote in each county. Under this model Biden is currently shown as winning the state by 92k votes (1.35%)

Re: Election Battleground State Changes

#37

Post by credit_guy »

tathougies wrote: post #15

Why do the estimated vote counts keep going up? Why has this process dragged on for days . Where do they keep losing ballots? Why isn't there a deadline? Why are only these states still counting? Great resource BTW!

> Why isn't there a deadline?

How could there be? Voting is a state business. Each state is responsible for how it chooses the electors, via what procedures, on what timetable, etc.

Here's what the Constitution has to say on this matter (Article 2, Section 1): "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress".

Re: Election Battleground State Changes

#38

Post by striking »

tathougies wrote: post #28
dragonwriter wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do the estimated vote counts keep going up? The same reason they are estimated counts in the first place, there's not hard counts of ballots before the, um, count of ballots. > Why has this process dragged on for days. Because its a manual process that normally takes days. > Where do they keep losing ballots? They don't, that's why the estimated numbers go up, not down. > Why isn't there a deadline? There is, b…

In my home state of Oregon, ballot results are released pretty much immediately, because the ballot deadline for receipt is 8 pm on election day. The same was true of California when I lived there. Why are the rules suddenly changed? Did no one foresee that this would cause one of the worst elections in American history?

California is still counting its votes too. It's just not a close enough race for us to have to wait to find out what the results are.

Re: Election Battleground State Changes

#39

Post by pwinnski »

tathougies wrote: post #28
dragonwriter wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do the estimated vote counts keep going up? The same reason they are estimated counts in the first place, there's not hard counts of ballots before the, um, count of ballots. > Why has this process dragged on for days. Because its a manual process that normally takes days. > Where do they keep losing ballots? They don't, that's why the estimated numbers go up, not down. > Why isn't there a deadline? There is, b…

In my home state of Oregon, ballot results are released pretty much immediately, because the ballot deadline for receipt is 8 pm on election day. The same was true of California when I lived there. Why are the rules suddenly changed? Did no one foresee that this would cause one of the worst elections in American history?

Many of these rules haven't changed at all, but there's a pandemic happening, so many, many, many more people have taken advantage of mail ballots than in years past.

Additionally, there were some lawsuits to prevent states from counting received ballots before Election Day, so some of this "confusion" is the direct result of efforts by the people filing those lawsuits to create it.

Re: Election Battleground State Changes

#40

Post by hsk »

tathougies wrote: post #28
dragonwriter wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do the estimated vote counts keep going up? The same reason they are estimated counts in the first place, there's not hard counts of ballots before the, um, count of ballots. > Why has this process dragged on for days. Because its a manual process that normally takes days. > Where do they keep losing ballots? They don't, that's why the estimated numbers go up, not down. > Why isn't there a deadline? There is, b…

In my home state of Oregon, ballot results are released pretty much immediately, because the ballot deadline for receipt is 8 pm on election day. The same was true of California when I lived there. Why are the rules suddenly changed? Did no one foresee that this would cause one of the worst elections in American history?

Rules are decided by each state on its own. You can blame the constitution for deferring election procedures to each state.

In PA, for example, the legislature (which is GOP I might add) forbid counting mail-in ballots until election day. That basically guarantees delays.

Have you been around for Gore vs Bush? I'm not sure why you're claiming this is one of the worst elections. Most close elections aren't called on election day. Almost every state continues counting past election day. It's just you're only hearing about the ones that are close.

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