ggait wrote: ↑Mon Jul 13, 2020 4:10 pm
I will be doing the same thing I always do. In bed by 9pm and even with our new dog, still up at 4:30. Who knows with all the mail in ballots it may not
be official for many weeks.
Once established, mail in voting usually allows for much faster announcements of election results. Out here in CO with 100% mail voting, preliminary result are available within minutes of the polls closing.
Most people drop off their ballots into drop boxes that are open 24/7 rather than use the mail. And most of that dropping is done in advance -- most often the weekend before. So by the time you get to Tuesday election day, the vast majority of the voting has already happened and has already been counted. The votes that dribble in on election day and following are small numbers and usually don't affect the outcome.
But who knows what is going to happen with the many states changing their voting procedures on the fly for 2020.
Agreed that mail in voting is the way to go. And I suspect it is where every state will be headed sooner or later.
The key to quick announcements of results, though, is early counting of the mail in ballots and official announcements of partial vote counts. Traditionally, the networks have relied on exit polling, which is more difficult and perhaps less accurate if a large percentage of voters mail in their ballots.
Pretty sure this is correct, although I have not double checked it: as of right now in Pennsylvania, they can’t begin counting the mail in ballots until the polls close on election day.
In our primary in New Jersey last week, I think the procedures allowed counting of mail ins to begin at 7 AM on election day. At least in the races I was following, which weren’t particularly close, the elections weren’t called until the following day.
Don’t know how it works in other states, but in New Jersey, under the pre-mail in system, there were 20 precincts in my town. After the polls closed, each precinct sent a runner to the town hall with the print outs from the machines. Results for the town were tabulated at the town hall and then sent to the county. There are 21 counties in New Jersey. Each county then sends their results to the state. Sounds time-consuming, but it actually moves quite quickly. We almost always get results in New Jersey the evening of election day.
Under the mail in system in NJ, as long as the ballot is postmarked by election day and received within 48 hours, it is counted. Although we have had no-reason absentee balloting for years, the large majority of voters still have gone to the polls in prior elections.
In our primary last week, there was a heavy push by the state for mail in balloting. The number of in person precincts in my town was reduced from 20 to 3 or 4. Mail in ballots were sent to the county not the town. There were also drop boxes.
Don’t know what they do in Colorado, but in New Jersey they check each mail in ballot to ensure that signatures match up. Didn’t talk to anybody who actually did the work, but that sounds quite time consuming. And since they could only begin that work at 7 AM on election day, I understand why our results were delayed somewhat.
Not sure about this, but I think they did release official results on a rolling basis which to a degree helped expedite the release of results.
My sense is that there were some growing pains in the process in New Jersey in the primary. So I’m glad we have now had a trial run so that hopefully the kinks are worked out by election day. I also hope they revisit their rule about when they can start counting the mail in ballots. I imagine there are staffing and security issues involved, but I would think those could be worked out.
