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The media was way too cautious in making the call here, but it's easy to understand why when the Republicans made it so difficult to count absentee ballots befo

The media was way too cautious in making the call here, but it's easy to understand why when the Republicans made it so difficult to count absentee ballots before election night, likely to benefit their candidate through the confusion of swinging red and then blue. If you don't want this to happen again, pressure your red representatives to stop demonizing mail-in/advance voting, and stop destroying the postal system.

Trasmatta 6y ago
There was some interesting game theory stuff going on there, where AP and Fox called Arizona early, but other networks didn't feel it was safe. And then Nevada has obviously been won for days, but nobody was calling it because that would have put Fox and AP over 270. So all the networks just started waiting for PA rather than calling the obvious for Nevada.
- masklinn 6y ago
  > but other networks didn't feel it was safe. And might have been right, Biden's lead in AZ keeps shrinking, 3 days ago his lead was 25% of the ballots left to count, now it's 15. > And then Nevada has obviously been won for days, but nobody was calling it because that would have put Fox and AP over 270. Although Biden's lead has only grown there saying that it's "obviously won" is a touch optimistic.
  - Trasmatta 6y ago
    > Although Biden's lead has only grown there saying that it's "obviously won" is a touch optimistic. No, if you follow the election analysts like Nate Cohn, Nate Silver, Dave Wasserman, and especially Jon Ralston (who is "the guy" for Nevada elections), Biden has been the clear winner for nearly two days. And also AP almost immediately called Nevada after the Pennsylvania drop, so they were definitely waiting on that.
  - Retric 6y ago
    Analysis is more complex than just what percentage of ballots remain. It was widely expected for Pennsylvania to have a decisive swap when Trump had a seemingly huge lead and Georgia a very red state was predicted as being a vastly closer race. North Carolina could have also been called as leaning Trump much sooner, but overall it was a fairly close race. Voting by people in large groups are predictable and people spend a lot of effort getting this right. Out of 50 states exactly one was significantly different from predictions based on a significant shift in a specific group which is easy to miss in statewide polls.
- nojito 6y ago
  AP and Fox have access to proprietary survey data for AZ.
  - voisin 6y ago
    Source?
  - briandear 6y ago
    Survey data isn’t votes counted.
- briandear 6y ago
  At the time, Nevada had a 8000 vote margin with over 100,000 votes outstanding. The real question is why swing states paused counting.
- prh8 6y ago
  It was not obvious for Nevada, because the outstanding votes were the last 2 days of drop-off, which has skewed red, and there has been uncertainty about how Vegas would react considering Covid's effect on their economy.
granzymes 6y ago
Looks like they were waiting for Biden to cross the PA recount threshold. He just did (0.51% > 0.5%).
masklinn 6y ago
> when the Republicans made it so difficult to count absentee ballots before election night That really can't be noted enough. That the count took so long is specifically because several legislatures decided to not allow any preprocessing of mail ballots, and to count mail ballots last.
- barumi 6y ago
  > That really can't be noted enough. That the count took so long is specifically because several legislatures decided to not allow any preprocessing of mail ballots, and to count mail ballots last. Indeed this bears repeating. The whole process mounting to the election day was engineered to sabotage and outright throw out votes from the opposition, even if that comes at the expense of the core principles of the whole political system.
  - slg 6y ago
    I really wonder how good faith conservatives can view these actions positively. One side tries to make it easier, safer, and quicker to vote. One side is trying the opposite. The only explanation they can come up with is voter fraud which has not been found to be a widescale problem by nearly every group that has looked into it.
    - Master_Odin 6y ago
      They and their base are not operating in good faith. Trump and other high level GOP very publicly stated that doing these sorts of things to improve voting would only help Democrats and that's why they're opposed. The Us vs Them mentality that increasingly and openly permeates through politics is a cancer to the US' future.
      - slg 6y ago
        >They and their base are not operating in good faith. There are certainly some people and perhaps even most people in that group, however there are also still millions of people who do actually believe in small government. Do these people think that winning elections is more important than democracy or is there some reason that they have used to convince themselves that it is okay to make it harder to vote?
barumi 6y ago
> The media was way too cautious in making the call here, It's my understanding that it had zero to do with caution and all to do with the fact that the election was not decided. If there are still votes that were not counted and the slim margin between both candidates is smaller than the number of unaccounted votes then the election results are yet to be determined. Thus it would make zero sense to claim that one candidate was the winner when the votes that are yet to be counted are enough to sway the results.
- stu2b50 6y ago
