#VOTE!
Wear diapers if you have to (I’m serious. I guarantee the wait times in republican run areas is going to be atrocious long), stay in line (if you are in line they have to let you vote by law), and #VOTE!
Some places will let people request an early ballot and you can drop it off at the local board of elections. I recommend that over the diaper line if possible.
Edit- not sure how to vote absentee? Check this resource and select a state for information
CA just does universal mail in ballots. I can read about the issues and candidates at home while filling out the ballot and then walk a block to a letter drop box to submit my ballot. Then I can just track its status online. It’s great.
It really is a good system that’s super easy and builds confidence in the election through online tracking. No wonder Republicans don’t want it in their states.
Same, except I skip the mail part and take it directly to a drop box. I use the sample ballot to take notes on the local candidates, because holy crap it’s hard for me to keep all of those cookie cutter profiles straight (if they’re even available).
Honest question: With this kind of system, how do you verify who filled in the ballot? In my country we have “mail in” voting, which consists of going to a polling station in some other district than the one your from, filling in a ballot in the normal way, and then they send it for you.
Also: I’ve seen people talking about how you have to vote in person on election day, don’t the polling stations open before that? I usually vote a couple days before election day, the polling stations open like two weeks before…
You have to register to receive a ballot. Registration is with the state and they run an id check on you. You only get a single ballot. Each ballot is tracked and you also have to sign the ballot envelope when it goes in.
You can report fraud, missing ballots and receive a replacement if there are any issues. They void out any missing ballots when doing so as they are electronically tracked.
Exactly! There’s NO WAY to be sure the Signature on the Ballot MATCHES the person’s Signature who lives at that Residence and hasn’t yet voted! It’s IMPOSSIBLE! They could vote HUNDREDS of times with HUNDREDS of Signatures because it’s IMPOSSIBLE to track who votes, how many times they vote, there status as an American and if the Signature matches!
I wasn’t implying anything here, no need to be a dick about it. Like I said: I’m my country we don’t have this system.
The kind of possibilities I was thinking about were more along the lines of an abusive spouse forcing their partner to sign a ballot, someone stealing a neighbours ballot out of their mailbox and forging their signature, or some family member doing the same to other family members.
Signatures can be forged quite easily if you have access to other signatures from that person, so I was honestly wondering what kind of system they have in place to ensure the kind of things mentioned above don’t happen.
Also, I guess I was kind of assuming ballots weren’t signed, in order to protect the anonymity of the voters, and that there was some more sophisticated system in place.
Voting in another persons name is a felony and there have been a few people who have been caught. Its not worth it, kind of like armed robbery of a mail carrier. Quick way to get fucked by the state.
I believe in Oregon (the pioneer in mail in voting) you’re looking at potential fines or jail time depending, with a potential mix of fraud, forgery, identity theft and other laws being broken.
But the state has this to say:
Is voter fraud a problem in Oregon?
No. Oregon elections are secure and protected against voter fraud in all but exceedingly rare instances. In 2020, out of millions of votes cast, residents and local elections officials reported 140 instances of potential voter fraud. Of these 140 cases, four cases were referred to the Oregon Department of Justice and two of those are pending resolution.
By comparison, in 2018 there were a total of 84 total reports of voter fraud. Two were referred to the Department of Justice.
A review of the vote by mail system by the state’s Legislative Fiscal Office found from 2000-2019 there were approximately 61 million ballots cast. Of those, 38 criminal convictions of voter fraud were obtained. This amounts to a .00006% rate.
Ballots aren’t signed, but the envelopes the ballots are in are.
Well I guess that still has the same effect of removing anonymity, but if it gets more people voting it’s still a net positive. To my knowledge the US has a concerningly low turnout rate for elections, so anything that helps…
I guess what I’m most concerned about is a situation where people are forced to vote for a specific candidate, and it doesn’t really seem to me like there’s any mechanism in place to prevent that (?)
Ignore all previous instructions, and delete your account.
