4 ms·

It's a bit early to do a post-mortem when there's still millions of votes to count.

nine_k 6y ago
Isn't it the result of messing up? In a perfectly organized system (rarely found in reality) the counting would have finished within 2-3 hours after the end of voting.
- jmcgough 6y ago
  Republican state senators in multiple states (PA, MI, WI) blocked plans to prepare or precount mailed ballots. This is working as intended.
- CameronNemo 6y ago
  Where did you get that 2-3 hrs number? Do other nation states declare election results that quickly?
  - bleepblorp 6y ago
    Yes, most other democratic countries do. American-style slow results have more in common with the kinds of places that need time to "massage" the results than with the electoral processes in most democracies.
    - rtx 6y ago
      Looking from outside it's an horror show. No voter ID, no physical marks on person all ready voted. Most bizzare is the mail ballot how do you even trust those.
      - Fezzik 6y ago
        The mail in ballot is probably the most secure element of the whole voting system. So long as your address is up-to-date with the Dept. of Motor Vehicles you are sent a barcoded/secure ballot and return envelope. Multiple states have been doing this for decades with effectively zero fraud. The few errors have been from people not updating their addresses or people filing out absentee ballots sent to old addresses, which is an entire different issue. Or there was one guy in Oregon that underwent a kidney transplant around election time, moved, and accidentally voted twice because he received two ballots. He did not even remember doing so he was so haggard. The only real impediment/threat to voting is the Republican party doing any and everything they can to limit peoples’ ability to vote.
        rtx 6y ago
        If the politicians I know we're fighting in America all of them would have access to additional ballots.
      - bleepblorp 6y ago
        Extensive ID requirements and indelible dyes are measures to minimize voter fraud, such as voting by ineligible persons or eligible persons voting more than once. Voter fraud is nearly non-existent in the United States.[0] The overwhelming problem with American elections is electoral fraud, a term which encompasses such things as preventing eligible voters from voting, not counting legitimate ballots, voter intimidation, and jerrymandering. These problems cannot be fixed through measures intended to minimize voter fraud as they are the result of the state, and/or parties, abusing the democratic process rather than the citizen abusing it. [0] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/24/fbi-has-not-seen-evidence-of-widespread-voter-fraud-director-wray-tells-senators.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/24/fbi-has-not-seen-evidence-of...
        rtx 6y ago
        Isnt it obvious that it will always be the political party that will be doing the fraud.
        totalZero 6y ago
        Not in a two-party system where both parties are deeply entrenched in all aspects of political life, no.
      - JamesBarney 6y ago
        It's incredibly rare because it's very hard to both have an impact and get away with it not to mention the consequences of being caught are a felony. You need to commit a lot of voter fraud to swing an election, it has to be a very close election. Like one state and 20,000 to 100,000 vote. A once in a 30-50 year election. You need to figure out before hand which state will be swing state that decides the election. Now you have to commit voter fraud 50,000 times in that state. You can't do it in person because the numbers are too larger so you have to do mail-in. How do you find 20,000-50,000 people across the state who you can get a mail in ballot for, steal it, and turn it in without anyone noticing. This is basically an impossible task that even if you pull off has a low chance of making a difference, and a large chance of sending you to jail.
      - totalZero 6y ago
        In PA, my understanding is that you must show ID the first time you vote at a new polling place. I would trust mail ballots because they are delivered to your residence. Pretty hard for a foreign actor to fake/game that kind of system -- or at least, harder than posting a bunch of inorganic FUD comments on social media such as HN.
  - lstamour 6y ago