  Not really. Once the models project that it's basically impossible, the DD's call it. They call states like California or Arkansas once they get the exit poll data, before any votes are in. Fox News called Virginia for Biden when there were like 50% votes in and Trump led with 10%. They were uber cautious this time and waited for a >0.5% lead.
  - barumi 6y ago
    > Not really. Once the models project that it's basically impossible (...) It's only "basically impossible" if the amount of votes to be counted are still enough to sway an election. You should think things through and pay attention to the unwanted consequences of these sort of claims. We're living a development where half the US population is complaining about voter fraud and conspiracies to withheld their candidate from their rightful place in the US's regime. It makes no sense to argue in favor of taking shortcuts in the election process citing arcane arguments and models, each of which unverifiable and impenetrable to the common man, and expect it to simply accept an outcome that is dictated by you and not verifiable by them. If you want a country to accept election results, the results need to be obvious and above any scrutiny. In the case of elections, you only get there if all votes are counted and any shred of doubt is rendered an impossibility. Otherwise all you get is conspiracy theories, dissent and erosion of any faith on the democratic nature of a system.
    - esoterica 6y ago
      > You should think things through and pay attention to the unwanted consequences of these sort of claims. Who is "you" here? The media organizations are the one making the calls and defining the processes for doing so, not some random on HN. > It makes no sense to argue in favor of taking shortcuts in the election process citing arcane arguments and models, The media calling the election is not part of the formal election process. If the media calls the election wrongly they just get humiliated when the final results come in and they are proven wrong. The media doesn't decide the election result.
notatoad 6y ago
Once it became clear that the election wouldn't be called on election night, was there really any benefit to making an early call? Whether it was called on Thursday or Saturday seems kind of irrelevant when inauguration isn't until January. It's much better to be certain that wrong.
- scrollaway 6y ago
  There's an argument to be made that not making the call when the result was already certain, even if the margin of 0.5% hadn't been reached yet, was irresponsible in the sense that it allowed Trump more time to promote this idea that he has won, everything's fraudulent etc. (Just look at his last tweet: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1325099845045071873 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/13250998450450718...) I disagree with that argument FWIW, but I can certainly understand it. Though I think people were just impatient to hear "Biden has won" be made official, even if they already knew. I certainly was.
  - notatoad 6y ago
    the result was definitely not certain. there was more outstanding votes than the leader's margin, and it wasn't clear what the composition of those votes was. it was definitely very likely that they would follow the trend of the rest of the state, but it could have come to pass that the late-arriving absentee ballots or provisionals in PA broke very differently to the early-arriving absentee ballots. They called it when the first sample of outstanding allegheny county ballots were counted and made it clear that the rest of those votes were going to trend as expected. the networks have to balance a late call giving fodder to conspiracy theorists with an early or uncertain call also giving fodder to conspiracy theorists. they don't want to be doing anything that could promote a narrative claiming the networks are trying to influence the election for biden.
- 8ytecoder 6y ago
  It is. The longer it drags the longer you can feed fodder to conspiracies. Calling it too quickly would have been bad as well but not as bad as not calling when the end is clear. I think calling it now seems appropriate even though I don’t think Arizona should have beeen called.
duxup 6y ago
Their cautiousness made sense. Projections just before the election showed a lot steeper win for Biden. It didn't play out that way so it makes sense to be cautious. Trump had a lot more support among some demographics than people expected. as the race got tighter it made sense to doubt what might play out.
- wombatmobile 6y ago
  > Their cautiousness made sense. Projections just before the election showed a lot steeper win for Biden. You need to distinguish between the national vote, which met projections with a significant dem majority, and state races, some of which were close, which is also what was predicted.
  - wolco2 6y ago
    State level projections in swing states were off by 7 points. Why were the polls so wrong again?
    - wombatmobile 6y ago
      Which projection was off by 7 points?
      - wolco2 6y ago
        Let's take: Pennsylvania These polls are from November 1. Targoz Market Research was really off. 56 to 42 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5e28be4ccb16eb0aa6496c31/t/5f9f6d4d11f67f690ade11aa/1604283726251/Crosstab+-+Pennsylvania+2020+PollSmart+Poll+Demos.pdf https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5e28be4ccb16eb0aa6496... New York Times 42-49 https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/az-fl-pa-wi/bc6b622f38350414/full.pdf https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/az-fl-pa-wi/bc6b622f3...
  - duxup 6y ago