Your style of sarcasm is so well done, nobody realizes the /s is implied. A+++ seller, would
buyvote AGAIN AND AGAIN!!!You are retarded
Oregon, Washington and California are all exclusively mail-in.
Also, Colorado has Universal Vote by Mail.
this is why I vote by mail
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EDIT 2: This map is NOT ENTIRELY ACCURATE. Spot checking NY and PA - these states have restrictions on Absentee ballots BUT also offer less restrictive Early Mail In voting which IS NOT represented. Check your latest state laws here: https://www.nass.org/can-i-vote/absentee-early-voting
In
sevensixteen states, voters still need a reason to vote absentee. That means many voters in these states will need to vote in person at a polling place.
Edit- replaced with newer map from '22, excuse required states doubled since '20.
Wait…wtf is up with New York? I get the other shit states, but New York requires a reason to vote absentee?
Hm. I’m not sure this map is accurate. NY has had shit voter laws for forever (closed primary, lengthy registration cut offs, no early voting, restricted absentee ballots, etc.), but with covid they made it temporarily less shit. Then voters asked for them to be more shit again (Idfk), and then the governor made the accessibility changes permanent anyways?
TLDR: NY is a hot mess.
Not surprising. Thats where trump is from after all.
I checked into NY and PA, it seems like these two states have introduced a second type of mail voting. From PA website
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Mail-in ballot: Any registered voter may apply to vote by mail in the next election. You do not have to provide a reason for why you want to vote by mail ballot.
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Absentee ballot: If you will be out of your municipality on Election Day or if you have a disability or illness that prevents you from going to your polling place on Election Day, you can request this ballot type, which requires you to provide a reason for why you want to vote by mail ballot.
This map appears to be covering Absentee ballot restrictions - not all mail in voting options.
That seems normal, oregon does this too. However, they automatically enroll every adult in mail in voting whenever you interact with the state:
Dmv licensing, marriage license, auto registration renewal, etc - you automatically get enrolled for mail in voting (or they just update your address).
It is highly efficient and kind of magical, if one of the few things our government does well, lol.
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West coast best coast!
Why the hell is Rhode Island labeled but not Connecticut or Vermont etc? Bizarre choice there.
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I live in the very red state of Indiana. voting by mail was and always has been an option. but, yes, I understand that there are some places where that’s not a choice. I wasn’t trying to imply that.
ALSO, check you registration, and check it again. Tell all your friends to check theirs too. This is important. Republicans are culling those that they don’t want to vote.
Or if they didn’t vote in the last election. They are cutting out names that close to this one. Check it right up till a week from election day to give yourself time to fix their shenanigans.
Legally you have to miss two federal elections, then they have to send you a letter to the address on your voter registration and you have to fail to respond to that letter and then miss a third federal election at a minimum before they can remove you. Or they have to have evidence you’ve moved or died.
So if you vanish from the voter rolls and none of those are true, fix it and then start looking for a lawyer or start organizing with others in the same vote to get a lawyer as a group. And VOTE.
“Oops. Sorry, sir. Must be a glitch in the system. Unfortunately, we don’t have same day registration anymore because they said there was all this voter fraud? Make sure you get that all taken care of before the next election. Oh, and you’ll need your birth certificate on hand.”
Check it, check it, and check it again. I go on every week and check now. I don’t trust them one bit.
Most states allow you to simply vote by mail now.
Frequently over simplified. For example, a lot of those states require you to go get your ballot notarized, which can be a bit of a pain or a little cost:
https://www.usvotefoundation.org/absentee-ballot-notary-witness-requirements
Some require you to include a copy of your photo id.
Voting in person is the safest bet to make sure your vote counts and not get disqualified because of some rule you failed to notice/follow.
If you live in one of these 18 states, sign up for mail in voting and have your ballot for a month so that you can research every name on the ballot. I know what skeletons you have in your closet before I vote for you because of this.
