There are dozens of ways an early vote can be thrown out but only one way it can be counted.
It doesn't seem like blue counties are voting much faster than red, from the post I saw.
It looks really good right now, but it isn't over (and I remember being excited about early voting numbers from FL in 2016).
That said, if it weren't for the fact that the downside of being wrong is so large, it would be normal and appropriate to feel good about the election right now.
You can't say its the best time you ever had until it's all over.
But voting is a good thing And enthusiasm for voting is a good thing.
Also, it's hard to distinguish how much early voting is about enthusiasm versus, you know, the pandemic. I'm sure there is a bunch of enthusiasm, but it's not really comparable.
I am not feeling good about the current Supreme Court, however. I was just reading Sotomayor's dissent in the AL decision, and I don't see how the majority justifies their ruling.
I would deny the stay. The secretary has not shown any legal error below. We should not substitute the District Court's reasonable, record-based findings of fact with our own intuitions about the risks of traditional in-person voting during this pandemic or the ability of willing local officials to implement adequate curbside voting procedures.
The District Court for good reason found that the secretary's ban deprives disabled voters of the equally effective "opportunity to participate in" the "benefit" of in-person voting. 28 CFR §35.130(b)(1)(ii) (2019). The secretary does not meaningfully dispute that the plaintiffs have disabilities, that COVID-19 is disproportionately likely to be fatal to these plaintiffs, and that traditional in-person voting will meaningfully increase their risk of exposure. He argues only that the relevant "benefit" under the ADA is voting generally, not in-person voting specifically, and that absentee voting ensures access to that benefit. But under the ADA, "[t]he benefit itself . . . cannot be defined in a way that effectively denies otherwise qualified handicapped individuals the meaningful access to which they are entitled." Alexander v. Choate, 469 U. S. 287, 301 (1985). In-person voters receive assistance from poll workers; need no witnesses, notaries, or copies of their photo IDs, as Alabama law requires for absentee ballots; and know their ballot will not arrive too late or be rejected for failure to comply with absentee ballots' many requirements. ___ F. Supp. 3d, at ___, 2020 WL 5814455, *59-*60. Absentee and in-person voting are different benefits, and voters with disabilities are entitled to equal access to both.
The District Court's modest injunction is a reasonable accommodation, given the short time before the election. It does not require all counties to adopt curbside voting; it simply gives prepared counties the option to do so. This remedy respects both the right of voters with disabilities to vote safely and the State's interest in orderly elections.. . .
Desperation and the thought of being replaced are also motivators for voting.
Texas does stand out on this map: https://electproject.github.io/Early-Vote-2020G/index.html
Wow. Over 43M people have already voted (nationwide) -- and 5.3M of them are in Texas.
Mikey had a facial scar and Bobby was a racist.
They were all in love with voting. They were doing it in Texas.
Cinnamon and sugary and softly spoken lies you never know just how they'll vote, those other people's lives.
The polls and models that I've seen are assuming a baseline fair election. The current president has no interest in holding a fair election. If it is going to be fair, it will be due to concerted action on the part of many different players, in spite of his wishes. This is an unprecedented situation, it is exceedingly fucked up, and I am assuming nothing. That is the grimmest thing I can think of to say.
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Recommendations for good Turkish movies? Barry? Lürkers?
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Finally, I will go on record as being worried about Florida this year. Do something about Florida, heebie! Now!
12: Mustang, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
12.last
Seconding Mustang and Once Upon a Time in Anatolia. Also Winter Sleep and The Wild Prar Tree also by the director of the latter (you can't really go wrong with Nuri Bilge Ceylan). Also Head-On.
12.last
Seconding Mustang and Once Upon a Time in Anatolia. Also Winter Sleep and The Wild Prar Tree also by the director of the latter (you can't really go wrong with Nuri Bilge Ceylan). Also Head-On.
Went to drop off my ballot at a drop box. Man, it was just a steady stream of people dropping off ballots. Not crowded, but no long breaks either. The volunteer said it'd been like that all day. It was lovely.
13 is amazing. I have the sensation of being a deterministic bot.
I agree with 12. I feel like I should add that if Trump isn't able to cheat enough to win he will still be in office for months before he will be forced to leave. He's going to want to wreck the country and I think the Republicans aren't going to try to stop him.
The radio ad this morning was "the FBI has information about..... Hunter Biden....." It seems like a parody of an October surprise, but who knows.