    I am distinguishing between the popular vote... I honestly don't recall much in the way of news about the popular vote projections. Probably because folks were more concerned with other things.
chlodwig 6y ago
but it's easy to understand why when the Republicans made it so difficult to count absentee ballots before election night, In Pennsylvania, the Republican House passed a bill to start counting three days early but it died in the Senate under threat of veto from the Democrat governor -- https://apnews.com/article/2396bbdd1617a82c4919127726778711 https://apnews.com/article/2396bbdd1617a82c4919127726778711 The Democrats had a separate bill that would have started counting much earlier, but the Republicans opposed that for fear there would not be proper oversight over the counting process.
- lostdog 6y ago
  That bill also bans dropboxes and makes it harder to get a mail-in ballot. It's just a normal voter suppression bill.
  - chlodwig 6y ago
    The bill would have still given PA voters multiple months to get their ballot and mail it in. Hardly voter suppression. As for dropboxes, I really wish we could have some survey of opinion about them before it became a partisan issue. If it wasn't a partisan thing, I think the problem of dropboxes making ballots less traceable and enabling fraud would be pretty well acknowledged by all.
marcinzm 6y ago
>The media was way too cautious in making the call here, but it's easy to understand why when the Republicans made it so difficult to count absentee ballots before election night, likely to benefit their candidate through the confusion of swinging red and then blue. I'm curious about the efficiency of this strategy. I'd figure they'd gain more by allowing early counting, leaking the pro-democrat results and thus lowering democrat turnout on election day. After all, why bother voting when it's already in the bag and so on.
- prh8 6y ago
  The opposite effect occurred in 2016. With Trump leading in east coast states, west coast states saw reduced Democrat turnout (relative to norm)
- jberryman 6y ago
  Well, the Republican legislature apparently discussed with the whitehouse about ignoring the popular vote and appointing electors for Trump (and was willing to talk about this on record) https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/what-if-trump-refuses-concede/616424/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/what-if... So apparently the strategy was to make the vote counting look suspicious enough that it would give cover for essentially a coup.
kostarelo 6y ago
> when the Republicans made it so difficult to count absentee ballots before election night Haven't been watching this closely. Care to share some refs? Thanks
- MisterBastahrd 6y ago
  https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/pennsylvania-counting-votes-election-day/story?id=73993649 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/pennsylvania-counting-votes-... Republicans in Pennsylvania, a swing state, created a law that didn't allow for absentee ballots to begin to be counted until 8pm on election day.
hobofan 6y ago
> pressure your red representatives to stop demonizing mail-in/advance voting, and stop destroying the postal system You can pressure them all you want on that. It won't change a thing because making it easier to vote via mail will possibly result in them being voted out by making it easier for minorities to vote.
- buzzert 6y ago
  Because minorities are unable to find polling locations? I don’t understand your claim.
  - hobofan 6y ago
    Because the economically disadvantaged part of the US population (which disproportionately affects minorities) can't afford to take a day off from work to vote, so voting by mail is a good way for them to vote without a personal downside. Alternatively this could be fixed by making Election Day a national holiday and/or setting up more polling locations.
    - bavell 6y ago
      It took me less than 15m to vote on Tuesday, no lines or anything (deep red county). I've heard of people waiting for hours but that's because their local govt failed them (not enough locations, under-staffed, etc). IMO seems more accurate to say in-person voting disproportionately affects incompetent municipalities.
      - hobofan 6y ago
        I mean a deep red county that will stay red whether they correctly reflect their populations leanings or not, so there is little incentive to suppress any voting efforts, right? That's in contrast to a currently-elected-light-red county where the population is slightly leaning blue, but can't express that due to hindrances in the voting process (you can flip the colors if you want).
    - 6y ago
jberryman 6y ago
And stop closing polling places in urban (Black) neighborhoods, etc, etc
alessivs 6y ago
> pressure your red representatives to stop demonizing mail-in/advance voting, and stop destroying the postal system I don't see why expressing concerns about postal voting would necessarily be a partisan thing. Don't the TWO major political blocks want a fair process? Perhaps everyone? ...especially in light of evidence of documented cases. Here is a sample query for: "Fraudulent Use of Absentee Ballots which resulted in a criminal conviction" (with results ruled as recently as 2020): https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud/search?combine=&state=All&year=&case_type=24487&fraud_type=24489 https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud/search?combine=&state=Al... The result set doesn't include "Duplicate voting", "Impersonation", "Altering the vote count", which are separate criteria (relevant to mention because they are part of the ongoing allegations).

