Yesterday, North Carolina had the most reported cases of COVID-19 yet.
Hospitalizations have not hit their mid-summer peaks. However there is only about a 15% gap between yesterday’s hospital count and the peak July hospital census. Hospitalizations have increased by ~30% in under a month. North Carolina’s positivity rate is stuck in a band between 6% to 7% on a daily basis right now so that has not accelerated and the university super-clusters got broken when UNC-Chapel Hill went online. At the same time, the state is still moving towards less restrictive phased re-opening even as the case counts and hospitalization counts are rebounding off of local minimas that were far higher than the late spring local minimas.
Now onto some more encouraging news:
Additional data are in: More than 333,000 voters cast ballots on the first day of in-person early voting in North Carolina. We *believe* that is a one-day early voting record, beating the 304,000 total on Friday, November 4, 2016. Way to go NC voters!#ncpol#YourVoteCountsNC
— NCSBE (@NCSBE) October 16, 2020
Every vote that is received yesterday and today and tomorrow removes a miniscule amount of variance from the final range of possible results. Candidates and campaigns that are ahead by a notable amount want the last three weeks of the race to be low variance. Everyone who votes early also makes any election day poll-watching shenanigans marginally less effective as lines will be shorter than they otherwise would be and resources to deal with assholes will be more readily available and less exhausted. I will be voting early on Monday at the senior center 2 miles from my house.
debbie
Ohio’s also heading the wrong way. It got down to 800-something, but now, I think the 2,000-mark has been broken three times in just the last couple of weeks.
Betsy
Went by the local BOE to see early voting yesterday. Things are looking very, very good in Eastern North Carolina, which is normally a very Trumpy area. But I would just observe that my county has 3400 more democratic registrations on the books than Republican, so I think we’re going to see some good things. People are very very energized.
The Thin Black Duke
What do people think the word ‘contagious’ means?
WereBear
@The Thin Black Duke:
Well, they don’t know what the word “think” means…
prufrock
Dropped my ballot and the wife’s ballot off at the Supervisor of Elections office Wednesday. Website says they’ve been counted.
Feels good to have those two cookies already baked.
Cheryl Rofer
Perhaps it’s too early in the morning for Bayesian statistics, but one thing I don’t understand (and may not understand even after you explain) is that
If we don’t know what those votes are – maybe all of them are for Trump – why does the variance matter?
I’ve seen that the voting so far is something like 2:1 Democrat:Republican registrations, so that tells us that the probability is that more of the votes are for Biden. Also polls. But why variance?
Matt McIrvin
@Cheryl Rofer: I’ve heard some claims that early votes in Michigan and Wisconsin are split 1:1 down the middle, being repeated by Republicans who think this means a 2016-like massive polling miss and possibly repeat wins for Trump. Who knows, maybe it does.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
The polling miss would be far worse than 2016 if Trump wins those states.
Matt McIrvin
A bit of good news on this front–it appears that in-person primary voting in the summer didn’t significantly contribute to the COVID-19 wave:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/voting-in-primaries-didnt-worsen-the-covid-19-pandemic/
Masking up and spacing out in these situations seems to be effective.
Barry
“Everyone who votes early also makes any election day poll-watching shenanigans marginally less effective as lines will be shorter than they otherwise would be and resources to deal with assholes will be more readily available and less exhausted. ”
Also, if they play shennanigans with long lines, those who *can* wait will; those who can’t have the option of coming back another day. Fewer days of early voting mean that contingency and weather have a greater effect.
Jerry
I can’t believe that Wake County is bringing kids back to school. My kid will continue to do the online academy thing through the county. It’s way too early to send the kids back, in my opinion.
Also, if you want to keep up with North Carolina election numbers, it would be wise to follow Gerry Cohen on Twitter. Dude is a gem mine of information.
Matt McIrvin
@Jerry: My town, after trying a hybrid model for the schools, seems on the verge of going back to all-virtual since there’s a raging outbreak in progress.
My daughter goes to school in Amesbury now (they’re in much better shape there) and her school is actually having all their classes outdoors, and going online in bad weather. I imagine they figure they’re getting some in-person time in while they can–this isn’t going to be possible indefinitely.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: It concerns me a bit that the D:R split in early mail voting isn’t nearly as large as the enormous 3:1 splits between Biden and Trump supporters that some surveys on how people intended to vote found. I’m not sure what that means, of course. It could be that the early Republican voters are voting for Biden.