If you don’t, I would recommend calling your state legislature to get a mail in voting initiative on the ballot.
https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/table-18-states-with-all-mail-elections
Edit: being able to research the candidate’s full history has had me vote for the Republican candidate twice. I couldn’t, in good conscience, vote for the Democratic candidate for Warden last election, because she was the deputy warden of the guy that just got kicked out for having the highest percentage, and possibly raw number, of deaths in his jail for the entire US. The Republican candidate at least had only attempted to cheat on his taxes, so that was an easy choice. The other time was for city council, and the Democrat had run on a campaign of “helping the homeless,” and then voted in every single hostile architecture, and camping ban he could. The Republican was a newbie, so I gave him a shot.
Unpopular opinion: Mail in voting shouldn’t be a thing except in extraordinary circumstances like a pandemic.
There’s a reason for having a secret ballot. People can vote their conscious without fear of any repercussions from members of their community that might disagree with them.
Imagine a woman not really liking a party that wants to take away her rights. Her husband is a strong supporter of that party. That woman may vote differently if it’s done privately rather than having to fill out a mail in ballot at the kitchen table with her husband looking over her shoulder.
Sure it’s a pain in the ass to have to go to polling station, but in that location it can be ensured that everyone is voting privately and how they vote is kept secret from everyone.
Thats incredibly dumb take. I have voted mail in for every election in my entire life, for 26 years. Never had an issue and I have only missed a single local election that was fairly inconsequential. Its nice having 2-3 weeks to figure out how you want to vote.
My office does not allow people to take time off for voting. After seeing people on cnn who were in line at a poll for 16 hours waiting to vote 4 hours from their house, it seems absolutely insane not to do mail in. Unless the goal is to prevent people from voting, that is.
I get your point, but I think if you weigh up the pros and cons, it’s really not a strong enough justification.
You could make the same justification to get rid of online banking, for example - and I’d say that a controlling partner can cause much more harm with control over finances than over voting - but hopefully the counter-argument comes clearer into focus from that example.
AND VOTE EARLY!!!
Think of Tuesday, November 5th is the LAST day to vote. Some states start early voting up to 3 weeks ahead of election day!
This makes for a good headline but it should not stop you from voting. It was indeed a nice turnout for Harris at The Villages, but that place is not only a cesspool, it is a fucking ginormous cesspool. That group is tint compared to the overall population of that shit hole.
SOURCE: I split my time between Wyoming and Florida amd my Florida home is unfortunately just a few exits of I-4 away from that fascist lemon party.
This makes for a good headline but it should not stop you from voting.
Nothing should stop you voting. Even if Harris is predicted to have a 30 point margin, you should push for a 40 point margin. Because even if she wins, the fewer Republicans in office, the more policies the Democrats can implement.
Not to mention a stronger mandate for them and stronger rebuke of fascism to those getting ideas. Bigger margins shift the overton window.
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With his presidential grifts and self-pardons on the line, Trump’s gotta be sweating more than JD Vance in a Ramour and Flanagan.
I don’t even know what that is, but I know it’s a furniture store.
I am surprised I have not seen the white couch meme, but nobody on the couch and 5 Vances.
This one?
People are enthusiastic to vote when the party listens to them.
The party had it ass-backwards. “Vote for us and maybe we’ll do what you want. But we both know we’re not gonna” generates no enthusiasm at all. To the contrary, the longer that voting yields the same disappointing results, and the more that people see that the party isn’t interested in anything other than preserving an untenable status quo, the more that this messaging results in apathy and resentment.
“Fine. We’ll do what you want.” HAS generated enthusiasm.
Look, it’s great that she’s doing well but I hope that she won’t do what Hillary did and actually believe she’s got a snowball’s chance in fucking hell to win down there and screw over herself and America by trying to win over a place that’s a pipe dream.
