turnout reports, voting problems, and last minute dirty tricks

[Tender Branson]

Updated weather:

Sunny in the East and West, rain and stormy weather in the Central US.

http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/.e/interactive/html5-video-media/2016/11/07/election_forecast_radar.mp4

[Tender Branson]

Something to think about:

I noticed that one person voted by absentee in Dixville Notch.

If just one person voted absentee and it was counted there at midnight at the precinct and not at the district or state level, how is the secrecy of vote guaranteed for that person ? The vote counters will know who that person is and how that person voted, no ?

[Tender Branson]

Something to think about:

I noticed that one person voted by absentee in Dixville Notch.

If just one person voted absentee and it was counted there at midnight at the precinct and not at the district or state level, how is the secrecy of vote guaranteed for that person ? The vote counters will know who that person is and how that person voted, no ?

I think it's likely in a place that small, that the how people vote is probably well known.

I just watched the video of Dixville Notch voting.

It seems they did not count absentees seperately, but they threw the ballot into the box with the others.

In that case, the secrecy should be guaranteed ...

[Tender Branson]

CNN just showed about a half mile long line in front of a VA precinct at 6am.

(And the people in line were about 98% white ...)

[Tender Branson]

Tim Kaine seems to be one of those early voters ...

Early morning voters: he just voted at 6am (!).

[Tender Branson]

Btw: that precinct with the huge line in VA was located in Loudoun County.

[Tender Branson]

CNN with another look at a massive Raleigh (NC) line, which was about 100% white too.

Now Parma, OH. I cannot spot any Black or Latino voter in that precinct either ...

[Tender Branson]

OK, Parma is 93% White says Wikipedia, so no surprise really ...

[Tender Branson]

Now Parma, OH. I cannot spot any Black or Latino voter in that precinct either ...

Maybe you should read about that specific city's (racial) history.

Plz give me a summary. What's so special about Parma, OH ?

[Tender Branson]

CNN with another look at a massive Raleigh (NC) line, which was about 100% white too.

Now Parma, OH. I cannot spot any Black or Latino voter in that precinct either ...

Are you going to be on the lookout for Blaxicasians all day?

Nah, I was just looking for clues if there's a massive TRUMP-leaning election day surge on the way.

[Tender Branson]

I wonder if Edison exit polls all states this time and not just some swing states ...

For example, from what I remember there was no TX exit poll last time.

[Tender Branson]

I am shocked at how long the lines are in many places in the US.

Don't the people have to go to work or school at some point ?

Why not assign every voter to a certain precinct in which they HAVE to vote and not crowd single precincts. Also, for f**ks sake, simply create more precincts.

I have never seen a precinct here in Austria where people wait more than 5 minutes.

[Tender Branson]

The ordeal surrounding voting in the US always sounds so bizarre. I never had to wait in line or even spend more than a few minutes to bother about voting.

Though I guess inner city area and not being the victim of voter suppression goes a long way towards that.

Yeah, it is what happens when elections are run on the cheap. In Mexico they open nearly 150,000 polling stations, and no station can have more than 750 registered voters. I have never had to walk more than 3 or 4 blocks to a station, and the longest I once waited was about 15 or 20 min: usually you show up, vote your 6 ballots and are out in 15 in total. But it is a huge logistical exercise, and costs a pretty penny.

Roughly the same like here and in Sweden.

Austria for example has 11.000 precincts for 6.4 million voters. That's 580 voters per precinct, but 15% vote with postal ballots, so it's closer to 500 per precinct.

In the US, it seems there are about 5.000 voters per precinct ...

[Tender Branson]

I am shocked at how long the lines are in many places in the US.

Don't the people have to go to work or school at some point ?

Why not assign every voter to a certain precinct in which they HAVE to vote and not crowd single precincts. Also, for f**ks sake, simply create more precincts.

I have never seen a precinct here in Austria where people wait more than 5 minutes.

They are assigned to precincts they have to vote in.

That's good, but it then seems the problem is simply that there are too few precincts.

And the additional problem of election day being a workday, instead of a Sunday like here where voting throughout the day is more even - rather than in the US, where people line up before and after work.

[Tender Branson]

The ordeal surrounding voting in the US always sounds so bizarre. I never had to wait in line or even spend more than a few minutes to bother about voting.

Though I guess inner city area and not being the victim of voter suppression goes a long way towards that.

Yeah, it is what happens when elections are run on the cheap. In Mexico they open nearly 150,000 polling stations, and no station can have more than 750 registered voters. I have never had to walk more than 3 or 4 blocks to a station, and the longest I once waited was about 15 or 20 min: usually you show up, vote your 6 ballots and are out in 15 in total. But it is a huge logistical exercise, and costs a pretty penny.

Roughly the same like here and in Sweden.

Austria for example has 11.000 precincts for 6.4 million voters. That's 580 voters per precinct, but 15% vote with postal ballots, so it's closer to 500 per precinct.

