I have no idea if this means good or bad things for my preferred candidates, but I’m just going to assume bad until I see otherwise when the results are announced, but my small town of 350 has smashed right through previous voting records. The previous high was 162, and at 5:20 pm when I went to go check and chatted with Mrs. Hoffman, Town Recorder, they were over 200 and still had two hours to go.
So at the very least, people are voting. I’m wondering how much the anti-abortion amendment is driving people to the polls, or if maybe Kendra and Ihlenfeld have motivated people to vote.
zhena gogolia
You’re a college town, right? Maybe it’s good.
Mnemosyne
IIRC, as a general rule, high-turnout elections favor Democrats, which is why Republicans spend so much time and energy preventing people from voting. But that’s just in general and any specific election could vary.
jharp
Turnout was extremely high in the northern suburbs of Columbus Ohio.
Let’s hope that little piece of good news is a sign of things to come.
Edit: Monroe County Indiana, home to Indiana University, ran out of ballots.
From the Bloomington Herald-Times:
And polling places in Monroe County will remain open until 7 p.m.
A request to extend voting hours in Monroe County was granted by Monroe Circuit Judge MaryEllen Diekhoff.
Long lines…..
Gravenstone
In my little slice of Redneckistan, voter turn out was running at presidential election year levels. I was voter 767 just after 4 PM, which is typical for ‘major’ elections. There were several younger folks voting, including a couple who were registering as I walked in. About the only decent thing WI does is allow same day registration.
debbie
@Mnemosyne:
Yeah, but nothing pulls the RWNJs in like an anti-abortion issue.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
More voting is always good. Always. All you need to know is that Republicans want to keep turnout down.
schrodingers_cat
Its Diwali, did you light a lamp and vote blue?
MazeDancer
Tiny Village. I Bought 500 “I Voted” Stickers for them. Because local elections usually have about 130 voters. Primary had 249.
They ran out of stickers .
Very exciting.
Also, Balloon-Juice Candidates Map at PostCardPatriots.com.
All the candidates shown in their states. So we can follow along as the polls close.
schrodingers_cat
I just saw T on TV. Boy has he ballooned!
PsiFighter37
Back home, first beer open, cheesesteak ordered. Let’s go Team Blue!
Yarrow
Manu Raju on CNN just said that John Culberson’s (R-TX 07, incumbent) internal polls showed he was behind a bit after Trump came to Houston and railed about immigration. His challenger is Lizzie Fletcher, who was on the Balloon Juice Act Blue list and also the Postcard Patriots list. Go Lizzie! Polls still open in Texas so if you’re there, go vote!
debbie
@schrodingers_cat:
There was a Twitter thread Sunday night that debated whether he is pregnant.
PsiFighter37
@schrodingers_cat: That fatass fucker probably has been playing less golf than usual, which is his only form of exercise.
wasabi gasp
MANCHINSPIRATION!
schrodingers_cat
Judy Woodruff is wearing red, is she coming out as an R. Snooze Hour has gone from boring but reliable news to stealth R propaganda in her tenure since Jim Lehrer retired.
PsiFighter37
CNN showing Donnelly behind by 10%…which is less than 200 votes at this point. Fucking morons.
SenyorDave
It will be big news when the voter hits 351!
chopper
jesus chicken fried christ, that’s a small town.
justawriter
Stopped at three precincts on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in North Dakota. All were close to the total vote from 2016 already and there are still more than two hours before they close.
jonas
The deplorables will turn out in droves as well, but the good news is that they’re a minority. It will be interesting to see if nominally Republican voters and “independents” (normally conservative voters too embarrassed to call themselves Republicans) who aren’t thrilled with Trump 1. actually turn out in high numbers and 2. vote a straight R line, or decide to register a protest vote. If it’s basically just the deplorables showing up, it’s not going to be a good night for the R’s. They’re nowhere close to being an electoral majority.
Mary G
Heard on the radio as I was getting the teens from school that some stations in LA have a 2-hour rate. Don’t think I’ve ever seen that.
JPL
@PsiFighter37: Shouldn’t they wait until all the polls in IN close? hmmm
MazeDancer
@justawriter:
Thanks for ND Update. Very encouraging news.