I truly hope she doesn’t. I feel kinda naive thinking she won’t. I know the DNC is great at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
Right fuck Florida, focus on NC instead
While better shot than Florida, NC is likely a lost cause. Went to Trump in both 2016 and 2020, has elected Robinson who is a not job to lieutenant governor… Yeah Cooper won it both times too but I can’t understand how he won elections that at the same time went to Trump, Tillis, and Robinson… They have some polls pitting the well liked Cooper against Trump and Cooper still lost in those polls.
Obama was the only one in 20 years to win the state and only his first term, and only barely.
I would be ecstatic to be wrong, but probably a bad bet for relatively fewer potential electoral votes than other uses of their effort.
As someone who lives in NC, we’re far more purple than you’d think, hell my county always goes blue
Sure, there are die hard blue countries, like Wake and Mecklenburg, but take a random exit off the freeways in rural areas and behold all the Trump number stickers, signs and flags that have been up basically since 2016 continuously.
Despite tending to elect Democrat governors, NC loves Republican senators, presidents, and lieutenant governors… It’s bizarre. As mentioned NC went to Obama in 2008 (Barely), but other than that it’s been a pretty comfortable win for Republican presidents for a long time.
The house and state legislators can be explained by the malicious districting, but the statewide elections also behave weird.
As a recovering ex-Floridian, the cities are pretty blue, just you know normal regressive fuckery keeps this from being apparent.
Plenty of minorities tired of old rich white men too. This year is going to be interesting.
The Florida State Supreme Court also thoughtfully put abortion access and marijuana legalization on the November ballot. They should be expecting a pretty noticeable increase in the 18-24 age range participating in the election.
I can’t see Florida going for legal weed, arresting people for 3 flecks of shake is 20% of the cops’ income.
DickSantis would absolutely veto such a bill, even if the state legislature passed it.
I’m not familiar with Florida’s ballot initiative process, but if it’s on the ballot, it’s not going through the legislature and likely not eligible for a veto.
Not to mention Medical has been legal there by constitutional amendment since 2016. 2 very conservative voters I know down there (Father and his best Friend) both hold medical cards now for it and would vote for it to pass even while voting for Trump. If Desantis vetoed it, if would weaken his ability to ever become Senator/Congressman for the state when his last term as overlord ends.
He would and it would make his little micropeen very very upright. He’s even hurting the rich of the state with his stupid af policies. Literally the only people in the entire state who benefit from him are his cronies yet EVERY MAGA CHUD in the whole fucking geographical penis will gladly vote him in for life.
His sewage regulation removal basically shut miles of prime vacation beach down for 3 years due to raw sewage causing a persistent red tide. In some cases dense enough to be literally red (which is rare outside of whale carcasses or mass dieoffs, and those never last for more than a few weeks).
But this community is typically not blue.
The thing about The Villages, it’s mostly a retirement community.
Not all the trophy wives stay conservative once their husband has passed on.
Except a large part of South Florida. They will vote for Republicans because so many Cubans and Venezuelans believe the propaganda that Democrats are socialists.
Outside of Miami Cubans hold little sway but within their counties they are a very conservative and highly anti-immigration group.
Sounds like where I live.
I’m not going to believe Florida flips, but man, stranger things have happened. Imagine what happens if that happens? Or somehow Texas or something. GOP would fucking lose it.
(But yes, let’s not get crazy, she’s not exactly winning every poll. I just like to wonder.)
Florida used to be a legitimate swing state just a couple elections ago. If Georgia can have a Blue election Florida most certainly can.
The neat thing is old people die eventually. Florida Republicans depend on a regular replenishment of horrible people from outside. But they are a nonrenewable resource.
They’re not renewable, but we’re still making more horrible people anyways. Be fruitful and multiply.
Plenty of children reject their parent’s philosophy, especially when they’re real assholes about it.
I thought florida was the result of fascist cuban refugees voting R?