At this point it looks like the Senate is voting on Amy Coney Barrett on Monday, even though this breaks judiciary subcommittee quorum rules, and the Republicans have the votes to confirm her. Trump is going to try to stay in office regardless of the results of the election in November. The Supreme Court will back him up. Who cares about Biden?
I'm being a bit overly pessimistic to balance out the OP, but seriously, the Supreme Court thing is very bad.
The Democrats really just handled it awfully.
That is, if you're talking about Diane Feinstein, yes she's the worst. Other than that?
Yes, mostly Feinstein.
How about not legitimate the process at all.
25: Avoid praising how well Graham is doing things, maybe?
I don't want to make too big deal about one geriatric Democrat, not when she's voting the right way and just has bad messaging. On the other hand, when she's the Democrat who's in line to be in charge of the relevant committee, maybe this isn't too big a deal!
Your punishment: Hug Senator Graham.
Yes, there is no way she should be allowed into a leadership position.
18: My wife and I drove over to the Franklin County Board of Elections on Morse Road on Tuesday night to drop off our absentee ballots. There was no line, and hardly anyone around at all. It seemed too easy.
20 - i wonder if he is going to try to (almost literally) hold the country hostage in return for a blanket pardon from Biden.
34: He's brought up the possibility of leaving the country. I'm ok with that.
The Democrats really just handled it awfully.
You see this all the time -- people conflating "the Democrats" with "the two or three worst fucking Democrats in the Senate." (See: "The Democrats" screwing up Obamacare by bending to get Lieberman's vote, when Lieberman wasn't even a Democrat at the time.)
I'm a Democrat. I'm very nice. If it were up to Democrats -- or even Senate Democrats -- we'd have something like Medicare for All by now.
How about not legitimate the process at all.
Yes, "the Democrats" should boycott the goddam committtee vote on her nomination.
31: Why don't YOU get a drink with Mitch McConnell.
36: Yeah, this exactly. "The Democrats" are all we've got working for us in government: they aren't all terrible and the ones who are terrible (looking at you, DiFi) aren't terrible all the time. Vaguely blaming all of them for things they have no control over is lazy and I think counterproductive.
Because he looks like he masturbates to pictures of children being tortured.
39 to 37, which, in retrospect, may have been a rhetorical question.
You see this all the time -- people conflating "the Democrats" with "the two or three worst fucking Democrats in the Senate." (See: "The Democrats" screwing up Obamacare by bending to get Lieberman's vote, when Lieberman wasn't even a Democrat at the time.)
Would "The Democrats", which I believe means Chuck Schumer in the Senate, at least be able to put the best Democrats in position to lead crucial hearings, instead of the worst? Or create some sort of coordination for the hearings? I remember hearing about how great The Klob's questioning of ACB was and then a steady stream of dismay as no one else bothered.
Regarding the election, I see that all the pessimists, wet blankets, sticks in the mud, doomsayers and alarmists have spoken up, so my view has been amply represented.
On the glass-half-full side of things, Megan has been telling us for some time that the political future of the US has already played out in California, where the Republican Party has been discredited. This does not strike me as a ridiculous view.
Of course, even in that scenario, a lot of stuff is going to burn.
FWIW, I have expressed my dismay at Feinstein to her San Francisco and Fresno offices with gusto. Several times. Might do it again today.
I called Durbin and Duckworth on the day of to express my disappointment.
41: I think Democrats made a mistake re-electing Feinstein. I don't know, procedurally and politically, what the consequences would be if Schumer tried to strip her of her seniority on the Judiciary Committee. The WaPo discusses some of the issues here.
And of course, the WP article doesn't reckon with your recommendation that Feinstein be stripped of any opportunity "to lead crucial hearings" in the Senate. I think this would be much more of a practical problem than you are willing to acknowledge.
I was so bummed that she won that election, but it was never close. I'd be very happy if she suddenly had reason to no longer be in office. That's my tactful way of saying that I hope she and Lindsay Graham get COVID.
Deep down, the old guard Dems believe the US needs a strong Republican party as a bulwark against their true enemy, the socialist left.
Barbara Boxer wouldn't have fucked up like Feinstein.
[enters softly, stage left]
"Texas."
All those voters are probably newly registered Republicans, since the Democrats didn't focus on registering voters. State polls can be misleading. Stealth Trump voters. The fact that if this isn't a blue mega-tsunami across this great nation, Trump will contest it and maybe win, which will legitimate levels of political violence and corruption that have been infrequent and generally seen as illegitimate in this country in the past.
Pre-emptive despair is best, that is my motto.
51: "As Hugh Keough used to say: 'The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong; but that is the way to bet.'"
