If you can vote early, do vote early, as early as possible. By mail or in person (observe health precautions). North Carolina began mailing absentee ballots last Friday (60 days before the election). Mine arrived on Saturday. (Yes, we were surprised too.)
I returned my absentee ballot in person at my local Board of Elections office Tuesday morning. The ballot should be processed and my votes “in the bank” next Tuesday evening (Sept. 15). When your state begins sending out ballots and when it begins processing ballots returned by mail will matter on Election Day.
Prepare for election week, Fareed Zakaria cautions, because the presidential election will not likely be over on Nov. 3. Donald Trump could be ahead in the day’s vote count in a number of key states. The “blue shift,” however, means that as absentee-by-mail or vote-by-mail votes are processed later, tallies will swing towards the Democrats and Joe Biden. The delay gives Trump time to flog his narrative that he won on Nov. 3 and what happens after represents cheating.
Zakaria writes:
Several surveys have found that, because of the pandemic, in-person and mail-in ballots will show a huge partisan divide. In one poll, 87 percent of Trump voters said they preferred to vote in person, compared with 47 percent of Biden voters. In another, by the Democratic data firm Hawkfish, 69 percent of Biden voters said they planned to vote by mail, while only 19 percent of Trump voters said the same. The firm modeled various scenarios and found that, based on recent polling, if just 15 percent of mail-in ballots are counted on election night, Trump would appear to have 408 electoral votes compared with Biden’s 130. But four days later, assuming 75 percent of the mail-in ballots are counted, the lead could flip to Biden, and after all ballots are counted, Biden would have 334 electoral votes to Trump’s 204.
Recall what happened in 2018. Election Day returns showed a modest blue wave for House and Senate Democrats. The tsunami did not arrive for days. Once states finished counting their mailed ballots over a week later, Democrats had won over a dozen more races.
Republicans will attempt to work the media refs and declare Trump the victor on Nov. 3, of course. But that 15 percent figure is important. First, because it represents one modelling scenario, and second, because for the presidential race it matters where those votes are counted and when.
Here in the Tar Heel State, absentee-by-mail votes delivered weeks in advance of Election Day will appear in vote tallies released after 7:30 p.m. EST on Election Day. If Democrats here have done their jobs, those by-mail votes will represent the bulk of them, not a mere 15 percent. The presidential race here could be close, so late-arriving absentees will change the final tally. By how much and whether it changes the final result in this swing state is to be determined.
Other key states do not even begin processing mailed ballots until Election Day. Among them are key swing states: Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Those states mail out ballots 45-50 days ahead of the election.
Other states beside North Carolina where late-arriving, late-processed mailed votes could swing results are Arizona, Florida, Georgia, and Minnesota. Arizona does not begin mailing out ballots until 24-27 days ahead of the election.
There are several other ways Trump might attempt to rig an election he loses, as Zakaria notes, including calling for recounts, constitutional maneuvering, using the media to allege fraud, and street actions. Admittedly, Democrats should be prepared to do the same if results are that close. But the way to help neutralize those nightmare scenarios is to lock in your votes early (by mail or in person) and to encourage your friends to as well.
If you live in Michigan, Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin and can tolerate the COVID-19 risk, you just might consider voting early in person to help make Election Day returns more definitive.
Either way, remind everyone there is no Election Day in 2020, or even an election week. Voting is already underway with votes being counted in September. In Yoda-speak, begun the Election Quarter has.
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