[EL] PA vote count "delays"

[Sean Parnell]

Of some interest (to me at least), I went back and looked at the growth in Clinton’s 2016 “popular vote” margin from election night until mid-December. On election night she had about a 200,000 vote margin. A week later, it was just about 1 million, another week later it was 2 million, it hit about 2 and a half million in early December, and it hit it’s final-ish total of around 2.9 million on (as near as I can tell) December 16 when New York tossed about 80,000 votes on top of the pile (56k for Clinton, the rest for Trump). A significant chunk of the late vote counts came from New York and, yes, California, though it looks from the data like the Golden State mostly wrapped up before the Empire State.

 

Sean Parnell 

 

From: Law-election <law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu> On Behalf Of Douglas Johnson
Sent: Friday, January 17, 2020 12:03 PM
To: law-election at uci.edu
Subject: [EL] PA vote count "delays"

 

As a Californian, I dream of having election results in "days." If the state were a toss-up (which it obviously is not) we could go weeks without knowing who won the Presidency (even before any recount). This November I expect that California's election-night vote-counts will include only 50% to 60% of ballots cast, another big chunk coming in 3-4 days after election day and the rest (likely about 15 to 20% of ballots cast) not being reported for two to three weeks.

 

In recent elections it's been about 60 to 66%, and this year LA County starts its 'mail a ballot to everyone' effort. Given the huge increase in provisional ballots that triggers, and California's rule that mail ballots only need to be postmarked, not delivered, by election day, this will significantly slow down California's already-glacial vote-counting.

 

November's Presidential result in California is obviously not in doubt, but the final March primary results likely won't be confirmed until the end of March, even if all goes well.

 

- Doug

 

Douglas Johnson

Rose Institute of State and Local Government at Claremont McKenna College

douglas.johnson at cmc.edu <mailto:douglas.johnson at cmc.edu> 

310-200-2058

 

On Fri, Jan 17, 2020 at 7:28 AM Rick Hasen <rhasen at law.uci.edu <mailto:rhasen at law.uci.edu> > wrote:


 <https://electionlawblog.org/?p=109044> “Pennsylvania’s 2020 election results could take days to count under a new law”


Posted on  <https://electionlawblog.org/?p=109044> January 17, 2020 7:22 am by  <https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3> Rick Hasen

 <https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/pennsylvania-2020-presidential-election-results-absentee-ballots-20200117.html> Philadelphia Inquirer:

People holding their breath to see how Pennsylvania votes in the 2020 presidential election might not want to wait up too late on election night.

While the unofficial and more immediately available results have accounted for the vast majority of votes cast in years past,  <https://www.inquirer.com/politics/pennsylvania/pa-election-reform-deal-20191023.html> a new law means a significant share of ballots might not be tallied until after Election Day, according to county elections officials. Races with razor-thin margins may be too close to call for days.

It’s an unintended consequence of changes meant to make voting more flexible and accessible, including by making absentee ballots available to everyone. Many of those mail-in ballots won’t be counted on election night — even in counties that used to include them in their initial results.

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