Crœsos
Average American demographics are that ~25% of the population is under 18 years old, so a demographically average town of 350 would have about 260 voting-age residents. Of course some towns skew older and some younger, so that’s just Fermi approximation. Still, more than 200 votes cast (with more potentially on the way) in a town of 350 total residents is pretty good.
zhena gogolia
I may have to step away from BJ tonight!
This is even worse than the presidential election in some ways, because the results are going to be so complicated.
Aleta
PsiFighter37
Apparently Henry Cuellar predicted in a private meeting that Beto would win tonight. From his lips to God’s ears, even though I’m an atheist and Cuellar is a Blue Dog.
schrodingers_cat
Right now Ronna in red is lying her head off and Whory Woodruff is letting her lie through her teeth.
ETA: Red Judy is now repeating Red Ronna’s talking points to grill Nancy Pelosi.
Luciamia
O Christ. I don’t know if I can handle this tonite
White & Gold Purgatorian
Turnout in our precinct looks moderately heavy, but not huge. Knowing how my neighbors vote, this is a good thing. All the state offices are up, plus the legislature and most local offices as well, so you might expect a big turnout, but our polling place isn’t on track for nearly the kind of showing that came out to vote against Kerry or Obama, let alone for Trump.
My inner optimist thinks this looks more like turnout in the special election that put Doug Jones in the Senate, where many GOP voters just stayed home and people like me flocked to the polls. My inner optimist is often wrong, but likes to dream.
hellslittlestangel
In order to predict election results in WVA, I’d need more meaningful data, you know, goat entrails, comet sightings, that sort of thing.
Yarrow
@PsiFighter37: I agree with him. I think Beto will win.
debbie
@Aleta:
It’s far more than suspicious. It’s voter intimidation. How is that not a federal crime?
debit
@Luciamia: Deep breaths.
I was thinking earlier today that it almost feels like when I was a kid at Christmas, if there had been a Christmas where my present might turn out to be a pony, or a bomb that would blow my head off.
ETA: and there was no way of knowing which until you opened it.
Fair Economist
@PsiFighter37:
Hope he is right, but I don’t see why Cuellar would be particularly knowledgeable about this. Some knowledge of internal polling but otherwise he doesn’t know anything we don’t.
PsiFighter37
@Fair Economist: I agree. A lot of the ‘Beto will win’ comments seem to be based on enthusiasm and rallies, which means (mostly) jack squat. That said, the dude is absolutely indefatigable…he is working for this. Ted Cruz fucking deserves to get booted.
Mary G
@debit: I’ve tried to remain busy and calm, and did get in a 2-hour nap. But the dreams were awful, so it wasn’t that restful. I have had that Tom Petty song “The Waiting” playing in my head for 24 hours now.
Barbara
Standing in front of a big apartment building doing last minute canvassing. So far everyone has voted.
rikyrah
200/350=57% in an off year?
DAMN GOOD, COLE
philpm
When I voted at noon, I was #444 at my precinct in the north part of Kansas City, MO. I usually don’t see those kinds of numbers until 5 PM or later. Nice to see people are engaged this time.
The news just reported that another place not too far from me has an hour wait to vote.
Juju
@Yarrow: I, knock wood, think Beto will win as well. I just can’t imagine waiting in long lines or early voting for that human slime trail Ted Cruz. I have been wrong before, so fingers crossed also, too.
Schlemazel
@Aleta:
sawthat & took it as a positive sign. Other hopeful news, I read CNN exit pols showing 47%strongly disapprove of hair furor and 56% say the nation is headed in the wrong direction.
Bad news – apparently some strong 2nd amendment believer shut down the polling place in a Dem heavy precinct in Palm Bay FL. Palm Bay is East Coast, Brevard County toilet with palm trees
tobie
@justawriter: Yay! you’re one of our two commenters on the blog from North Dakota! So happy to hear Native Americans have turned out in force and in spite of all obstacles.
rikyrah
@PsiFighter37:
neither Beto, nor Stacey nor Andrew should feel any sort of regret.
they gave it their all. they were candidates made of dreams
Brachiator
Well, this is interesting …
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Mary G:
If it makes you feel any better, I had a dream last night where I flipped off Trump to his face ?
Mnemosyne
@zhena gogolia:
I’m going to step away at 5 pm my time and try not to come back until at least 9:30 pm my time. I have some writing to do anyway, and I won’t get it done if I’m just refreshing the page all night.