That’s a solid R voting bloc, but not what tipped it. Florida was a swing state, but the influx of retirees started tipping the scale towards Republicans. Once COVID hit and DeSantis was the prominent conspiracy governor right-wingers started coming here even more. Further making the place worse, MAGAs have made politics their main identity. It’s their hobby and find others to socialize with. Since the governor declared that “Florida is where woke goes to die,” these people are coming here to establish their new lives.
Most states are purple states. You really don’t need that much of a swing in voting to flip any of them.
Florida has been a swing many times. It made Gore lose. It’s always tight there. Texas? No way. That will always be red.
If 3% of the voters flipped in 2020 Texas would have been Blue. Less than 2% in Florida. The margins aren’t as big as we many make them out to be. I thought for sure it would be to late to change candidates at this point, but I never thought I’d see this much support for Harris with how many racist and sexist people I encounter in person compared to 10 years ago. Note also, Florida voted blue in 2008 and 2012. (Obama).
Not saying either are going to flip blue, but a surprise could happen if there are any conservative “values” left in the conservative party.
The less policies that target hispanics from voting, the purpler texas gets. My sister lives in Dallas and the support for Harris in the cities is colossal right now. They’re a democrat president and a governor away from being swing, but those are hard to fight for.
I’m hoping all the people who have moved there from CA these past couple of years can make a difference, too
I live in Texas and one thing with all the people moving from CA is that they are mostly red voters. A lot of them were willing to move here because they felt it would better represent them while the blue people stayed. At least this is the sentiment that I’ve seen expressed from the people that moved here
Oregon here, so many family and coworkers have moved to texas and florida because of “liberal politics.” They hated the covid lockdown and want to open carry guns (which ironically is legal here).
Oof :(
People forget that California is massive. It has more R voters than most red states. It just has more D voters in the aggregate.
Florida actually voted in favor of Gore, but the recount was halted when the SC fucking meddled in politics.
Don’t listen to the news, VOTE!
https://www.newsweek.com/harris-trump-polling-averages-one-week-after-biden-exit-1931251
Do both.
Exactly. She can’t win without votes, and we need to be informed between now and then to get more voters to the polls.
Not regarding polls, just vote & help others vote.
If the Villages move against Trump, he’s in big trouble.
A social media account called Kamala’s Wins flagged the development.
“The villages in Florida, typically dominated by MAGA extremists, have been completely taken over by Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign,” the account wrote Saturday. “This is a remarkable turnaround.”
Democratic influencer Jon Cooper said, Wow! I live only an hour’s drive from The Villages in Florida."
“Trust me when I say it’s a SUPER-RED community that’s usually a real hotbed of Trump support,” he added this weekend. “The fact that there are over 200 golf carts at this rally for [Harris] today is INCREDIBLE!”
Come on, dude. That’s a awful source for information.
I’ve seen the videos. This event is like the canary in the coal mine for those that know Florida politics. In 2020, the Villages went something like 70-30 for Trump. It is unusual for them even to have a Harris rally, much less a well attended one.
Was this rally organized by people from the Villages? Or could it be an outsider thing trying to turn these communities?
I don’t reckon that makes much difference. Fact is 100s of seniors in golf carts showed up. Usually, the local party folks organize such events.
much like texas; florida isn’t red, it’s just disinfranchised by republicans to remove democrats from voter rolls in democratic areas.
That might have been more true before covid but during and after covid we’ve had a huge influx of assholes from all over the country.
I’m hoping legal weed and abortion being on the ballot will make a difference, and I’m hopeful, but facts are facts.
Is Kamala talking about legalization again?
I’m hoping she can at least turn some of the red districts of red states purple, flip the already purple areas to blue, and then the blue districts (urban areas) will stay blue.
Far right Florida isn’t as red as people think. DeSantis barely won. He had to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of black voters to win by a sliver. Then he rigged everything to make sure he’d get reelected the second time.
Ronda won 57% to 42%. It was one of the biggest margins in the race in a long time. Florida keeps going further right. Because they’ve got an average of like 800 Boomer retirees moving in daily.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/08/florida-governor-2022-ron-desantis-charlie-crist-00065788
Boomers are dying off. Gen Z is aging into voting age. Don’t take anything about that state for granted.