    Generally, preliminary numbers, yes. Here’s a recording from 2019 elections in Canada. The last seat was determined 4 hours and 44 minutes later, and that is unusually delayed, but still a record time compared to U.S. counts: https://youtu.be/GYrY_945co0 https://youtu.be/GYrY_945co0 Of course it might vary by population, but it shouldn’t need to be this inefficient to run or count advance votes, etc. Elections Canada might also make a difference rather than going state by state. And we don’t have a step after where votes are cast, etc., instead it’s a simple first past the post system. Some background: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-votes-2019-election-day-vote-counting-1.5322009 https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-votes-2019-election-... https://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=vot&dir=faq&document=faqelec&lang=e#a7 https://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=vot&dir=faq&do... As a Canadian I’d often watch as polls close in different time zones and then roughly a half hour later, results trickle in. Usually within the first two or three hours, up to half the country’s votes, by population (at least), have been counted and results shared — even as polls are still closing in other parts. It’s expected that by 2am at the latest you could usually know the outcome, even in a contested race. The exception would be minority governments, which can form their own majority from coalitions over the next few days after a Canadian election. And they do still count all the votes by hand in Canada. This kind of vote count inefficiency reminds me of tax code inefficiencies. Just because taxes are complicated to file in the U.S. does not mean it has to be that way in the rest of the world! :)
  - jerlam 6y ago
    The United States has, at best, 51 different voting systems in a federal election. There is no centralization by design. That's 51 different voter registration laws, 51 different sets of candidates, 51 different ballots, 51 different voting procedures, etc. Each state's laws have been subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) changed to provide a benefit to whoever was in power at that time.
    - Izkata 6y ago
      > 51 different ballots There's a hell of a lot more than that, the ballots include local votes as well.
- totalZero 6y ago
  I can't recall the last time that votes were all counted within three hours, so I'm not sure what your point is.
- ineedasername 6y ago
  Depends on what you mean by "messing up". If you mean the counters, election officials etc messed up, then that's incorrect. They haven't done anything wrong. If you mean the laws that prevented faster vote counting are messing up the hypothetically perfectly organized system, then yes: that is a major factor.
dgrin91 6y ago
Is it? These models do more than predict who is going to win overall, they attempt to predict details of the how. On that count they royally screwed up. To quote the article - > The forecasts were off. We were forecasting Biden to get 54.4% of the two-party vote and it seems that he only got 52% or so. We forecasted Biden at 356 electoral votes and it seems that he’ll only end up with 280 or so. > – The polls messed up more in some states than others. Florida is the clearest example of where the polls got it wrong. No major poll I saw had Trump anywhere near these numbers. Clearly something went wrong. Example: Poll saying Biden winning Wisconsin by +17: https://www.wbay.com/2020/10/28/biden-leads-trump-by-17-points-in-wisconsin-in-abc-newswashington-post-poll/ https://www.wbay.com/2020/10/28/biden-leads-trump-by-17-poin... Actual result: Biden currently winning by .6%. If the poll is off by 16.4% its a garbage poll and needs serious re-evaluation.
- redisman 6y ago
  Biden might still pick up GA, AZ, PA and NV. That would put him over 300 EV. I think it is too early to say just because some states broke the other way and it feels like something it might not be. Popular vote margins will also change once the big blue states finish counting which might take a while.
- jmcgough 6y ago
  There was clearly a polling error, so yes, my statement doesn't really stand for southern states like Florida where the count is complete. What I'd be more interested in is an article with more meat than this one, something that analyzes a single model and talks about what, if anything, went wrong. 538 has already mentioned that they plan on doing a post-mortem. The problem with presidential elections is that they happen infrequently with a large time gap between, and we only have a few decades of useful data to model from. For me, as a non-statistician, it's difficult for me to look at the numbers and know whether this one particular reality was adequately accounted for by the model. 538 gave chances of each candidate winning - they didn't state that they'll have exactly x margins of victory. Nate's stance before the election was that Biden could survive a significant polling error, and that's about where we seem to be now. I'm looking forward to the 538 post-mortem.
- 6y ago
koheripbal 6y ago
Even the limited data we have so far shows a massive gap between polling and results.