Barbara
@Matt McIrvin: I know you are a pessimist (being charitable) but the only data I can find is zip code data on where ballots have been requested. You don’t need to express party affiliation when requesting a ballot. So it would be nice if you could elucidate the source for your information.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin: Are those 3:1 splits based on state-specific polling?
Nicole
@Barbara:
I googled, and the only article I could find about it was from the Washington Examiner (which is not exactly an unbiased source). It said that ballots being mailed in in those states are about equally split between registered Republicans and Democrats.
Barbara
@Baud: Not only that, but the subsequent news about USPS meltdown might have altered people’s plans.
Aleta
@The Thin Black Duke: “swindle” + “tag you’re it” ?
nclurker
voted yesterday here in nw n.c.in and out in five minutes.
as to not understanding contagious,i ever never seen so many tourists
as i have this fall.florida,texas,georgia,s.c.,indiana,kentucky plates,plus
n.c.
we really are quite the species.
Eric
Given the numbers. Saying about one to one is misleading. 1.3 to 1 is a big lead suggesting 30% larger number over the other. So “about” could be doing a lot of work. Plus is matters from where the advantage is. That same number can be bad in a heavily dem city but great in Alabama. The key is bank the votes in areas that have been the targets of suppression in the past. Don’t yet see enough data to conclude anything one way or the other
Barbara
@Nicole: Unlike in other states the Michigan Republican Party has been encouraging voters to obtain absentee/ mail ballots.
Ohio Mom
I remain somewhat ambilvalent about the idea of early voting. It seems to me that there is such a thing as too early voting when campaigns are still in full swing and events such as debates have yet to happen.
Low information voters, on which so much can depend, might need those last minute news flashes in order to make a half-way informed decision (since half-way is the best we can hope for them). As we’ve seen, there is always a possibility of an earth-shattering October surprise (though frustratingly, they don’t seem to stick to Trump).
That said, four years ago, I waited on line for two hours to vote for Hillary, and last week voted my straight Blue ticket, headed by Biden.
Especially after Ohio’s abrupt cancelling of our March primary (what was it, a day or two before its scheduled date, because we were locking down) I’m always going to vote as early as possible myself. I will never forget that an election was cancelled, POOF! just like that! (Eventually things were set up so we were able to vote by mail).
And now that Ohio’s Covid numbers are shooting up, I’m glad I went to the Board of Elections when I did. As we all know, a week can make a huge difference in the infection rates. Maybe I saved my high-risk for complications life with my timing.
So as I said, ambivalent.
Roger Moore
@The Thin Black Duke:
Other people can spread it to each other.
e julius drivingstorm
From the Guardian: North Carolina rejecting nearly ten 10% or mail in votes.
tracker for mail-in ballots
Matt McIrvin
@Ohio Mom: I tend to think October Surprises generally leave you less informed than you were before you heard about them.
Benw
@Matt McIrvin: yeah, we figured that out during the first wave of BLM protests
e julius drivingstorm
@e julius drivingstorm:
My bad. one percent.
Roger Moore
@Matt McIrvin:
The one in 2016 certainly did.
Matt McIrvin
@Roger Moore: I voted early in 2016 and I remember taking some satisfaction from the fact that it was before all that broke.
Matt McIrvin
@Barbara: I think I may have been led astray by a poorly-sourced right-wing-memeosphere thing.
Hoodie
@Jerry: The Board of Ed meeting that led to the reopening plan was somewhat of a clusterf**k. The original proposal was to only open pre-k through 5, but somehow that got expanded to middle schools at the last minute. My guess is that the board members are under extreme pressure from various parts of the community that want schools reopened regardless of the consequences and they’re getting bombarded with emails and phone calls from those sectors.
Some of those concerns are legit, but others aren’t. For example, special needs kids can be really hurt by not being in school, and there are arguments that online instruction does not work at all for very young children, who can also be a particular child care burden for parents. However, I suspect that some of the people pushing for opening have, let’s say, less reasonable concerns, and I would bet the more virulent feedback is coming from the usual shit stirrers. A recent poll indicated that something on the order of 70% of parents do not want to rush reopening of schools, only about 28% (close to the magic 27!) want them opened. So it’s likely a vocal minority is driving this.
