Ping
Correction: date of article should be October 5, 2020
In general, the votes have to come from somewhere.
There has always been a Democrat presumption that they far outnumber Republicans, but their voters are so disadvantaged that they cannot find time or effort or transport to vote. There has never been any evidence of this, but it is their default position — and VBM is supposed to be how they will tap their great reservoir of previously not voting population.
Voter turnout in 2008 was 62%. That’s of the voting eligible population — not of registered voters. You cannot add up all the candidate numbers to get that stat because it includes rejected ballots and blank ballots rec’d or overvotes rec’d. In general 62%. That was with Obama running to generate black votes.
57% in 2012. The excitement had faded. 2016, 56%.
Is VBM going to rocket these numbers upwards? Seems unlikely. Mid 50s% is the long term normal. The population grew since 2016. This challenges the denominator.
Relying on rejected mail ballots looks like a bad strategy. The rejection criteria will be challenged and probably eliminated. Useful to note GOP signature mismatch as a result of age can happen, too.
One thing we can know. On election night, there will be stats on VBM ballots already returned, and probably estimates of if return has slowed in recent days or held constant. We will have election night numbers for counting, and we also will have estimates of how many are enroute in the mail (some of which will be GOP votes, not just Dem).