Trasmatta 6y ago

There was some interesting game theory stuff going on there, where AP and Fox called Arizona early, but other networks didn't feel it was safe. And then Nevada has obviously been won for days, but nobody was calling it because that would have put Fox and AP over 270. So all the networks just started waiting for PA rather than calling the obvious for Nevada.

masklinn 6y ago
> but other networks didn't feel it was safe. And might have been right, Biden's lead in AZ keeps shrinking, 3 days ago his lead was 25% of the ballots left to count, now it's 15. > And then Nevada has obviously been won for days, but nobody was calling it because that would have put Fox and AP over 270. Although Biden's lead has only grown there saying that it's "obviously won" is a touch optimistic.
- Trasmatta 6y ago
  > Although Biden's lead has only grown there saying that it's "obviously won" is a touch optimistic. No, if you follow the election analysts like Nate Cohn, Nate Silver, Dave Wasserman, and especially Jon Ralston (who is "the guy" for Nevada elections), Biden has been the clear winner for nearly two days. And also AP almost immediately called Nevada after the Pennsylvania drop, so they were definitely waiting on that.
- Retric 6y ago
  Analysis is more complex than just what percentage of ballots remain. It was widely expected for Pennsylvania to have a decisive swap when Trump had a seemingly huge lead and Georgia a very red state was predicted as being a vastly closer race. North Carolina could have also been called as leaning Trump much sooner, but overall it was a fairly close race. Voting by people in large groups are predictable and people spend a lot of effort getting this right. Out of 50 states exactly one was significantly different from predictions based on a significant shift in a specific group which is easy to miss in statewide polls.
nojito 6y ago
AP and Fox have access to proprietary survey data for AZ.
- voisin 6y ago
  Source?
- briandear 6y ago
  Survey data isn’t votes counted.
briandear 6y ago
At the time, Nevada had a 8000 vote margin with over 100,000 votes outstanding. The real question is why swing states paused counting.
prh8 6y ago
It was not obvious for Nevada, because the outstanding votes were the last 2 days of drop-off, which has skewed red, and there has been uncertainty about how Vegas would react considering Covid's effect on their economy.

granzymes 6y ago

Looks like they were waiting for Biden to cross the PA recount threshold. He just did (0.51% > 0.5%).

masklinn 6y ago

> when the Republicans made it so difficult to count absentee ballots before election night That really can't be noted enough. That the count took so long is specifically because several legislatures decided to not allow any preprocessing of mail ballots, and to count mail ballots last.

barumi 6y ago
> That really can't be noted enough. That the count took so long is specifically because several legislatures decided to not allow any preprocessing of mail ballots, and to count mail ballots last. Indeed this bears repeating. The whole process mounting to the election day was engineered to sabotage and outright throw out votes from the opposition, even if that comes at the expense of the core principles of the whole political system.
- slg 6y ago
  I really wonder how good faith conservatives can view these actions positively. One side tries to make it easier, safer, and quicker to vote. One side is trying the opposite. The only explanation they can come up with is voter fraud which has not been found to be a widescale problem by nearly every group that has looked into it.
  - Master_Odin 6y ago
    They and their base are not operating in good faith. Trump and other high level GOP very publicly stated that doing these sorts of things to improve voting would only help Democrats and that's why they're opposed. The Us vs Them mentality that increasingly and openly permeates through politics is a cancer to the US' future.
    - slg 6y ago
      >They and their base are not operating in good faith. There are certainly some people and perhaps even most people in that group, however there are also still millions of people who do actually believe in small government. Do these people think that winning elections is more important than democracy or is there some reason that they have used to convince themselves that it is okay to make it harder to vote?

barumi 6y ago

> The media was way too cautious in making the call here, It's my understanding that it had zero to do with caution and all to do with the fact that the election was not decided. If there are still votes that were not counted and the slim margin between both candidates is smaller than the number of unaccounted votes then the election results are yet to be determined. Thus it would make zero sense to claim that one candidate was the winner when the votes that are yet to be counted are enough to sway the results.

