Analysis: There's A Whole Lotta Voting Going On!
Every week NDN publishes its Poll Roundup, a deep dive into recent polling and political trends. You can sign up to receive it each week and feel free to review previous editions too. NDN is also now holding in depth discussions about the 2020 Election every Wednesday at 2pm ET – join us and feel free to invite others too. This piece was updated on Friday morning, October 16th and was cited in Greg Sargent's smart new piece looking at all these people voting!
Polls have been telling us that interest in voting this year was at historic levels. In a Tweet a few days ago election analyst Nate Silver noted that a new Gallup survey found one measure of voter enthusiasm among the highest it has ever recorded, slightly above late 2008 measures. A recent Harvard/IOP study found vote intent among young voters to be significantly higher than 2016, and on par with the big youth turnout year of 2008. We know that 2018 was a very high turnout election, and all indications have been that this one will be too.
And what we are seeing in the early days of the 2020 voting window is that turnout is very high indeed. A new Washington Post story reports:
“With less than three weeks to go before Nov. 3, roughly 15 million Americans have already voted in the fall election, reflecting an extraordinary level of participation despite barriers erected by the coronavirus pandemic — and setting a trajectory that could result in the majority of voters casting ballots before Election Day for the first time in U.S. history.
In Georgia this week, voters waited as long as 11 hours to cast their ballots on the first day of early voting. In North Carolina, nearly 1 in 5 of roughly 500,000 who have returned mail ballots so far did not vote in the last presidential election. In Michigan, more than 1 million people — roughly one-fourth of total turnout in 2016 — have already voted.
The picture is so stark that election officials around the country are reporting record early turnout, much of it in person, meaning that more results could be available on election night than previously thought.
So far, much of the early voting appears to be driven by heightened enthusiasm among Democrats. Of the roughly 3.5 million voters who have cast ballots in six states that provide partisan breakdowns, registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by roughly 2 to 1, according to a Washington Post analysis of data in Florida, Iowa, Maine, Kentucky, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.”
So people are voting in big numbers, and about two thirds of those who’ve voted are Democrats. A new YouGov poll finds that 80% of Democrats (80%!) are planning on voting before Election Day. Remarkable news indeed.
To follow early voting tallies as they come in, we recommend following Professor Michael McDonald and his US Elections Project site, and Tom Bonior of TargetSmart and a site he and his team have put together.
If you haven’t made your vote plan yet, be sure to do so by using the I Will Vote site, and be sure to vote early, perhaps on the very first day, however you choose to vote.
Many states now allow you to track the status of your ballot if you have mailed it in or dropped it off. I checked the status of my vote this morning here in DC, and found that it has been accepted - was really cool to see. It is important to check the status of your absentee ballots for if anything has gone wrong you still have time to fix it and make sure your vote is counted.
What This Big Early Vote Means for Election Night
This very heavy early Democratic vote is going to make it harder for the President to disrupt, contest or steal the election in at least four ways:
1. Every day which goes on it becomes clearer our voting systems are working as intended, and that people are being able to have their say. The process looks and feels legitimate, and it will just be harder to claim it has been corrupted somehow.
2. Any planned Election Day disruption by the President or his “poll watchers” will have a far more limited impact as few Democrats will be voting on Election Day.
3. In theory, fewer absentee ballots will be arriving after Election Day in those states which allow post-election counting to take place. Trumpian efforts to disallow these late arriving and/or counted ballots will also have a far more limited impact if somehow successful.
4. A majority of the important battleground states count their absentee and early votes before Election Day, and many release those tallies as soon as the polls close. This means that on Election night big states like Florida and North Carolina will be starting the night off with potentially significant Biden leads. While Trump is likely to make it close as the night goes on, he may never actually lead in states which Biden eventually wins and which count ahead. This will make any premature claim of victory by Trump on Election night much more challenging.
This Washington Post article does a good job at breaking down how critical states count their absentee ballots. Only 2 of the Presidential battleground states start counting their ballots on Election Day (though Michigan only starts counting the day before):
Ballots proceeded upon receipt – AZ, CO, GA, MN, NC, NV (really good)
One week or more before Election Day – FL, KY, ME, OH, TX (good)
Less than a week before Election Day – IA, MT, MI, NH, SC (okay)
Processing starts on Election Day – AL, MS, PA, WI (ugh)
We will have a good sense of where the Senate stands on Election Night as AK, AZ, CO, GA, KS, KY, ME, NC, TX should be complete or almost complete that night. AL, IA, MS, MT, SC will likely come very late that night or a day or two after Election Day as their counting process starts later than these other states. A New York Times look at all this does a very thorough job looking at how the counting will work in key Senate races.
Based on what states can count ballots received after Election Day, when they begin counting their absentees and how close things may be it’s pretty clear we won’t know the outcome of AL, IA, PA, MI, OH, WI until after Election Day. Though if Biden is winning in PA, MI and WI by the margins he currently holds it is unlikely that Trump will end the night with a decisive lead in any of these states – again making it far harder for him to prematurely declare himself the winner.
One wonders whether the President's incessant attacks on the integrity of our voting system isn't a major cause of the high Democratic turnout we are seeing. The issue of voting, and how people vote, has been a top issue for months now. Folks have been talking about it, discussing their own vote plans with others. It's been top of mind - and when early voting began, they were ready!
Anyway, this early and enthusiastic vote is just great to see, and raises the likelihood we will know the winner on Election night.
