"Will you shut up, man?" US Politics October 2020

Republican-controlled legislatures and their ability to choose electors, which they are champing at the bit for any excuse to deploy

Minnesota's "blessed" with a split legislature rn.

Right, and I guess it would take a SCOTUS travesty to even allow the interpretation that would let legislators pick the electors directly, but PA and WI are fully R controlled

(that is, an interpretation that would let legislators pick electors and also not be subject to a governor's veto)

you are thinking way beyond me. where does it go from it being about votes counted to 'legislators picking electors'

It's a "see what sticks" kinda election.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/10/trump-plan-legislature-appoint-electors-end-democracy.html

describes it better than I can

Tho I admit I'm lost now too.

Avoid this if you're allergic to optimism:

National Journal has unlocked my column early, here it is, might need to fill out a form to access. Unlocked link: https://t.co/hVIxNV7YIp

— Charlie Cook (@CharlieCookDC) October 30, 2020

Not allergic to, but for sure no longer fluent in.

What is "optimism"?

It's this thing in quotes.

good morning!

only the accelerationist in me is optimistic these days

good morning!

love you guys :)

I will say that in California it's kinda easy to be chill simply because we've been doing absentee/ballot drop off for years and this year will be busy but not unprecedented. Good story here with a Bay Area focus:

https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Bay-Area-s-early-votes-are-pouring-in-15682880.php

As noted, in SF itself essentially half the registered voters in the city have already voted. With the further opened stations over the weekend, that number'll just spike up.

My sense is that this election is shaping up to be rather lopsided, and suppressing late votes hurts Republicans more than Democrats. However, if any action is taken by a state to wipe out a large amount of votes and reverse the results, I don't see how that winds up with anything less than an end to the country. I can't imagine that a massive portion of the country will just sit back and watch its votes be trashed and not take immediate action.

the cook article is nice to think about, but fails to account for all the chicanery. makes it hard to take seriously.

Yeah I'm getting quite confident too, I've noticed that since the first debate there has been virtually no good polling for Trump whatsoever, this is nothing like in 2016 when Trump was ticking up every day leading up to the election and we were all like "come on that asshole is not getting that many votes"

but the chicanery! the chicanery, i say!

It's the absence of changing trends that seems to be driving a lot of current mood, combined with the still accelerating turnout. Everything's holding steady and Polling Twitter seems to be astoundingly sanguine more and more. Silver pretty much just said "Eh, nothing much will change, only interested in the last Pennsylvania polls."

To my mind the funniest anecdote is Ossoff ripping Perdue a new one and then Perdue going "Uh" and dropping out of the last debate.

Ossoff's finest moment, made possible because Perdue stood there and took it.

Given all the shenanigans being pulled with the post office prior to most states' early voting windows, my hunch was that almost everyone intended on dropping their ballots off in person anyway. Which means, another mostly botched attempt at supervillainy.

Right -- my impression was anecdotal there but that was being heavily pushed in response to DeJoy's summer foolishness.

I was going to post that I actually think we'd have a war on our hands if a substantial amount of ballots are thrown out.

Pretty much where I'm at right now. The fear that's in the back of my mind is whether an overwhelming Biden/Democratic victory will be a call to war by the other side.

Here's the stuff worrying me about Florida:

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/29/miami-voter-turnout-democrats-433643https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/29/miami-voter-turnout-democrats-433643

that link didn't work

is this it?

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/29/miami-voter-turnout-democrats-433643

there’s good points
some bad points
It all works out
I'm just a little freaked out

Hold up, now Tucker says he has the documents, but things everyone should lay off Hunter?

So "blame the guy who fathered him" is the strategy? Bold strategy when Trump's the opponent.

Aren't we not supposed to read too much into early voting numbers re FL

I read too much, period.

This other Politico piece reads like hubristic bullshit. Why doesn't any journalist interviewing one of these "shy Trump voters are real!" assholes ever ask how come Trump has never broken 50% once in four years? Even when he was newly inaugurated, they wouldn't stick up for him? Just how shy are these fucking mythical people? Do they disintegrate on contact with sunlight?

Duh. Shy Trump are literally vampires.

so sick of hearing about the shy Trump voter, how many studies do we need that show these people by and large don't exist

Biden campaign trolling the Q people hard with this one.

This storm will pass, and a new day will come. pic.twitter.com/PewrMRuRXx

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) October 30, 2020

We're too
Shy shy
But Trump is our guy

OK, I'm kinda glad I don't follow the Q thing.

And Silver literally just a minute ago:

The race is not tightening if you use any sort of robust methodology or look at the better polling. The tightening is almost entirely confined to a group of 3 or 4 pollsters that release a lot of polls and so can dominate polling averages that don't adjust for house effects, etc.

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) October 30, 2020

If anything he sounds bored and wanting to look at other things now.

Meanwhile in Houston:

JUST IN: Harris County, TX has surpassed its final 2016 turnout of 1.34 million, setting an all-time record.

That's about 54% of the county’s 2.48 million registered voters. Per @HarrisVotes, final turnout was between ~61-63% in ’08, ’12 & ’16, when the voter rolls were smaller.

— Jasper Scherer (@jaspscherer) October 30, 2020

That's pretty nuts, i hope they can keep the momentum going through election day.

was gonna say that's why I'm not really worried about "this one county has lower turnout right now"

xpost -- Strictly speaking they can't -- tomorrow is the final day of early voting in Texas. That's why Harris is going to, well, Harris tomorrow, as part of a final push, also why they have 24 hour poll stations open (in large part because they made an accomodation for night shift workers and the like).

At this point, I'm not really worried about the polls. The chicanery keeps me up at night, though. (Also the fact that I still haven't received notification that my ballot has been accepted! It's been almost two weeks!)

Last time I voted in Houston (2004, I believe) the poll worker informed me my sister had voted a few hours before, that my sister was precocious as a child, and that she could tell we were going to vote the same way. I had no idea who this lady was.

Basically, this Susan Glasser piece:

I have a different fear this time: What if the polls are right -- and Trump still wins? The election may be over, but the counting is not. His path to victory through the Electoral College may rest with only a few states where Election Night results are ambiguous enough that Trump could question them and, instead, pursue a win via friendly Republican state legislatures and the pro-Trump Supreme Court.

The pressure to shut down the PA vote count is going to be insane.

Even if the 538 forecast for PA proves accurate (Biden +5), given partisan disparities in mail-in voting, Trump could hold a 16 POINT lead by the end of Tue night.https://t.co/auZtvr1PuP pic.twitter.com/ErmMcjgDGn

— Justin Sandefur (@JustinSandefur) October 29, 2020

I refuse to accept that

I’m now pushing my cowlick and my eyebrow hairs growing longer every day into my eyelashes, the brush of it on my lashes comforts me