stu2b50 6y ago
Not really. Once the models project that it's basically impossible, the DD's call it. They call states like California or Arkansas once they get the exit poll data, before any votes are in. Fox News called Virginia for Biden when there were like 50% votes in and Trump led with 10%. They were uber cautious this time and waited for a >0.5% lead.
- barumi 6y ago
  > Not really. Once the models project that it's basically impossible (...) It's only "basically impossible" if the amount of votes to be counted are still enough to sway an election. You should think things through and pay attention to the unwanted consequences of these sort of claims. We're living a development where half the US population is complaining about voter fraud and conspiracies to withheld their candidate from their rightful place in the US's regime. It makes no sense to argue in favor of taking shortcuts in the election process citing arcane arguments and models, each of which unverifiable and impenetrable to the common man, and expect it to simply accept an outcome that is dictated by you and not verifiable by them. If you want a country to accept election results, the results need to be obvious and above any scrutiny. In the case of elections, you only get there if all votes are counted and any shred of doubt is rendered an impossibility. Otherwise all you get is conspiracy theories, dissent and erosion of any faith on the democratic nature of a system.
  - esoterica 6y ago
    > You should think things through and pay attention to the unwanted consequences of these sort of claims. Who is "you" here? The media organizations are the one making the calls and defining the processes for doing so, not some random on HN. > It makes no sense to argue in favor of taking shortcuts in the election process citing arcane arguments and models, The media calling the election is not part of the formal election process. If the media calls the election wrongly they just get humiliated when the final results come in and they are proven wrong. The media doesn't decide the election result.

notatoad 6y ago

Once it became clear that the election wouldn't be called on election night, was there really any benefit to making an early call? Whether it was called on Thursday or Saturday seems kind of irrelevant when inauguration isn't until January. It's much better to be certain that wrong.

scrollaway 6y ago
There's an argument to be made that not making the call when the result was already certain, even if the margin of 0.5% hadn't been reached yet, was irresponsible in the sense that it allowed Trump more time to promote this idea that he has won, everything's fraudulent etc. (Just look at his last tweet: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1325099845045071873 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/13250998450450718...) I disagree with that argument FWIW, but I can certainly understand it. Though I think people were just impatient to hear "Biden has won" be made official, even if they already knew. I certainly was.
- notatoad 6y ago
  the result was definitely not certain. there was more outstanding votes than the leader's margin, and it wasn't clear what the composition of those votes was. it was definitely very likely that they would follow the trend of the rest of the state, but it could have come to pass that the late-arriving absentee ballots or provisionals in PA broke very differently to the early-arriving absentee ballots. They called it when the first sample of outstanding allegheny county ballots were counted and made it clear that the rest of those votes were going to trend as expected. the networks have to balance a late call giving fodder to conspiracy theorists with an early or uncertain call also giving fodder to conspiracy theorists. they don't want to be doing anything that could promote a narrative claiming the networks are trying to influence the election for biden.
8ytecoder 6y ago
It is. The longer it drags the longer you can feed fodder to conspiracies. Calling it too quickly would have been bad as well but not as bad as not calling when the end is clear. I think calling it now seems appropriate even though I don’t think Arizona should have beeen called.

duxup 6y ago

Their cautiousness made sense. Projections just before the election showed a lot steeper win for Biden. It didn't play out that way so it makes sense to be cautious. Trump had a lot more support among some demographics than people expected. as the race got tighter it made sense to doubt what might play out.

wombatmobile 6y ago
> Their cautiousness made sense. Projections just before the election showed a lot steeper win for Biden. You need to distinguish between the national vote, which met projections with a significant dem majority, and state races, some of which were close, which is also what was predicted.
- wolco2 6y ago
  State level projections in swing states were off by 7 points. Why were the polls so wrong again?
  - wombatmobile 6y ago
    Which projection was off by 7 points?
    - wolco2 6y ago
      Let's take: Pennsylvania These polls are from November 1. Targoz Market Research was really off. 56 to 42 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5e28be4ccb16eb0aa6496c31/t/5f9f6d4d11f67f690ade11aa/1604283726251/Crosstab+-+Pennsylvania+2020+PollSmart+Poll+Demos.pdf https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5e28be4ccb16eb0aa6496... New York Times 42-49 https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/az-fl-pa-wi/bc6b622f38350414/full.pdf https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/az-fl-pa-wi/bc6b622f3...
- duxup 6y ago
  I am distinguishing between the popular vote... I honestly don't recall much in the way of news about the popular vote projections. Probably because folks were more concerned with other things.