The various polling may be inaccurate about the state of the election -- there's genuine reason to worry -- but it is more likely than not that it is basically correct.
Saisegly trying to compile some statistical arguments for caution.
After taking a "mental health day" yesterday, during which I determined that there is enough work around my household for approximately five full-time adults, I logged on at work and found a message from the corporate health insurance company about "Coping with U.S. Election Stress & News Fatigue." It also includes "advice for those living or interacting with others who hold different political beliefs." It does not say "use guided imagery to visualize and stay connected to your employer's bottom line," but that's the gist of it.
36, 38 Maybe it's lousy framing but I think it's pretty clear from context I didn't mean rank and file Democrats, nor even members of Congress like the Squad, et al. I'm talking leadership and they really suck.
51: I would summarize Nate Silver as saying: discount both the registrations and the early turnout as important indicators of the final result.
55: It's worth remembering that plenty of rank and file Democrats suck. Making calls to white, suburban Democrats is a good way to not forget that.
A take that's short-term-optimistic, longer-term less so about the lack of October Surprises helping the GOP: Barr took the job to pioneer political exploitation of the Justice Department, but is not attached to Trump as flagbearer so is not sticking his neck out for him, and will be happy to pass his techniques down to the next GOP admin.
55: You're still looking at one fuckup and blaming the whole leadership for it. Schumer's so, so far from perfect (my god is he far from perfect), but he didn't hug Graham and that's the kind of thing that seems really unlikely to be leadership strategy. It's bad framing but it's also confused thinking.
An interesting map (color coded based on which candidate is polling over 50% in a given state: Biden, Trump, or neither): https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1319044442872053766
I have twice written and erased comments that turn out to just be recapitulations of 57 and 59, but I'll try to add something here: Running stuff is hard. You invariably have to take into account competing interests and institutional issues that you can't easily change.
If you want a leader to cut through all that crap, you might as well just come out and say it: "Drain The Swamp." Is there anybody beyond credulous journalists who thought Trump voters were concerned about corruption? They wanted someone to come in and enforce the will of a homogenous minority against the "special interests."
Now some of these institutional issues can, in fact, be steamrolled if you can gain unanimity in your caucus -- as McConnell in particular has demonstrated. The filibuster must die, and the Supreme Court must expand. But Schumer (and, we hope, Biden) are going to be constrained by the will of the voters and the deficiencies of the media, among other things.
I'm still not sure I added anything to 57 and 59.
61: does an FPP need to redact NickS's last name again?
63: I always say, even if you know my last name, search results for my name are dominated by other people. It's difficult to actually find me.
Anyway, I just signed up for canvassing both days on the weekend before the election. Not sure what I'll do this weekend.
Hugging Graham was dumb, and she should be rewarded for it by being made ambassador to Portugal. But the hug has no impact whatsoever on the confirmation of ACB. That cake was baked in 2016. Graham just blowing by the procedural irregularities also shows the utter pointlessness of all those calls for Schumer et al to use procedural jujitsu -- or Pelosi to impeach Barr -- to derail the ACB nomination. None of it would have worked to do so. McConnell has the votes to do this before the election.
Instead, it's just about 2020 electoral politics. I can imagine there are indeed some votes to be lost from 'why don't The Democrats Fight??' but would guess that the calculation that there are a whole lot more to gain (ok, it's all on the margins) from 'goddam Republicans don't care about ordinary people enough to do Covid relief, all their care about is getting their hard right Supreme Court' is probably sound.
No impact at all on ACB, but it clearly helped Graham's campaign.
62 Trump's 2016 coalition included lots of different people. I'm sure there was a small yet ultimately decisive cohort who bought 'I'm a businessman, I have a plan to bring high wage manufacturing employment back to the upper Midwest at scale, and I know how to get it done.' Now everyone reading these words knew it was a scam, but if only 1% of his voters bought it, that still wins the election.
Those people are surely gone now. Or, more correctly, their wives are gone now.
That said, I don't think the polling should be considered particularly accurate, given the pandemic and its impacts on voting. Turnout is going to be high, but past models about who turns out are maybe not as accurate. I think Trump can totally win this thing, and we're not really going to know until votes are counted. Exit polling will be much less reliable than in the past: so many people will have already voted.
67 Yes. Exile to Portugal is the correct punishment. Not voting for, eg, Steve Bullock because The Democrats are no damn good, and, you know, he's not really up for Socialist Revolution, is a really bad punishment.