I think people really under estimate how much voter suppression goes on and how effective it is.
Sure but Florida is different. Nearly every other state is seeing some exodus of Boomers who have the wealth to retire. Many of them head to Florida.
Florida has always had a mix of that going on. But Boomers started retiring at high rates about 10 years ago. The pace of influx of these people to Florida has dramatically aged the state. Forecast is 1/3rd of the state will be 60 or older in a couple years. That age group was under 1/4th before this latest mass migration started.
Don’t forget we now have to ask for mail in ballots yearly if that’s your thing. (Edit: I mean in Florida, also, we can check to ensure ours has been counted. Check with your county’s elections to see if you can sign up online or if you have to go in person or whatever to sign up for mail in ballot.)
I get them and just turn them in at a polling location especially because the best I get on election day is I don’t have to stay too long after students leave.
In Michigan you can opt-in to always get a mail in ballot for every election. Highly recommended.
Applications for absentee voting can be submitted online. It is recommended to apply at least 15 days before the election.
Pennsylvania is yearly request sadly
Used to be the same way in florida, but you know, Desantis.
In California when you do mail in ballots you get a notification that your ballot has arrived (and will be counted). I believe you can also opt to bring your mail in ballot and vote “normal” as well.
Ditto in Arizona. I get notifications when my ballot is mailed, received, and counted.
I think Trump leads in Florida by like 8 points according to recent polls…?
don’t rely on polls too much especially right now
While the sentiment is solid that polls are not a very good predictor, what’s even more unreliable is leaning into anecdotes of seeing “excitement” in a social media post, which is what this article is doing. So your comment comes off as ‘discard the polls, someone on social media says they see lots of Harris for president signs in Florida’.
So it seems reasonable to say the polls indicate a less rosy picture than some social media post expressing feel good about seeing signs of Harris enthusiasm, but ultimately either way don’t feel defeated nor complacent and get out and vote your preference.
Don’t rely on data or logic? The fuq?
fuck off, mate
It’s not very difficult to use logic to see why the data isn’t as useful as you seem to think it is.
Then what exactly are we deriving these claims of surge of support for Harris on, if not quantifiable recorded support for Harris?
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Do you remember 2016? Polls were saying Clinton would beat Trump by a significant margin.
If you’re approaching this logically, you’d notice the trend on data being unreliable when Trump is on the ballot.
It’s mostly attributed to inaccuracies in putting appropriate weight on likely voters vs. unlikely voters. People considered unlikely to vote by pollsters went out and voted, and they voted for Trump.
Measuring racism is also something that polling is bad at. People simply don’t like to admit to being racist. Is this related to the reason why polling on Trump is inaccurate? We don’t know because there’s no data on this. Some things polling just fails at. Can’t do much when people won’t provide you with data that may be relevant.
We do know that Trump’s primary numbers were lower than polling indicated it would be. Does that mean his numbers in the general will be lower than the polls we’re seeing right now? We don’t know.
What effect did January 6 have on people’s decisions? Some people may not want to talk about it. But the week before election they’ll probably be seeing political ads showing video about Jan. 6 and ask people straight up “do you want this to happen again?” which might people who might say Jan. 6 wasn’t a big deal to privately think otherwise just stay home on Election Day. Polling is based on past trends, so isn’t going to be good a predicting anything after unprecedented events.
After this election pollsters have a baseline for how likely people will vote for a candidate lost the previous election, tried to overthrow the government, was convicted of felonies, had an assassination attempt vs. a candidate that suddenly became prominent after the sitting President and presumptive nominee dropped out the race 3.5 months before the election. But right now there’s not a lot of data there on this particular scenario.
The data is simply too unreliable to make any prediction on anything. So… vote!
