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ProudNewEnglander's avatar

How are people still requesting mail-in ballots a week before the election? There's not enough time to mail them to the voter's house, fill them in, and then mail them back before next Tuesday.

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GoUBears's avatar

Given the advent of drop boxes, the last part isn't necessarily part of the equation. Still risky.

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Henrik's avatar

How do drop boxes in PA work? I keep hearing this term тАЬsatellite votingтАЭ thrown around is it like the drop boxes in WA/OR?

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GoUBears's avatar

Varies by county. While some smaller counties just have the county elections office as a drop point, Philly has 23 drop boxes accessible 24/7 till 8pm on election day, plus 10 elections offices where they can be dropped during business hours. Meanwhile, Allegheny has 9 drop boxes and 4 offices, all only accessible during business hours.

https://www.pa.gov/en/agencies/vote/voter-support/mail-in-and-absentee-ballot/return-ballot.html

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Kuka's avatar

My county does not have a drop box. Most of the ones around me do not either.

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GoUBears's avatar

Everybody has an elections office that's functionally a drop box, though that doesn't necessarily work for people working a 9-5, and that one office may be quite a hike for some people. But yes, 33/67 don't specifically have drop boxes, and another 20 only have one. Philly (10), Allegheny (4), Delaware (4), Bucks (3), and Centre (2) are the only counties with multiple elections offices.

Those with multiple drop boxes: Delaware, 37; Philly, 23; Montgomery, 18; Chester, 13; Bucks, 11; Allegheny, 9; Centre, 8; Dauphin, 7; Monroe, 7; Northampton, 7; Lackawanna, 6; Lehigh, 5; Berks, 3; Luzerne, 2. Biden won them collectively 2.51M to 1.60M. Those with one drop box, including Erie and Lebanon, Trump won 510k to 260k. Those without a drop box, including Lancaster, York, Westmoreland, Cumberland, Washington, Butler, Beaver, and Schuylkill, went for Trump 1.26M to 690k.

Edit: Looking through the list, at least 36 "drop boxes" are at elections offices, including all 20 of the counties that have just one drop box. So there are effectively 53 counties with just their elections office, and 14 counties with at least one drop box placed elsewhere, making the partisan divide even more favorable (1.87M Trump-950k Biden vs. 2.51M Biden-1.60M Trump).

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Jonathan's avatar

The BOE is still a drop box; in every county(at least 1)

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GoUBears's avatar

I suspect the only real difference is that in counties without a drop box, you have to hand your ballot over to a clerk, so you wouldn't be able to get away with sending one person to drop off an entire family's ballots. (You're supposed to only turn in your own ballot in PA, unless you've filled out a form to be a disabled person's agent.)

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Jonathan's avatar

Understood but my point is rather simple; our GOTV will beat the other teams(does that assure victory? Of course not; but the Harris team is the best in my lifetime imo and I trust that); I feel the same way about Nevada also(it's a close race, we always knew that)

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Jonathan's avatar

I do not think this is true; perhaps you are mistaken

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Stephen A Mikalik's avatar

I have a metric that I haven't reported on yet: Long Outstanding Ballots. I subtract the # of requests of the past week from the total # of outstanding ballots. It's not perfect but it shows the MINIMUM # of old ballots outstanding.

D - 229,877 (70.21% of party's outstanding)

R - 93,567 (43.13%)

O - 72,796 (62.87%)

This metric shows that Dems & Others have a vast majority of their ballots on the kitchen table or (hopefully) in transit back to the county. On the opposite end, the GOP has a majority of the outstanding ballots still in hand or still in transit TO the voter. In this sense, I'd rather be the Dems but that # still has me a little worried with a week left.

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Jonathan's avatar

Thank you(the urgency this year is different; this board should know that); I contend that my daily local activism tells me that the Republicans are definitely cannibalizing their E-day vote; can I prove it? No, but after 40 years, I'm no neophyte; the 7 states that matter are razor thin, but I trust our proven GOTV experts as opposed to Elon Musk; let's run through the goal line folks

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Stephen A Mikalik's avatar

Tom Bonier has been pulling the data & as of yesterday's update, 40% of GOP ballots in PA were cast by voters who voted on Election Day while the same can be said for only 10% of Democrat ballots. Roughly 5% of each party's ballots were cast by people who DID NOT vote in 2020.

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Jonathan's avatar

Thanks for the raw data; appreciated

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hilltopper's avatar

In many states, the voter only needs to receive it, fill it out, and either drop it in a Dropbox or have it postmarked by Election Day. The only time issue is receiving it.

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Stephen A Mikalik's avatar

Specifically, in PA, 5pm Eastern today is the deadline to request a ballot. Mail ballots MUST BE RECEIVED by county election officials by 8pm Eastern Election Day in order to be counted.

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Jonathan's avatar

Agreed and the Harris campaign has teams of ballot chasers(not necessarily even physically in Pennsylvania) making direct voter contacts to these particular voters making sure that the votes are cast(I have personal friends in Florida doing this work)

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