chlodwig 6y ago

but it's easy to understand why when the Republicans made it so difficult to count absentee ballots before election night, In Pennsylvania, the Republican House passed a bill to start counting three days early but it died in the Senate under threat of veto from the Democrat governor -- https://apnews.com/article/2396bbdd1617a82c4919127726778711 https://apnews.com/article/2396bbdd1617a82c4919127726778711 The Democrats had a separate bill that would have started counting much earlier, but the Republicans opposed that for fear there would not be proper oversight over the counting process.

lostdog 6y ago
That bill also bans dropboxes and makes it harder to get a mail-in ballot. It's just a normal voter suppression bill.
- chlodwig 6y ago
  The bill would have still given PA voters multiple months to get their ballot and mail it in. Hardly voter suppression. As for dropboxes, I really wish we could have some survey of opinion about them before it became a partisan issue. If it wasn't a partisan thing, I think the problem of dropboxes making ballots less traceable and enabling fraud would be pretty well acknowledged by all.

marcinzm 6y ago

>The media was way too cautious in making the call here, but it's easy to understand why when the Republicans made it so difficult to count absentee ballots before election night, likely to benefit their candidate through the confusion of swinging red and then blue. I'm curious about the efficiency of this strategy. I'd figure they'd gain more by allowing early counting, leaking the pro-democrat results and thus lowering democrat turnout on election day. After all, why bother voting when it's already in the bag and so on.

prh8 6y ago
The opposite effect occurred in 2016. With Trump leading in east coast states, west coast states saw reduced Democrat turnout (relative to norm)
jberryman 6y ago
Well, the Republican legislature apparently discussed with the whitehouse about ignoring the popular vote and appointing electors for Trump (and was willing to talk about this on record) https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/what-if-trump-refuses-concede/616424/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/what-if... So apparently the strategy was to make the vote counting look suspicious enough that it would give cover for essentially a coup.

kostarelo 6y ago

> when the Republicans made it so difficult to count absentee ballots before election night Haven't been watching this closely. Care to share some refs? Thanks

MisterBastahrd 6y ago
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/pennsylvania-counting-votes-election-day/story?id=73993649 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/pennsylvania-counting-votes-... Republicans in Pennsylvania, a swing state, created a law that didn't allow for absentee ballots to begin to be counted until 8pm on election day.

hobofan 6y ago

> pressure your red representatives to stop demonizing mail-in/advance voting, and stop destroying the postal system You can pressure them all you want on that. It won't change a thing because making it easier to vote via mail will possibly result in them being voted out by making it easier for minorities to vote.

buzzert 6y ago
Because minorities are unable to find polling locations? I don’t understand your claim.
- hobofan 6y ago
  Because the economically disadvantaged part of the US population (which disproportionately affects minorities) can't afford to take a day off from work to vote, so voting by mail is a good way for them to vote without a personal downside. Alternatively this could be fixed by making Election Day a national holiday and/or setting up more polling locations.
  - bavell 6y ago
    It took me less than 15m to vote on Tuesday, no lines or anything (deep red county). I've heard of people waiting for hours but that's because their local govt failed them (not enough locations, under-staffed, etc). IMO seems more accurate to say in-person voting disproportionately affects incompetent municipalities.
    - hobofan 6y ago
      I mean a deep red county that will stay red whether they correctly reflect their populations leanings or not, so there is little incentive to suppress any voting efforts, right? That's in contrast to a currently-elected-light-red county where the population is slightly leaning blue, but can't express that due to hindrances in the voting process (you can flip the colors if you want).
  - 6y ago

jberryman 6y ago

And stop closing polling places in urban (Black) neighborhoods, etc, etc

alessivs 6y ago

> pressure your red representatives to stop demonizing mail-in/advance voting, and stop destroying the postal system I don't see why expressing concerns about postal voting would necessarily be a partisan thing. Don't the TWO major political blocks want a fair process? Perhaps everyone? ...especially in light of evidence of documented cases. Here is a sample query for: "Fraudulent Use of Absentee Ballots which resulted in a criminal conviction" (with results ruled as recently as 2020): https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud/search?combine=&state=All&year=&case_type=24487&fraud_type=24489 https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud/search?combine=&state=Al... The result set doesn't include "Duplicate voting", "Impersonation", "Altering the vote count", which are separate criteria (relevant to mention because they are part of the ongoing allegations).