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Sure, but the analysis is supposedly showing even vote-by-mail trending toward R in other states, explained by the hypothesis that mail from more outlying areas

Sure, but the analysis is supposedly showing even vote-by-mail trending toward R in other states, explained by the hypothesis that mail from more outlying areas tended to arrive later. The observed discontinuities in the contested states could be explained simply by the sequence in which these states processed their mail-in ballots (i.e. ballots mailed from cities were processed later), but the fact that so many of them changed in the middle of the night on election night, while not evidence of anything by itself, is what I referred to as being “a little fishy”. As a counterexample, Kansas appears to have hit a batch from a metro area shortly before midnight on election night, too.

tptacek 6y ago
It's not at all fishy. You could --- and places like DDHQ did --- scrape the SOS sites to know almost exactly where the ballots were coming in. The central premise of this analysis is not just that the mail-in process was partisan-neutral, but that it had the effect of randomizing the returns statewide. Of course, it did nothing of the sort. Again, what you really saw here was that the election day vote trended sharply more R, because R voters were encouraged not to use mail-in votes, while the entire D campaign apparatus was --- like it has been since Obama --- designed to get people to commit their votes early with mail-ins. The mail-ins took longer to count, because unlike in Florida, they couldn't be counted early. So what you were watching as time went on was large tranches of mail-in ballots that took forever to count coming in from D-heavy areas (or from areas where Biden outperformed Clinton, and where the mail returns were, like everywhere, more D than the election day returns).
- guscost 6y ago
  > The mail-ins took longer to count, because unlike in Florida, they couldn't be counted early. So what you were watching as time went on was large tranches of mail-in ballots that took forever to count coming in from D-heavy areas (or from areas where Biden outperformed Clinton, and where the mail returns were, like everywhere, more D than the election day returns). So if I understand correctly, you're saying that there's a gradual (in PA) or not-so-gradual-at-first-but-then-gradual (in MI) shift from in-person ballots to mail-in ballots, which explains these trends? That does seem possible. Another possibility is that the USPS processed the mail-in ballots from big cities differently from those from towns with smaller mail volume.
  - tptacek 6y ago
    Here's another thing to look at: the Florida time series starts on election day. But vote counting Florida didn't start on election day. The state was allowed (because they are smart about this) to start counting 23 days in advance of e-day. The author of this thread is unaware of that, and has been fooled by Florida's efficiency into believing that vote returns are uniform everywhere. But that wasn't true in PA, where there was no preprocessing time at all. The clock started in PA on e-day, and the busiest, largest, most Democratic counties naturally took longer to count.
    - guscost 6y ago
      Interesting, that's probably a big factor. Counterexample: Georgia, which started processing mail-in ballots 15 days before e-day (as far as I can tell): https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/battleground-states-process-mail-ballots-delayed-results/story?id=73717671 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/battleground-states-process-...
      - tptacek 6y ago
        Georgia does limited preprocessing of ballots before e-day, to catch and report invalid ballots, but can't count until the day.
        guscost 6y ago
        Apparently not this time: > While county election officials were able to verify signatures and voter registrations upon ballot receipt, normally, absentee ballots can't be further processed or opened until Election Day. But this year, beginning 15 days before the 2020 general election, officials were allowed to open returned absentee ballots, remove those ballots from both the outer and inner secrecy sleeve envelope, and scan the ballots using a ballot scanner machine.
        tptacek 6y ago
        They're scanned. They're not counted. They're not allowed to count until the poll close. (If you Google this you'll see a lot of other stories about why the counts from D-heavy areas were delayed; there were glitches).
btilly 6y ago
You know, if you had been following 538, none of this was either mysterious or unexpected. The challenge is that the vote counting got behind. Specifically in most places it got behind in major cities. Which voted more D than R, even among mail-in ballots (which already lean more D than R than in person voting in most states - Arizona being a notable exception). As soon as you correct for where the ballots are from rather than guessing that it is all rural, the discrepancy disappears. But that's inconvenient for a disinformation campaign so gets lost.

tptacek 6y ago

It's not at all fishy. You could --- and places like DDHQ did --- scrape the SOS sites to know almost exactly where the ballots were coming in. The central premise of this analysis is not just that the mail-in process was partisan-neutral, but that it had the effect of randomizing the returns statewide. Of course, it did nothing of the sort. Again, what you really saw here was that the election day vote trended sharply more R, because R voters were encouraged not to use mail-in votes, while the entire D campaign apparatus was --- like it has been since Obama --- designed to get people to commit their votes early with mail-ins. The mail-ins took longer to count, because unlike in Florida, they couldn't be counted early. So what you were watching as time went on was large tranches of mail-in ballots that took forever to count coming in from D-heavy areas (or from areas where Biden outperformed Clinton, and where the mail returns were, like everywhere, more D than the election day returns).

guscost 6y ago
> The mail-ins took longer to count, because unlike in Florida, they couldn't be counted early. So what you were watching as time went on was large tranches of mail-in ballots that took forever to count coming in from D-heavy areas (or from areas where Biden outperformed Clinton, and where the mail returns were, like everywhere, more D than the election day returns). So if I understand correctly, you're saying that there's a gradual (in PA) or not-so-gradual-at-first-but-then-gradual (in MI) shift from in-person ballots to mail-in ballots, which explains these trends? That does seem possible. Another possibility is that the USPS processed the mail-in ballots from big cities differently from those from towns with smaller mail volume.
- tptacek 6y ago
  Here's another thing to look at: the Florida time series starts on election day. But vote counting Florida didn't start on election day. The state was allowed (because they are smart about this) to start counting 23 days in advance of e-day. The author of this thread is unaware of that, and has been fooled by Florida's efficiency into believing that vote returns are uniform everywhere. But that wasn't true in PA, where there was no preprocessing time at all. The clock started in PA on e-day, and the busiest, largest, most Democratic counties naturally took longer to count.
  - guscost 6y ago
    Interesting, that's probably a big factor. Counterexample: Georgia, which started processing mail-in ballots 15 days before e-day (as far as I can tell): https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/battleground-states-process-mail-ballots-delayed-results/story?id=73717671 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/battleground-states-process-...
    - tptacek 6y ago
      Georgia does limited preprocessing of ballots before e-day, to catch and report invalid ballots, but can't count until the day.
      - guscost 6y ago
        Apparently not this time: > While county election officials were able to verify signatures and voter registrations upon ballot receipt, normally, absentee ballots can't be further processed or opened until Election Day. But this year, beginning 15 days before the 2020 general election, officials were allowed to open returned absentee ballots, remove those ballots from both the outer and inner secrecy sleeve envelope, and scan the ballots using a ballot scanner machine.
        tptacek 6y ago
        They're scanned. They're not counted. They're not allowed to count until the poll close. (If you Google this you'll see a lot of other stories about why the counts from D-heavy areas were delayed; there were glitches).

btilly 6y ago

You know, if you had been following 538, none of this was either mysterious or unexpected. The challenge is that the vote counting got behind. Specifically in most places it got behind in major cities. Which voted more D than R, even among mail-in ballots (which already lean more D than R than in person voting in most states - Arizona being a notable exception). As soon as you correct for where the ballots are from rather than guessing that it is all rural, the discrepancy disappears. But that's inconvenient for a disinformation campaign so gets lost.