My wife is a middle school teacher, and she’ll be the first to admit that online instruction is less than ideal. However, most of her kids seem to be getting the knack of it and will be able to get by until it’s safe to return. Honestly, the return is not only kind of dumb when you look at the rising numbers in NC, it also isn’t much of a return. Kids are on three week rotations at my wife’s school, i.e., one week in school and two weeks online. During the one in-person week, they only go four days. So, over the next few months, they’ll spend, at most, a handful of days actually in the school building. In addition, somewhere around half of the students are in the virtual academy and are not participating in person at all. So, as a result, my wife has in person classes with as few as 2 students in them. It’s kind of a pain in the ass to teach this way because she is not supposed to conduct in-person and online classes at the same time. I guess it will be nice for those 2 kids that are in class, but it’s a lot of additional work for the teachers. It’s also hard not to wonder if this is worth the potential exposure to the students, teachers and staff.
David Anderson
@Cheryl Rofer: Good question.
Let us assume that there is a huge universe of potential voters. Each voter has two key axis of probabilities.
Axis 1: who will I vote for conditional on voting with a range of probabilities of voting for Candidate X ranging from 0 to 100%
Axis 2: Will I vote? ranging from 0% chance (individual convicted and serving time for a Florida state felony) to just under 100%.
On Axis 2, I am a near 100% certain to vote individual as the last election I missed was the 2000 Massachusetts Democratic primary. I am planning to vote on Monday. But between Friday morning and Monday, I could be hit by a meteor so I am not a 100% certain voter, but a 99.993% sure voter.
So if there is only a single voting time period, the pre-period is all probabilistic calculations on both the who will I vote for and will I vote questions. Those two things are probably dynamically interacting but that is not particularly relevant at this time. There is going to be a lot of variance in realities as perhaps a crucial set of precincts could be flooded out on election day, or perhaps there is perfect weather and idiosyncratically an amazing GOTV volunteer is able to talk people who have low probabilities of voting into voting. From a projection POV, there are a lot of unknowables.
Now under a multi-voting period paradigm, the people who voted in a previous period only have uncertainty from the campaign POV on a single axis — did they vote for Candidate A or not-A? There is certainty on that as their probability of voting in the election is now 100%
So assuming that I am able to cast my ballot on Monday, I will change the probabilistic vote count for Biden from 99.999% for Biden (controlling for possibility of zombie brain control infections) * 99.993% probability of voting (99.930% of a Biden vote) to 99.999% (of a Biden vote)
And yeah, there is a third axis — what is the probability of a vote being correctly counted once it is cast. But that is an extension of the model.
WereBear
@Ohio Mom: While you make good points, I think early voting is better, on balance, if only to extend the franchise to people who just can’t fit it in during that ONE day.
When people have so many non-negotiable demands on their time, they need alternatives. Mail-in should have that flexibility.
Hoodie
@Ohio Mom:
Can’t see how this outweighs the advantage of allowing people to vote when it’s more convenient for their jobs, childcare, etc. If you need more time to listen to debates, etc., then take it and vote later. Maybe if you make election day a national holiday you could curtail early voting, but even then, some people will have to work on those days.
AM in NC
Did not need to hear that depressing COVID news. We were doing pretty well before the university debacle.
i voted late in the day at the senior center yesterday after lines went down and they were doing good job with safety, I thought.
Ohio Mom
Like I said, I’m ambivalent. One weekday is definitely not enough. I think that’s unarguable.
Is a two week window long enough? Is six weeks too long? There has to be a sweet spot, and I am waiting to hear the political scientists who study these things report.
Also, does having 50+ wildly different voting schedules have an influence one way or another? Certainly having different standards for how polling places operate has a disparate effect.
I was ready to vote against Trump’s re-election on Wednesday,November 9th. It’s been hard waiting this long, and I’m happy to have crossed that off my to-do list.
Ohio Mom
Maybe we need something like a combination two-week moratorium and voting period. No Congressional business during this interim — get things done either before voting starts or table them until after.
Do the debates before then too. Have a relatively quiet voting period. Rallies and ad campaigns would still go on, obviously, as well as media commentary. But no more things like SC candidate hearings while people are voting.
Slappy Kincaid
@Jerry: My friends who are teachers here in Wake Co. are absolutely apoplectic over the decision to start in-person instruction.
And the early voting sites were absolutely mobbed here on Day 1
AnotherBruce
@Cheryl Rofer:
@e julius drivingstorm: Thanks for waking me up!