I'm not saying any of you guys are buying *that* scam. But if only 2% of our voters do, that can lose the election.
69: Portugal is a nice place. Can't we send her somewhere else?
Now some of these institutional issues can, in fact, be steamrolled
Turns out you don't have to have a quorum either. Good to know.
23: "The Supreme Court will back him up."
How many divisions has the Supreme Court?
How many divisions has the Supreme Court?
Well, how many divisions has the Congress?
How many divisions has the President?
No impact at all on ACB, but it clearly helped Graham's campaign.
What's the evidence here? Graham is favored to win, but he's been slipping in the polls, fwicked.
I thought he got a clear bump in the polls that was timed to be the DiFi thanks and hug, but I think that from reading tweets blaming her. Did it not happen?
Even if the bump went away, it's a huge error.
74: 11. Two airborne, seven infantry, one armoured and one cavalry. The rest are National Guard (7) or training formations (8).
I counted National Guard and Marines.
I was considering making the same snippy answer (how many divisions does the President have? All of them!), but it's a real question with this president in a way it usually wouldn't be -- if, god forbid, something about this election came down to the possible use of military force, whose orders would the military take?
It would be irresponsible to speculate, but it looks like Mitch put on the ring with the Resurrection Stone and is now carrying a poorly contained dead curse.
80: I worry much less about the military than the Department of Justice and the Supreme Court.
It looks like there was a Siena/NYT poll that came out the same Thursday the 15th and had Graham up 6, but that was conducted starting 10/9 so it couldn't have incorporated that event to any appreciable fraction. Two polls since, that include the 15th in their timespan, both have Harrison up 2.
By a process of pure logic, I think he would be up by 4 in the polls if she hadn't provided Graham with some good press.
82 is correct.
A huge amount of military leaders have been anti-Trump, or at least anti-Trump's antics (which at this point is the same thing) due to their innate respect for discipline, maintaining tradition, not wanting to be despised by every other country on earth, etc (and being highly educated). Except for the religious maniac Jerry Boykin types. And the military in general is highly diverse and young.
Police leadership, being kind of like military leadership but without the training, discipline, chain of command, education, or diversity, and seeing themselves as benefiting from a political dynamic where they are perpetually at war with groups of people who vote Democratic... not so much.
"innate" may be the wrong word. Drilled into them, not innate. Inculcated? Is that what inculcated means?
76, 83: This Nate Cohn tweet was what influenced a lot of that discussion. He said Graham's showing improved a lot at the end of their polling window, which overlapped the confirmation hearings. He didn't mention Feinstein's behavior himself, but other people on Twitter brought that in after the hearings concluded.
81- it's not just his hands
https://twitter.com/riotwomennn/status/1319029347336978434?s=20
Before I click, that's not a picture of his penis, right? Asking because it's been a week.
Never mind. I trust you. That really doesn't look good though. That's not a healthy skin tone.
In hindsight, not clear why I wouldn't have been completely nauseated by images of Mitch McConnell rotting away before our eyes. Not clicking those links is fine.
Also, Iran! What is Iran's strategy with the election meddling? I remember all the way back to January, but...
Officials briefed on the intelligence said that Mr. Ratcliffe had accurately summarized the preliminary conclusion about Iran. But Tehran's hackers may have accomplished that mission simply by assembling public information and then routing the threatening emails through Saudi Arabia, Estonia and other countries to hide their tracks. One official compared the Iranian action as single A basebll, while the Russians are major leaguers.
The threat of Iranian interference, officials said, was real and troubling. But other current and former officials said there was little doubt that Russia remained a greater threat and questioned why the focus was on Iran on Wednesday night. Administration officials said the news conference reflected the urgency of the intelligence about Iran. But some saw politics at play. Mr. Ratcliffe's focus on the intelligence about Iran would potentially benefit Mr. Trump politically.
This makes it seem like their strategy is "self-own," but idk.
Would it really be all that surprising if McConnell turned out to be a zombie?
No, but he probably just fell and got a bunch of really bad bruises because he's on blood thinners.
From the end of the NYT article, this guy isn't convinced by the Iran attribution. His argument seems logical (but I don't know if it's true). Certainly looks more like the reality I inhabit.
Huh, looks like no one posted this super on-topic-for-this-thread Alexandra Petri column! So great!
(I can't make a case for its relevance to teddy bears or Sohla.)
Oh, wait, now I see that President's top two priorities for a second term are (a) a permanent settlement on the moon and (b) manned mission to Mars. To think I wasted my vote on that earthbound loser JB.