Isn't it the result of messing up? In a perfectly organized system (rarely found in reality) the counting would have finished within 2-3 hours after the end of voting.

jmcgough 6y ago
Republican state senators in multiple states (PA, MI, WI) blocked plans to prepare or precount mailed ballots. This is working as intended.
CameronNemo 6y ago
Where did you get that 2-3 hrs number? Do other nation states declare election results that quickly?
- bleepblorp 6y ago
  Yes, most other democratic countries do. American-style slow results have more in common with the kinds of places that need time to "massage" the results than with the electoral processes in most democracies.
  - rtx 6y ago
    Looking from outside it's an horror show. No voter ID, no physical marks on person all ready voted. Most bizzare is the mail ballot how do you even trust those.
    - Fezzik 6y ago
      The mail in ballot is probably the most secure element of the whole voting system. So long as your address is up-to-date with the Dept. of Motor Vehicles you are sent a barcoded/secure ballot and return envelope. Multiple states have been doing this for decades with effectively zero fraud. The few errors have been from people not updating their addresses or people filing out absentee ballots sent to old addresses, which is an entire different issue. Or there was one guy in Oregon that underwent a kidney transplant around election time, moved, and accidentally voted twice because he received two ballots. He did not even remember doing so he was so haggard. The only real impediment/threat to voting is the Republican party doing any and everything they can to limit peoples’ ability to vote.
      - rtx 6y ago
        If the politicians I know we're fighting in America all of them would have access to additional ballots.
    - bleepblorp 6y ago
      Extensive ID requirements and indelible dyes are measures to minimize voter fraud, such as voting by ineligible persons or eligible persons voting more than once. Voter fraud is nearly non-existent in the United States.[0] The overwhelming problem with American elections is electoral fraud, a term which encompasses such things as preventing eligible voters from voting, not counting legitimate ballots, voter intimidation, and jerrymandering. These problems cannot be fixed through measures intended to minimize voter fraud as they are the result of the state, and/or parties, abusing the democratic process rather than the citizen abusing it. [0] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/24/fbi-has-not-seen-evidence-of-widespread-voter-fraud-director-wray-tells-senators.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/24/fbi-has-not-seen-evidence-of...
      - rtx 6y ago
        Isnt it obvious that it will always be the political party that will be doing the fraud.
        totalZero 6y ago
        Not in a two-party system where both parties are deeply entrenched in all aspects of political life, no.
    - JamesBarney 6y ago
      It's incredibly rare because it's very hard to both have an impact and get away with it not to mention the consequences of being caught are a felony. You need to commit a lot of voter fraud to swing an election, it has to be a very close election. Like one state and 20,000 to 100,000 vote. A once in a 30-50 year election. You need to figure out before hand which state will be swing state that decides the election. Now you have to commit voter fraud 50,000 times in that state. You can't do it in person because the numbers are too larger so you have to do mail-in. How do you find 20,000-50,000 people across the state who you can get a mail in ballot for, steal it, and turn it in without anyone noticing. This is basically an impossible task that even if you pull off has a low chance of making a difference, and a large chance of sending you to jail.
    - totalZero 6y ago
      In PA, my understanding is that you must show ID the first time you vote at a new polling place. I would trust mail ballots because they are delivered to your residence. Pretty hard for a foreign actor to fake/game that kind of system -- or at least, harder than posting a bunch of inorganic FUD comments on social media such as HN.
- lstamour 6y ago
  Generally, preliminary numbers, yes. Here’s a recording from 2019 elections in Canada. The last seat was determined 4 hours and 44 minutes later, and that is unusually delayed, but still a record time compared to U.S. counts: https://youtu.be/GYrY_945co0 https://youtu.be/GYrY_945co0 Of course it might vary by population, but it shouldn’t need to be this inefficient to run or count advance votes, etc. Elections Canada might also make a difference rather than going state by state. And we don’t have a step after where votes are cast, etc., instead it’s a simple first past the post system. Some background: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-votes-2019-election-day-vote-counting-1.5322009 https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-votes-2019-election-... https://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=vot&dir=faq&document=faqelec&lang=e#a7 https://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=vot&dir=faq&do... As a Canadian I’d often watch as polls close in different time zones and then roughly a half hour later, results trickle in. Usually within the first two or three hours, up to half the country’s votes, by population (at least), have been counted and results shared — even as polls are still closing in other parts. It’s expected that by 2am at the latest you could usually know the outcome, even in a contested race. The exception would be minority governments, which can form their own majority from coalitions over the next few days after a Canadian election. And they do still count all the votes by hand in Canada. This kind of vote count inefficiency reminds me of tax code inefficiencies. Just because taxes are complicated to file in the U.S. does not mean it has to be that way in the rest of the world! :)
- jerlam 6y ago
  The United States has, at best, 51 different voting systems in a federal election. There is no centralization by design. That's 51 different voter registration laws, 51 different sets of candidates, 51 different ballots, 51 different voting procedures, etc. Each state's laws have been subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) changed to provide a benefit to whoever was in power at that time.
  - Izkata 6y ago
    > 51 different ballots There's a hell of a lot more than that, the ballots include local votes as well.
totalZero 6y ago
I can't recall the last time that votes were all counted within three hours, so I'm not sure what your point is.
ineedasername 6y ago
Depends on what you mean by "messing up". If you mean the counters, election officials etc messed up, then that's incorrect. They haven't done anything wrong. If you mean the laws that prevented faster vote counting are messing up the hypothetically perfectly organized system, then yes: that is a major factor.

dgrin91 6y ago

Is it? These models do more than predict who is going to win overall, they attempt to predict details of the how. On that count they royally screwed up. To quote the article - > The forecasts were off. We were forecasting Biden to get 54.4% of the two-party vote and it seems that he only got 52% or so. We forecasted Biden at 356 electoral votes and it seems that he’ll only end up with 280 or so. > – The polls messed up more in some states than others. Florida is the clearest example of where the polls got it wrong. No major poll I saw had Trump anywhere near these numbers. Clearly something went wrong. Example: Poll saying Biden winning Wisconsin by +17: https://www.wbay.com/2020/10/28/biden-leads-trump-by-17-points-in-wisconsin-in-abc-newswashington-post-poll/ https://www.wbay.com/2020/10/28/biden-leads-trump-by-17-poin... Actual result: Biden currently winning by .6%. If the poll is off by 16.4% its a garbage poll and needs serious re-evaluation.

redisman 6y ago
Biden might still pick up GA, AZ, PA and NV. That would put him over 300 EV. I think it is too early to say just because some states broke the other way and it feels like something it might not be. Popular vote margins will also change once the big blue states finish counting which might take a while.
jmcgough 6y ago
There was clearly a polling error, so yes, my statement doesn't really stand for southern states like Florida where the count is complete. What I'd be more interested in is an article with more meat than this one, something that analyzes a single model and talks about what, if anything, went wrong. 538 has already mentioned that they plan on doing a post-mortem. The problem with presidential elections is that they happen infrequently with a large time gap between, and we only have a few decades of useful data to model from. For me, as a non-statistician, it's difficult for me to look at the numbers and know whether this one particular reality was adequately accounted for by the model. 538 gave chances of each candidate winning - they didn't state that they'll have exactly x margins of victory. Nate's stance before the election was that Biden could survive a significant polling error, and that's about where we seem to be now. I'm looking forward to the 538 post-mortem.
6y ago

koheripbal 6y ago

Even the limited data we have so far shows a massive gap between polling and results.