Voted on the way to work. No line, 5 minutes in and out.

remember in Nov 2016 as we watched the NYT projections slowly being integrated and updated w real voting data?

We knew a couple of hours earlier than network reporting that Donald Trump had won.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/1...in-email&login=email

For many Times readers, the memory of election night in 2016 is inseparable from the image of a semicircular chart that has since become known — affectionately or not — as “the needle.”

The needle analyzes incomplete results to show who is on track to win an election.

unlike in 2016, we will not offer a single needle to tell you the overall likelihood of who will win the presidency.

Why? The short version: mail voting.

NYT will have needles for Georgia, Florida, and North Carolina

Because of the pandemic, we expect more mail-in votes than ever before. These are often not representative of the final vote totals — this year, we expect them to skew more Democratic than votes cast in person on Election Day. But to interpret results responsibly, we need to understand what has been counted. Unfortunately for the needle, most counties and precincts don’t reliably report their vote by vote method.

Specifically, why can’t you do a national needle?

A lot of it boils down to mail voting.

The needle we published in 2016 was fundamentally simple: It looked at the reported vote to make inferences about the remaining vote, based on the demographic characteristics of each county.

This works well if geography is the primary reason partial results might be unrepresentative. Let’s say, for instance, that rural Virginia has counted its votes but that Northern Virginia hasn’t. Northern Virginia’s more urban and Democratic-leaning Washington suburbs have been among the slowest to report in many recent elections. In that case, the needle would say “aha!” and realize that the rest of the vote would be very Democratic. It might predict the Democrat to be in a better position, even though the Republican led in the tabulated count.

This year, an additional reason the results will be unrepresentative is the method of vote count. Our needle needs to know not only where votes remain uncounted, but also whether they were cast mainly on Election Day, early in-person or via mail. For most states, we just won’t have that data in real time.

There are other challenges, like how we’re supposed to know whether all of the votes are counted, especially in states that accept late-arriving postmarked ballots. But the additional problem of not knowing the vote by vote type is the single biggest issue we face this year.

Will you have Senate needles? Two of these states have interesting Senate races, too.

Unfortunately, no. We’re focusing our needle attention on the presidential race. We don’t get many opportunities to test this stuff, and we’re reducing the number of moving pieces to maximize our chance of success.

Can the needle make race calls?

No. The needle does not make race calls or offer definitive statements. As always, race calls or projections will be made by organizations like The Associated Press, CNN and Fox News.

How does it work?

We start the night with a weak expectation of the final result for every precinct, by vote method. An average precinct in one of these states may have around 2,000 voters. If you’re in one of these three states, we have an estimate for how absentee, early and Election Day votes will break down in your neighborhood.

How do we make these estimates? We use our Times/Siena polls to estimate how each registered voter in these states will vote, based on demographic characteristics and whether that person voted early, according to state records. We adjust these estimates to match the pre-election polling, and then we aggregate our estimates up to the precinct, by vote method.

Next, the results. Some of our colleagues will be gathering and validating precinct results from hundreds of web pages across these states, in real time. We’ll pass those results off to the needle, which will compare the results with our pre-election expectations. If one candidate is doing better than we expect, our expectations for the remaining votes will shift accordingly. The same concept applies to turnout. If the Election Day vote is higher than expected, the needle will expect higher Election Day turnout elsewhere.

As the night goes on, the needle will start to make even more specific inferences. It might be able to glean, for instance, that Election Day turnout is higher in Black precincts than we expected, but not in white ones. Or it might figure out that Mr. Trump is doing better in mostly white working-class rural areas, but not elsewhere.

The last step is simple arithmetic: Add together the counted result and our best guess of the remaining vote to get our estimate for the final vote.

Reminder for Virginia:

The 2014 version showed Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, on track to win for hours before the reported totals did, even though Mr. Warner trailed in the reported vote count until 99 percent of precincts had reported

Decided to vote for Biden. He said he’ll take care of everyone like they’re family. Can’t wait for my $85k/month Ukrainian oil company job!

Just a friendly reminder. . .

Here in Lees Summit, Mo polls opened at 6AM. Wife and I arrived at our voting spot at 545AM. Long line,and got even longer behind us. Line moved quickly right at 6. In and out no problem.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Cliff,

Here in Norman OK, I was able to get my vote cast in about an hour. I arrived at the polling location about 15min before they opened. Saw one guy wearing a Trump hat. Nobody got on his case about it. He probably took it off once he entered the building. It was a long line, but moved pretty quick. Weather was nice and crisp as the start to a beautiful sunny day. I'm hopeful we'll see a red tsunami that will overcome the best efforts of the DNC's criminal enterprises.

quote:

Originally posted by Belgian Blue:

I'm hopeful we'll see a red tsunami that will overcome the best efforts of the DNC's criminal enterprises.

In Colorado this morning, there was a beautiful red sunrise. I took it as prophetic.

Remember the classic saying:

"Red in the morning,
liberals take warning.
Riot in my city,
on your soul God take pity."

