[EL] The timetable of reporting results on or after Election Day

[larrylevine at earthlink.net]

Given what we know about absentee ballot voting patterns and human nature,
it is unlikely any elections office will be able to process the number of
ballots arriving the day before the election in time to be part of the
Tuesday night total. Some 20 years' worth of tracking in California shows
84% of the absentee ballots arrive at elections offices in the last 12 days,
including what gets turned in at the polls. The flow increases day-by-day.
The Monday arrivals will include what the post office didn't deliver Sunday,
plus the regular Monday mail and probably a residue from Friday and
Saturday. Elections offices are under great stress the day before the
election in preparing for the actual day. North Carolina's good intentions
are likely to run into a different reality. But it won't be any different
any place else. It will be up to the media reporting on election night to
keep reinforcing the information about the need to count all late arriving
absentee ballots and provisional ballots after election night and that the
election night reports are by no means complete. Even then, there will be
certain interests intent upon fomenting doubt and confusion.

Larry

 

From: Law-election <law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu> On Behalf
Of Samuel S. Wang
Sent: Thursday, 3 September 2020 12:20 PM
To: law-election at uci.edu
Subject: [EL] The timetable of reporting results on or after Election Day

 

Dear Election Law List,

 

The timetable of reporting results on Election Night may lead to substantial
public unrest. In a recent NBC/WSJ survey, in-person voters break heavily
toward Trump, while mail voters break heavily toward Biden. 

 

What do we know about the planned timetables of reporting results in all the
states?  This timetable may dramatically affect what the public sees on
Election Night. If one candidate is ahead on Election Night, and the other
pulls ahead in the days following, major protests might ensue.

 

For example, my understanding in North Carolina is that if a mail-in ballot
arrives in the local elections office by 5:00 pm on Monday, November 2, the
day before Election Day, it goes through the board approval process and
through the tabulator, and will count in the unofficial election results
released on November 3, Election Day. That approach could reduce any massive
swings in the vote count.

 

Another solution would be to advocate for a deliberate and unhurried report
of final or near-final totals. For example, in the April primary and state
judicial elections, Wisconsin officials did not release results until
something like a week after the election. That strikes me as a sensible and
de-escalating move.

 

Sam Wang

 

>>> 

Prof. Samuel S.-H. Wang

Neuroscience Institute, Washington Road

Princeton University

Princeton, NJ 08544

Virtual office: http://princeton.zoom.us/my/samwang

 

Neuroscience: synapse.princeton.edu

Elections: election.princeton.edu

Redistricting: gerrymander.princeton.edu

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20200903/afd2dcb1/attachment.html>