@schrodingers_cat:
I’m going to try and send you my “Newton” email tonight while I avoid election news, but it will probably arrive very late your time.
rikyrah
@justawriter:
YES!!!
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Schlemazel:
…They put palm trees in the toilet?
Also, I’m assuming those exit polls are nationwide and that 47% is a plurality?
Yarrow
A judge has ordered nine Harris County polling locations to stay open until 8 pm due to delayed opening and problems with voting.
Uncle Cosmo
@zhena gogolia: It might not be a bad idea to stay the hell away from any & all media until tomorrow morning. I doubt that every race will be settled even by then, but it gives the people who get paid to summarize results a chance to spend a sleepless night doing just that, & you’ll be able to pick & choose who you want to hear from.
At least that’s what I plan to do. The fact that my TV screen went black in the middle of a football game a few weeks back has something to do with that…
Schlemazel
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
It is a toilet with seat-side palm trees. God even flushes it every day for 8 months.
47% STRONGLY disapprove. They didn’t say how many just disapproved so you know it is well over half. By making himself the face of the nation Dump has made the 56% who believe we are headed in the wrong direction see him as the problem. These are great numbers
schrodingers_cat
@Mnemosyne: I have been working on my points too. I want send them to you before I read your mail. It will be sometime tomorrow, I think
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Schlemazel:
Wow. You even bolded it. How did I miss that? That’s awesome! And since those are exit polls, those people already voted. Let’s hope this translates to a blue wave election!
Sloane Ranger
This is horrible. I am almost as invested in these elections as I would be in a British election. Only I can influence an election here by campaigning and voting but I am powerless to do anything but watch as far as these ones are concerned. I hate how results are dribbled out county by county and have to remind myself that early results showing Republicans ahead are misleading as they are likely from right leaning rural counties and I need to wait for the cities to declare as they are where the numbers and Democratic voters are.
The British way of waiting until all the votes in the constituency are counted is much less stressful than this running count.
WaterGirl
@MazeDancer: I LOVE that map. It makes me happy. Thank you so much.
J R in WV
@Sloane Ranger:
.
.
.
As a youngster, my dad was editor of a small town newspaper. On election night, for more people were needed as back then the county reported votes by precinct and we needed to report those numbers to the newsroom and accumulate totals for the county races. So I got to use an old fashioned adding machine to compute county-wide totals one precinct at a time. We had big chalk boards with precincts listed in paint, and we would write votes down and then total them with big old adding machines.
It was really exciting to be part of such a busy and stressful night, and I got to miss school the next day, after participating in the national exercise of voting rights. Of course, that’s all over now that computers and electronic voting has replaced counting ballots by hand one at a time.
I’m pretty convinced now that going back to paper would be far superior to the poorly secured and mostly catch as catch can electronic voting machines, manufactured by companies owned and operated by Republican millionaires like the company formerly know as Diebold.
Diebold makes ATM machines for banking networks, machine that provide cash to customers, and keep a printed running total of all transactions executed by a given ATM unit. But their voting machines have no paper record of transactions, no way to reconstruct the actions of the voters. I wonder why?
Eljai
@philpm: Good to hear! My mom and my sister live in the northern part of KC. They’re in the odious Sam Graves congressional district. Kicking Graves to the curb is probably still a long, long shot, but I’m hoping enough Democrats turn out to put Claire over the top for senate.
Sloane Ranger
I think we both know the answer to this question. Totally with you on paper ballots. It’s easy to screw up with touch screens, even without any funny business. Far harder for mistakes to happen with paper
Mnemosyne
@J R in WV:
California uses a Scantron system that they call Inkavote. You put your ballot into a little plastic holder and use a special marker to mark your choices. If the electronic scanner went down, they could still count the votes (albeit much more slowly) because the dots you fill in are numbered, so you could count X votes for 153, Y votes for 154, etc.
It seems much more sensible than most states — we get the benefit of electronic counting but have a paper ballot that can be examined if the scanner goes haywire.
philpm
@Eljai: I’m in the same boat. If I was a half mile farther south, I’d have Cleaver as my congressman. If we could ever get someone to make a serious run against Graves, I think we could get him out.
Eljai
@philpm: Here’s hoping a strong Democratic contender will be inspired to run against him in 2020!