# Republicans take early lead in early voting **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [October 26, 2018, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-take-early-lead-in-early-voting/823554 "2018-10-26T18:03:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**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:** [October 27, 2018, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-take-early-lead-in-early-voting/823554/21 "2018-10-27T05:03:16Z")
> [@Lord\_Feldon](#): > > I think it would be a good thing if states paid postage, but it’s not a poll tax if they don’t, any more than bus fares on election day are a poll tax. I disagree. The state is handing you a ballot and then telling you to pay some money to register your vote. Granted it is a minuscule amount of money but I do not think poll tax jurisprudence rests on an arbitrarily small amount of money to be ok. No amount is ok when it comes to a poll tax. IANAL ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2018, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-take-early-lead-in-early-voting/823554/22 "2018-10-27T05:24:32Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > The state is handing you a ballot and then telling you to pay some money to register your vote. Only if they check for a stamp before they count the ballot. Which of course they won’t. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2018, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-take-early-lead-in-early-voting/823554/23 "2018-10-27T05:30:56Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > I disagree. > > The state is handing you a ballot and then telling you to pay some money to register your vote. > > Granted it is a minuscule amount of money but I do not think poll tax jurisprudence rests on an arbitrarily small amount of money to be ok. No amount is ok when it comes to a poll tax. > > IANAL They’re not 'telling you to pay some money to register your vote". There are options you can pursue that let you do it for free, like walking your ballot to a polling place or, at least in my state, a ballot drop-off location. If you want someone else (the USPS) to deliver your ballot to the correct location for you, you may have to pay the pittance, but that’s not the only way available to you to get your vote counted. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2018, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-take-early-lead-in-early-voting/823554/24 "2018-10-27T05:36:06Z")
Missed the edit window: I just voted absentee, and even though my state doesn’t pay postage, I returned my ballot without going through the postal system at all, by dropping it off in person. That will be too inconvenient for some people, so they’ll choose to pay a third party to deliver their ballot on their behalf, but that’s no more of a tax than someone having to pay for gas or a bus fare or an Uber because their polling place is too far away to walk for free. (And just to be clear, I think paying postage is a good thing. Hell, let’s talk about transportation access on e-day too! But it’s not because someone is being taxed when they decide that paying for postage is the most convenient way to deal with something.) ---
**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:** [October 27, 2018, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-take-early-lead-in-early-voting/823554/25 "2018-10-27T06:03:41Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > They’re not 'telling you to pay some money to register your vote". There are options you can pursue that let you do it for free, like walking your ballot to a polling place or, at least in my state, a ballot drop-off location. If you want someone else (the USPS) to deliver your ballot to the correct location for you, you may have to pay the pittance, but that’s not the only way available to you to get your vote counted. Unfortunately states can (and do) [make it difficult to get to a polling place.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/10/26/thousands-polling-places-were-closed-over-past-decade-heres-where/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.f5078f05ba3f) Here’s one where the state closed the _only_ polling place in a city and the nearest polling place was [more than a mile](https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/413442-aclu-sues-kansas-county-clerk-to-reopen-previous-polling-site) from the nearest bus stop. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2018, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-take-early-lead-in-early-voting/823554/26 "2018-10-27T06:57:35Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > I’m not as interested in the raw totals as I am about how this compares with previous midterm elections. If Republicans normally take a +20 lead in early voting and this year it’s only +10, that’s bad news for Republicans. OTOH, if their lead is normally +5 and now they’re at +10, that’s obviously great news for Republicans. I don’t know which of those is closer to correct. So here’s a cite: (Disclaimer - The American Spectator leans heavily to the right): In the 2016 presidential election, Democrats led by 7% after a few days of early voting. But this time around, Republicans are ahead by this stage of early voting. > **[Media Struck Dumb by Early Voting - The American Spectator | USA News and...](https://spectator.org/media-struck-dumb-by-early-voting/)** > > The Democrats typically lead Republicans in early voting during midterm and presidential election cycles. In 2016 the Democratic lead in early voting was such that it inspired major news outlets, AP for example, to run articles with titles like... So it probably means one of two things: Either Republican voters who would normally wait until Election Day have decided to vote sooner this time around - in which case it makes no difference to the eventual outcome - or, Republicans are going to pad a lead in the early vote AND still have substantial turnout on Nov. 6, portending a possible elephant stampede. ---
**Author:** ![Chisquirrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6bbea6/32.png) [@Chisquirrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chisquirrel)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2018, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-take-early-lead-in-early-voting/823554/27 "2018-10-27T07:40:33Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > So here’s a cite: (Disclaimer - The American Spectator leans heavily to the right): > > In the 2016 presidential election, Democrats led by 7% after a few days of early voting. But this time around, Republicans are ahead by this stage of early voting. > > [Media Struck Dumb by Early Voting - The American Spectator | USA News and PoliticsThe American Spectator | USA News and Politics](https://spectator.org/media-struck-dumb-by-early-voting/) > So it probably means one of two things: Either Republican voters who would normally wait until Election Day have decided to vote sooner this time around - in which case it makes no difference to the eventual outcome - or, Republicans are going to pad a lead in the early vote AND still have substantial turnout on Nov. 6, portending a possible elephant stampede. You keep comparing off-year elections with Presidential year elections. They are incredibly different, and these analyses hold little weight. Keep hoping for that stampede though. Most special elections since 2016 should probably be arrested for trophy hunting, considering how much the GOP has been getting killed. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2018, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-take-early-lead-in-early-voting/823554/28 "2018-10-27T11:55:44Z")
> [@Chisquirrel](#): > > You keep comparing off-year elections with Presidential year elections. They are incredibly different, and these analyses hold little weight. Not to mention, for some reason I get emails from the American Spectator, so I regularly see their take on current events. I’d trust them for factual coverage about as much as I’d trust Breitbart or InfoWars. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2018, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-take-early-lead-in-early-voting/823554/29 "2018-10-27T15:45:51Z")