In the US, it seems there are about 5.000 voters per precinct ...

We do not have any domestic postal vote. If you are out of town for a national election you could go to one of the special precincts set for that purpose  in places like airports, but there are only 900 of them nationwide, if I recall correctly, and they have few ballots to avoid them being used for fraud.  The only postal ballot is for those resident abroad, and using this option is non-trivial, so there are only a few tens of thousands of such votes in total: with an electorate of over 80 mln.

BTW, who staffs your precincts?

Municipal clerks and party officials from all parties. All parties have a strong organisation in all towns and many volunteers, so it's pretty easy to find election officials here who are supervising the election process.

[Tender Branson]

Here in Austria, there are also some precincts (some small towns of only a 100 or 200 people) which already close at 11am or noon or 1pm, because 80-90% have already voted by then.

[Tender Branson]

The ordeal surrounding voting in the US always sounds so bizarre. I never had to wait in line or even spend more than a few minutes to bother about voting.

Though I guess inner city area and not being the victim of voter suppression goes a long way towards that.

Yeah, it is what happens when elections are run on the cheap. In Mexico they open nearly 150,000 polling stations, and no station can have more than 750 registered voters. I have never had to walk more than 3 or 4 blocks to a station, and the longest I once waited was about 15 or 20 min: usually you show up, vote your 6 ballots and are out in 15 in total. But it is a huge logistical exercise, and costs a pretty penny.

Roughly the same like here and in Sweden.

Austria for example has 11.000 precincts for 6.4 million voters. That's 580 voters per precinct, but 15% vote with postal ballots, so it's closer to 500 per precinct.

In the US, it seems there are about 5.000 voters per precinct ...

We do not have any domestic postal vote. If you are out of town for a national election you could go to one of the special precincts set for that purpose  in places like airports, but there are only 900 of them nationwide, if I recall correctly, and they have few ballots to avoid them being used for fraud.  The only postal ballot is for those resident abroad, and using this option is non-trivial, so there are only a few tens of thousands of such votes in total: with an electorate of over 80 mln.

BTW, who staffs your precincts?

Municipal clerks and party officials from all parties. All parties have a strong organisation in all towns and many volunteers, so it's pretty easy to find election officials here who are supervising the election process.

We have a draft, jury-duty style. For a federal election it is nearly 1,500,000 staffers and trained substitutes, which are called up and trained by 38,000 temporary electoral commission employees over several months. Parties send additional observers, of course (all 9 of them, not counting the state-only parties). Incredible exercise.

The ÖVP Interior Minister also suggested a jury-duty system for election workers after the original presidential runoff in May with mandatory e-learning programs. Even though the e-learning system was introduced now, the jury-duty system was scrapped because the party officials said that they will easily find the staff that is needed.

[Tender Branson]

What I'd find extremely funny/or shocking would be if there are long lines in NV or FL today, where 70% have already voted early ...

[Tender Branson]

in the infamous austrian presidential election 2016 the city of vienna used 1500 voting stations for 1150000 possible voters.

sounds like philly is similar.

In Vienna, 25% of all voters voted by postal ballot though. So, it's also 500 voters per precinct like in the rural parts of the country.

[Tender Branson]

Roughly the same like here and in Sweden.

Austria for example has 11.000 precincts for 6.4 million voters. That's 580 voters per precinct, but 15% vote with postal ballots, so it's closer to 500 per precinct.

In the US, it seems there are about 5.000 voters per precinct ...

We have 6000 precincts for 7 million voters, but only 60% vote on ED.  We don't have postal voting, but in-person early voting only. And when voting early, you may vote where you want. In fact, I have always voted early.

And we have 80-90% turnout

I know, Austria used to be like Sweden turnout-wise until the mid-1990s with 90-95% turnouts.

Obviously, this was because of (non-enforced) mandatory voting, which was scrapped in the early 1990s.

Now, it's "just" 75-85% in most elections - which is not all that bad.

Early voting only exists in some state elections here, in Styria/Carinthia and Burgenland. Every state can make their own voting laws (everything is pretty de-centralized here, like in the US).

[Tender Branson]

A Chinese monkey-oracle picked Trump:

[Tender Branson]

Not sure if this was posted or where it should go but a couple of FL counties are apparently live-updating turnout: http://www.livevoterturnout.com/Hills/ElectionDayPartyTurnout.html

Interesting. The county is averaging 18.000 voters per hour so far. That would be an additional 220.000 election day voters. For a total of 645.000 voters. In 2012, Hillsborough had 543.000 voters, an increase of 19%.

For Florida, this would mean 10.2 million votes today, after 8.5 million in 2012.

[Tender Branson]

In Hillsborough County, the early/absentee vote was D+7.

The election day vote so far is R+5.

[Tender Branson]

Tender's prediction:

* Turnout will hit 10 million today in FL (up 20% from 2012), based on hourly voting reports from Broward and Hillsborough Counties.