# Election Day \[Week\]\[Month\[s\]\] \[Year\] 2020 follow-along thread **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 3, 2020, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-day-week-month-s-year-2020-follow-along-thread/924618 "2020-11-03T05:36:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 119
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2020, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-day-week-month-s-year-2020-follow-along-thread/924618/2364 "2020-11-05T17:45:24Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > Not sure why they would bother to appeal this. Who cares if the observers get to stand a little closer? I think they are just abiding by it for now so they can keep counting. The distance limits were said to be over COVID, but there is also the impact of the observers just slowing things down as much as possible. ETA: Team Biden agrees with you: “We don’t care if your observers are 18 feet away or 15 feet away or 6 feet away – as long as election officials can do their jobs,” one Biden official tweeted Thursday," tweeted Biden spokesman Bill Russo." ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2020, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-day-week-month-s-year-2020-follow-along-thread/924618/2365 "2020-11-05T17:46:07Z")
> [@solost](#): > > He expects PA to flip to Biden later today. Did he think to include all the red counties too? I know they don’t have as many people but there’s a lot of them. A few thousand here, a few thousand there. Crawford is probably 2000 more for Trump. Lawrence, a thousand more. Blair. Carbon. They add up. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_fun_ball/32/17664_2.png) [@Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Fun_Ball)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2020, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-day-week-month-s-year-2020-follow-along-thread/924618/2366 "2020-11-05T17:47:29Z")
Nice spreadsheet, thank you for sharing! I had been tempted to make something like that but it seemed like it would be a lot of work. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2020, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-day-week-month-s-year-2020-follow-along-thread/924618/2367 "2020-11-05T17:48:33Z")
> [@Happy\_Lendervedder](#): > > This would make the AP’s and Fox News’ call of Arizona for Biden a bit…dangerous. Nevada getting called for Biden, while Arizona is still counting ever-tightening results, would mean the race _could_ be called for Biden, and then rescinded (possibly temporarily) if Arizona starts looking hinky. > > ETA: Nate Silver sees a similar problem with Arizona’s (possibly premature) call. The instant the one bunch of votes was counted in Arizona yesterday 59-41 for Trump, I wrote the state off. It’s the Florida 2000 of this election; Fox and AP blew that call big time. Biden has to win Pennsylvania. He will not win Arizona, and there is no way in hell the Republicans who run Georgia aren’t fixing the count there to ensure he comes up just short. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2020, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-day-week-month-s-year-2020-follow-along-thread/924618/2368 "2020-11-05T17:48:53Z")
The mail-in ballots from red counties have trended majority blue. Even there, the Democrats voted from home, Republicans went to the polls. It may not swing things much, but they won’t swing things in the wrong direction. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2020, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-day-week-month-s-year-2020-follow-along-thread/924618/2369 "2020-11-05T17:49:00Z")
The problem is each state gets to do their own thing and revamping a whole state with a new system is very expensive. Add to that there are many businesses who make money selling the machines/systems for vote counting and they make large donations. As such, it is doubly difficult to have meaningful change in voting mechanics. Then to add to all of that states do weird shit like insisting nothing gets counted till election day. So, could it be done well and efficiently? Absolutely. No question about it. But states just aren’t interested. It’s not something anyone campaigns on. ---
**Author:** ![Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiendish_astronaut/32/3295_2.png) [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiendish_Astronaut)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2020, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-day-week-month-s-year-2020-follow-along-thread/924618/2370 "2020-11-05T17:55:38Z")
> [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](#): > > He needs 63% of the remaining count Biden now needs 61% of the remaining count to win PA ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2020, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-day-week-month-s-year-2020-follow-along-thread/924618/2371 "2020-11-05T17:58:32Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > The instant the one bunch of votes was counted in Arizona yesterday 59-41 for Trump, I wrote the state off. It’s the Florida 2000 of this election; Fox and AP blew that call big time. Makes sense. But I’m wondering what is keeping Fox/AP from pulling back their call? Do they think it worth the risk to hang onto a potentially erroneous error call until the last moment, as opposed to acknowledging the uncertainty as things develop? Just saying, I assume they have some reasons for sticking w/ their call. ---
**Author:** ![Temporary\_Name](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8c91f0/32.png) [@Temporary\_Name](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Temporary_Name)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2020, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-day-week-month-s-year-2020-follow-along-thread/924618/2372 "2020-11-05T18:00:33Z")
> [@Happy\_Lendervedder](#): > > #### [Nate Cohn (Nate\_Cohn)](https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/1324404944250830848) > > Biden wins the new votes in Nevada by 14 points, and there’s still more late mail and provisionals left. I don’t know if anyone will call it on this basis, as it’s still fairly close and there’s no _hard_ data on what’s out. But you can still pencil this into the Biden column > > [9:35 AM - 5 Nov 2020](https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/1324404944250830848) 4.7K 653 > > This would make the AP’s and Fox News’ call of Arizona for Biden a bit…dangerous. Nevada getting called for Biden, while Arizona is still counting ever-tightening results, would mean the race _could_ be called for Biden, and then rescinded (possibly temporarily) if Arizona starts looking hinky. > > ETA: Nate Silver sees a similar problem with Arizona’s (possibly premature) call: > > > A little inside baseball, but this dynamic may affect how different networks are handling Nevada. If you’ve called Arizona (which I don’t think you should have!), then a Nevada call would give Biden the election. But Nevada is probably callable at this point! I have another guess for why Nevada has not been called. While the dog and I were doing our miles today, it occurred to me that I have driven through and across Nevada a time or two. I could count the entire state myself in two days by visiting every resident personally; very sparse population.there. I believe they wrapped up the vote long ago and have been sitting there with their feet up. They are waiting until AZ or GA is called for Biden so they can be the tipping point state. Can’t blame them for wanting to be famous due to this historic, landmark election. (Beats being infamous like Florida in 2000.) ---