GOP Poll Watcher Denied Entry In Philadelphia Days After State AG Says 'Trump Will Lose'

https://www.zerohedge.com/poli...says-trump-will-lose

A Republican poll watcher in the Philadelphia, PA was denied entry to a polling location despite having a valid poll watcher's certificate.

In a viral video posted by attorney Will Chamberlain, which gained over 700,000 views in less than two hours, poll watcher Gary Feldman can be seen attempting to enter a polling station, only to be turned away by workers who claim his certificate 'isn't valid for this location.'

"Call the police!" says one poll worker, adding. "If you legal, call the cops."

"I have a city-wide watcher's certificate," said Feldman, to which another poll worker replied "That's not for this location."

Poll watchers are allowed to challenge the identity or residency status of a voter in the event they suspect fraud, along with inspecting voting machines and making sure poll workers aren't influencing the vote in any way.

The incident happened days after Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, tweeted: "If all the votes are added up in PA, Trump is going to lose."



More at link:

Voting lines in PA

In this video, Tim shows that they are posting big golden rods at the doors of the polling sites.
In PA all that stuff needs to be a certain distance away from the doors.

Troubling news from Hancock County Ohio. A friend of our pastor told him that his wife went in to vote this morning and they told her she had already voted (which of course she had not). She had to fill out a provisional ballot. They also told her that she was the third person that had that situation this morning.

Dropped off my ballot at the Walmart dropoff, zero people in line...course I did this at 6:20a my time

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:

quote:

Electioneering at a Polling Place....Illegal Activity in most (all?) states!

Here in MO it must be at least 25' from entrance.

50 feet here in VA I think; I was spared having to run the gauntlet by the way they set up the school gym, and the parking lot within 20 feet of the door. No one waiting to vote in front of me, four or five folks at desks completing their ballot. In and out in five minutes.

British gambler bets $5 million on Trump in biggest-ever political wager

https://nypost.com/2020/11/03/...-record-setting-bet/

A British gambler has reportedly staked $5 million on President Trump winning Tuesday’s election — a wager believed to be the largest-ever political bet.

The former banker used private bookmakers registered on the Caribbean island of Curacao for the bet at odds of 37/20 — meaning he could get a $15 million payout, sources told the Sun.

The mystery gambler confidently went all-in after consulting with “Trump camp insiders,” according to the report.

“Word of this bet has done the rounds and we think it’s the biggest ever made on politics,” one betting industry source told the UK paper.

While illegal in the US, betting on politics is popular in the UK and many other countries — and the 2020 election is shaping up to be the biggest betting event of all time.

Trump beat the odds in 2016, and gamblers appear keen on a repeat performance this time.

“Donald Trump will likely wake up with a spring in his step as more and more people think he could stay for another term,” the gambling comparison site OddsChecker said Tuesday.

In the last four hours, 71% of money wagered on the 2020 US election was on Trump, the site said — which the site’s head of marketing, Sam Eaton, called a “remarkable” swing.

“The 2020 election is following a very similar betting pattern to the one we witnessed back in 2016. The closer we got to Election Day, the more money came for Donald Trump,” Eaton said.

“A lot of part-time gamblers will opt to wager on the election today, and naturally given the bigger returns on Trump, they will likely side with the current president.”

One bookmaker, Paddy Power, told the Sun that 93% of wagers had been on Trump over the previous 24 hours.

Jessica O’Reilly of Ladbrokes said that “even at the eleventh hour, punters are continuing to back Trump at the odds on offer.”

Don’t you wish you had 5 million to throw out there for a bet.

I mean I’ll put 20 bucks down on Trump.

Stayed at Trump doral, and got to speak to the president!! there were about 20 of us in the valet area when he was heading out at 9:30am, he walked to the beast and then went past it and came over to us. He stayed for about 5 minutes and just chatted with us.

I got to thank him, that was a bucket list item for me. He seemed genuinely happy to take a moment and chat.

It was an amazing experience.

photos when i get back to the big computer!

Go get em DJT!

quote:

Originally posted by Timdogg6:
Stayed at Trump doral, and got to speak to the president!! there were about 20 of us in the valet area when he was heading out at 9:30am, he walked to the beast and then went past it and came over to us. He stayed for about 5 minutes and just chatted with us.

I got to thank him, that was a bucket list item for me. He seemed genuinely happy to take a moment and chat.

It was an amazing experience.

photos when i get back to the big computer!

Go get em DJT!

You should also post here, What's your "Brush with Greatness"?.

That is very cool TimDogg6. Something you will always remember. What a few minutes!

quote:

Originally posted by rat2306:

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:

quote:

Electioneering at a Polling Place....Illegal Activity in most (all?) states!

Here in MO it must be at least 25' from entrance.

50 feet here in VA I think; I was spared having to run the gauntlet by the way they set up the school gym, and the parking lot within 20 feet of the door. No one waiting to vote in front of me, four or five folks at desks completing their ballot. In and out in five minutes.

Candidate materials have to be at least 100 ft from the doors here.

flashguy

Our precinct is very Republican. It was the best turnout I have ever seen. I've never had to wait more than 20-30 minutes, tops. It took 1 hour and 45 minutes; my family and I loved every moment. We knew that 80-90% of the votes are Republican.



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