Put simply, Nate Silver says that early voting information has never been shown to reliably predict the results of elections, and that’s why he ignores it in his models. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2018, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-take-early-lead-in-early-voting/823554/30 "2018-10-27T16:02:06Z")
Are they actually tabulating and releasing vote totals from early voting? Seems kind of, I don’t know, wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2018, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-take-early-lead-in-early-voting/823554/31 "2018-10-27T16:16:10Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > Are they actually tabulating and releasing vote totals from early voting? Seems kind of, I don’t know, wrong. They’re releasing the numbers of party affiliates who voted. It’s a safe bet that the vast majority of Ds will vote D and Rs will vote R, though. The big unknown is the 20% of independents. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2018, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-take-early-lead-in-early-voting/823554/32 "2018-10-27T16:34:12Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > They’re releasing the numbers of party affiliates who voted. It’s a safe bet that the vast majority of Ds will vote D and Rs will vote R, though. The big unknown is the 20% of independents. Those numbers are kind of suspicious, though. I’ve read that in Texas, for example, party affiliation of voters isn’t recorded, so where are those numbers coming from? That’s why Silver said only in Nevada and Florida can they be taken even a little bit seriously. Because in other states the figures are completely bogus. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2018, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-take-early-lead-in-early-voting/823554/33 "2018-10-27T19:41:50Z")
> [@suranyi](#): > > Those numbers are kind of suspicious, though. I’ve read that in Texas, for example, party affiliation of voters isn’t recorded, so where are those numbers coming from? Virginia’s another state where they don’t record any party affiliation when you register. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2018, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-take-early-lead-in-early-voting/823554/34 "2018-10-29T11:25:34Z")
> [@Chisquirrel](#): > > You keep comparing off-year elections with Presidential year elections. They are incredibly different, and these analyses hold little weight. > Keep hoping for that stampede though. Most special elections since 2016 should probably be arrested for trophy hunting, considering how much the GOP has been getting killed. My thinking is that if Democrats turned out huge for special elections, they can’t possibly fail to turn out for the midterm, right? Then I remember that we’re talking about Democrats here, whose ardor to vote can wane rather abruptly. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2018, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-take-early-lead-in-early-voting/823554/35 "2018-10-30T02:36:28Z")
Can. But historically has not. Special elections turnouts have usually been fairly predictive. Past performance does not … blah blah blah. I don’t think the odds of D turnout falling off from special election numbers is huge. The wildcard in my mind is whether or not GOP turnout will increase from it. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2018, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-take-early-lead-in-early-voting/823554/36 "2018-10-30T03:50:06Z")
Nate Cohn of the NYT just posted a Twitter thread explaining how the early voting information and the polling information is not contradictory at all. For example, if the independent vote is largely Democratic this year, it could easily lead to a Democratic win even if the votes by registered Republicans is greater than those of registered Democrats. His thread has a few other points as well, but the idea is that he and Nate Silver agree that you can’t tell anything about the election results from the early vote. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2018, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-take-early-lead-in-early-voting/823554/37 "2018-10-30T04:10:37Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/23/us/politics/early-voting-midterms.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/23/us/politics/early-voting-midterms.html) > > **Millions Have Voted Early in the Midterms. Here’s What That Means — and What It Doesn’t.** > > No further comment offered. Not much comment in that linked article, either. ---
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2018, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-take-early-lead-in-early-voting/823554/38 "2018-10-30T04:43:44Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/23/us/politics/early-voting-midterms.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/23/us/politics/early-voting-midterms.html) > > **Millions Have Voted Early in the Midterms. Here’s What That Means — and What It Doesn’t.** > > No further comment offered. Quote, from the article: > [@](#): > > Publicly available data on early voting suggests more likely Republican voters than likely Democrats have so far cast their ballots, but it is **too early to draw any firm conclusions.** Bolding mine. The article then explains why the data is limited, why it is skewed, and why you can’t draw any conclusions from it. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2018, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-take-early-lead-in-early-voting/823554/39 "2018-10-30T05:06:33Z")
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2018, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-take-early-lead-in-early-voting/823554/40 "2018-10-30T12:42:18Z")
> [@suranyi](#): > > Nate Cohn of the NYT just posted a Twitter thread explaining how the early voting information and the polling information is not contradictory at all. For example, if the independent vote is largely Democratic this year, it could easily lead to a Democratic win even if the votes by registered Republicans is greater than those of registered Democrats. > > His thread has a few other points as well, but the idea is that he and Nate Silver agree that you can’t tell anything about the election results from the early vote. I recall that in 2006, Democrats didn’t turn out, independents just voted for Democrats. So Democratic turnout could actually disappoint and they could still have a pretty good night. Although their voters not turning out is never good news, because independents can’t normally be counted on to get Democrats across the finish line. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-take-early-lead-in-early-voting/823554.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-take-early-lead-in-early-voting/823554.md?page=3)