**Author:** ![Fiveyearlurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@Fiveyearlurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiveyearlurker)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2020, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-day-week-month-s-year-2020-follow-along-thread/924618/2373 "2020-11-05T18:00:53Z")
Plus, it probably stops them from calling Nevada, which they probably could right now, because it would mean it was over. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2020, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-day-week-month-s-year-2020-follow-along-thread/924618/2374 "2020-11-05T18:03:38Z")
[https://twitter.com/jtlevy/status/1324408585590329345](https://twitter.com/jtlevy/status/1324408585590329345) It appears that Biden may well have one of the largest vote shares in terms of % of the US population in history. When all this is counted and over, I think it’s very possible we might be analyzing this as one of the best performances by a Presidential campaign in history, even if it remains relatively close. ---
**Author:** ![Theodore-Striker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Theodore-Striker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Theodore-Striker)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2020, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-day-week-month-s-year-2020-follow-along-thread/924618/2375 "2020-11-05T18:05:37Z")
I was thinking about this too. The NYT site is interesting to watch, because it shows the outstanding vote percentage by county, and the current advantage percentage compared to the 2016 advantage. Many of the red counties are still a bit high on the Trump side, and will probably tighten. Lehigh county is showing a 6.7% swing in favor of Trump, but with mail-ins still outstanding, and only 77% counted, it still looks like the advantage is to Biden. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2020, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-day-week-month-s-year-2020-follow-along-thread/924618/2376 "2020-11-05T18:09:42Z")
Biden already had the most votes ever given to a candidate in US history (previously held by Obama in 2008). Not sure how that works out percentage-wise though. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2020, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-day-week-month-s-year-2020-follow-along-thread/924618/2377 "2020-11-05T18:10:28Z")
Switched to ABC since NBC went to paid programming. They said a statement came in from trump. They seemed a bit incredulous and gave several disclaimers-- George S. said “an official statement? Not a tweet?” “No, this is a statement delivered to the press, and it appears to be directly from trump, not a press secretary…it’s in all caps. He may be doing this to get around the twitter disclaimers. Anyway I’m not going to put this on the screen, but I’ll read it out loud:” Paraphrased a bit since I retyped it while listening, but this is pretty close: > “IF YOU COUNT THE LEGAL VOTES I EASILY WIN THE ELECTION. IF YOU COUNT THE LATE AND ILLEGAL VOTES THEY STEAL THE ELECTION.” I know this is very similar to several of his tweets in the past 36 hours or so, but this is apparently an official WH statement, released to the news media. This is our president, at least until Jan 20. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2020, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-day-week-month-s-year-2020-follow-along-thread/924618/2378 "2020-11-05T18:15:12Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > > [@solost](#): > > > > He expects PA to flip to Biden later today. > > Did he think to include all the red counties too? I know they don’t have as many people but there’s a lot of them. A few thousand here, a few thousand there. Crawford is probably 2000 more for Trump. Lawrence, a thousand more. Blair. Carbon. They add up. Chuck Todd has been doing a pretty granular county-by-county breakdown on a big fancy touchscreen. I don’t think he was overlooking any counties, but I think he has a Biden bias that may be giving him a bit of wishful thinking. Who knows…? ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2020, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-day-week-month-s-year-2020-follow-along-thread/924618/2379 "2020-11-05T18:17:08Z")
Chuck Todd was waaaay in the bag for Clinton. I am sure he prefers Biden to Trump. I don’t think he would even pretend otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2020, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-day-week-month-s-year-2020-follow-along-thread/924618/2380 "2020-11-05T18:19:42Z")
I am listening to a Nevada update from the Nevada registrar of voters and the audio keeps cutting out. He seems to be saying they will not be done till Saturday or Sunday and not officially until Nov. 12. ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2020, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-day-week-month-s-year-2020-follow-along-thread/924618/2381 "2020-11-05T18:20:55Z")
One of the things in addition to looking at where the outstanding ballots are from is also looking at the shifts overall in counties that are reporting complete, or essentially complete, results (You can do so at least qualitatively, for example, on the New York Times website: [2020 Presidential Election Results: Joe Biden Wins - The New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/results-president.html?action=click&pgtype=Article&state=default&module=styln-elections-2020®ion=TOP_BANNER&context=election_recirc) ). Those results suggest that the shifts in Pennsylvania are such that Biden should eventually win it, since it was very close to a tie last time. ---
**Author:** ![Fiveyearlurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@Fiveyearlurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiveyearlurker)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2020, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-day-week-month-s-year-2020-follow-along-thread/924618/2382 "2020-11-05T18:23:17Z")
Jon Ralston has seen enough on Nevada. > ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2020, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-day-week-month-s-year-2020-follow-along-thread/924618/2383 "2020-11-05T18:24:03Z")
Georgia is now down to a Trump lead of 0.27%. My guess is that this may be the last time the margin is greater than one quarter of a percent in either direction. Wouldn’t be surprised if the final margin, either way, is less than 0.1%. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-day-week-month-s-year-2020-follow-along-thread/924618.md?page=118) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-day-week-month-s-year-2020-follow-along-thread/924618.md?page=120)