Kent
I think it’s just a fancy way to say that the more votes that are cast, the more the final result becomes pre-determined and less subject to last minute chaos, October surprise, Comey, Russians, etc. I’m not sure that it is really the right use of the term because we aren’t really seeing variance in the normal sense where you have some experimental result that randomly distributes. The variance is just an artifact of inadequate polling.
trollhattan
Compare to 40 million Californians with 3,240 cases reported October 14. The peak was 9,561 on July 21.
Winter is coming.
Kent
If our elections were run competently like most other countries then it would be a non-issue. But people have come to learn that if they show up to the polls on election day they may face 10 hour long lines. Which in a just world would be treated as criminal and the people involved would be stripped of all future responsibility and jailed.
Countries like India with far higher population densities manage to run largely competent elections. We can too. A complete broad sweeping voting rights and elections reform bill needs to be one of the first agendas of any new Democratic congress.
trollhattan
@Kent:
Has anybody seen James Comey lately? I’d like him to stay at home until the second week of November, just to be sure.
Kent
@Hoodie: Same thing is happening here in Clark County WA (Vancouver area). We have a very loud and vocal minority clamoring for re-opening. Doing car parades and a lot of Facebook stuff. If they really had the courage of their convictions they’d get out of their damn cars and assemble in a packed classroom for their demonstrations.
But our local school boards are not listening. They have very clear guidance from the state, which is among the strictest in the nation. That requires a 3 weeks of active covid cases below 75/100k population. The numbers have been trending upwards. So the school districts just tell people: You want schools to re-open? Start fucking behaving and bring the numbers down. It’s really not up to the individual school districts anyway as we have better top-down state guidelines. Schools where there is little or no covid are allowed to re-open.
When they do re-open the plan is for every other day cohorts. So if you are a teacher and you have 30 kids in your 1st period Biology class you get 15 on Monday and 15 on Tuesday and repeat. So each class is only 50% occupied and the building is only 50% occupied each day. And the cohorts of students don’t mix. On the off days they just have schoolwork assignments, no zooms.
Gin & Tonic
@Ohio Mom: My son has been an OSCE-accredited election observer in Ukraine twice, visiting polling places in small and large cities, and never saw anyone waiting more than 10 minutes.
This fellow echoes that (he is not my son.)
They vote in one day. This isn’t rocket surgery.
Kent
In 2016 people still generally trusted institutions like the FBI and DOJ. After four years of Trump endlessly lying and tearing down the credibility of government and politicizing it, I’m not even sure any sort of Comey thing would have remotely the same effect this time around. I expect/hope that the press would be more skeptical. They certainly seem to have been with the latest Obamagate bullshit and the new laptop story. I’m not discounting any October surprise. A cornered rat will strike somehow. But they really have sabotaged their ability to use the government in this manner. There is a little bit of poetic justice in that.
Kent
@Gin & Tonic: Exactly. I observed voting in Guatemala in the 1980s in the middle of a violent civil war when I was there in the Peace Corps. They managed to do it competently in one single day without long lines.
Democrats need to take charge and conduct a massive reform of voting rights and elections in this country. We have put up with deliberate voter suppression for far too damn long, as it is just a fact of nature like hurricanes and wildfires that you just have to work around.
Mike E
I just voted here in Raleigh, day 2 of 17 days of early voting, at a large rec center 10 miles away from my apt… the rain has tamped down the enthusiasm a bit which will no doubt pick up again as the weather trends look nice going forward to Halloween.
debbie
@Ohio Mom:
I voted early in person almost a month before the lockdown. A powerful argument, I think, for early voting.
EmanG
I’m currently working early voting in Athens,Ga and the lines have been steady all day. Anywhere from 50 to 100 in line at a time. No knuckleheads as of yet.
J R in WV
@EmanG:
Well, that’s good. I bet some of them were knuckleheads, but were just being quiet about it. Hiding it from the poll workers.
BlueNC
Voted in Durham County, NC. No wait at all, helped along by the handy Durham County Early Voting Wait Time map!
https://www.dcovotes.com/voters/voting/early-voting
I’ve never been emotional about filling out a ballot, but this was a release of four years of pent-up frustration.
Also, I triple-checked it for fear that I might have inadvertently rage-marked one of the R assholes. (The current insurance commissioner, a Republican, did get my lone non-Democratic vote. He was approached with a bribe, reported it to the FBI, and helped take the guy down. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/federal-jury-convicts-founder-and-chairman-multinational-investment-company-and-company)
docNC
I voted yesterday.