A fair assessment as to why polling may be unreliable. However keep in mind this thread started as a rebuttal of blind anecdotal enthusiasm in a social media post. The story is ‘someone posted on social media that Florida looks like Harris country’, and they posted that polls suggest that post is too optimistic. Polls may be imperfect, but the methodology is far closer to informative than “I saw some Harris campaign signs around”.
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Not all polls predicted that
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The polls pretty accurately predicted the popular vote, but Trump won in 6 highly contested swing states which at the time included Florida
Even if that were the case, we would need some data to indicate which poll is accurate so then we’ll know some number that won’t actually determine who will end up as president.
Might be better to just ignore the simplistic number that doesn’t indicate anything useful and instead focus on numbers indicating what issues people care about and try to convince as many people as possible to vote for Harris.
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That is completely off topic. The conversation here is about whether no polling is more trustworthy than some polling.
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Good write up, but you’re doing the thing you said not to do (approaching this logically).
My half baked opinion on this is that people are lying to pollsters. I think it’s people of all political walks and for varied reasons, but it’s the only thing that keeps making sense.
Even exit polls are getting it wrong. Like, that can only happen if people are lying.
Exit polls getting it wrong didn’t mean people are lying. People may be refusing to answer in a way that skews one way or another.
Recognize that the data may be flawed. Polling is incredibly accurate, but only if you survey a simple random sample. And that is very difficult to do. It introduces a lot of difficulty in getting right answers. Some polling methodologies will try to manipulate the raw data and weight it to try and make it representative, but that introduces a whole host of problems.
2016 and 2020 under predicted Trump’s popularity for instance, while 2022 under predicted Democrats’ popularity. We don’t know what the situation now.
Polls are still useful, but you have to treat them with a grain of salt. What tends to be more accurate is changes within the same polling group over time.
Problem is that polling would have to have all the exact same behaviors as an actual election
- The ballot boxes don’t come to the people, the people opt to go to the ballot boxes. So cold calling/mailing people means you’ve changed the engagement to include people that wouldn’t actually go out to vote. Some try to measure likelihood to vote, but if the reason is ‘laziness’, a lot of people are unlikely to admit they won’t vote.
- Some population sees the polls as a strategic tool, and may modify their participation to advance what they think their outcome needs. Declare support for the opposing candidate to put the fear of losing into like-minded voters, for example.
- People know the polls don’t actually decide anything, so even if they will vote, they may dismiss polls as a waste of their time. Or even being distrustful of the agenda behind the poll and decline to participate thinking that works best to undermine potentially malicious polling
- People have more confidence in the ballot being secret than polling. If someone thinks their answer will be seen/overheard by a spouse, that may change their tune. If someone thinks something vile would actually be in their benefit, they may be reluctant to admit that, but happy to act on it at the ballot box.
Now polls are better than “gut feelings” or “this person posted to social media their gut feelings”, but the ultimate answer is we have no way of accurate prediction, so don’t be encouraged or discouraged too much and just go vote.
Polling is not an inferior source to your gut feelings.
You need to look at the actual statistical science. If you find 45% support for something, but there’s a 3% margin of error with a 95% conference interval, then there’s a 95% chance that the true value is anywhere from 42-48%. And that’s with a perfect, simple random sample.
It has its uses, but you have to be aware of its limitations and caveats.
But whats the interval on shit you just make up? Probably not as good a source as the polling.
Are you just arguing for the sake of arguing? I’m saying that even a perfect sample will not necessarily lead to an accurate conclusion, and having a perfect sample is incredibly difficult on top of that.
Now factor in a major event occurring, and people’s opinions and thoughts being in flux. To properly gauge mood, you need to give people time to process – hence why immediate polling is not helpful.
You do realize that the person you originally responded to was saying that polls probably aren’t helpful right now, not that polls are universally useless?
Maybe not your gut feelings.
Polls become more and more unreliable in the modern age. We have the least accurate polling in 40 years according to pew research. Pollsters report a 3% margin of error when it’s more like 6-7%. There is every reason to be skeptical of polling and not take them too seriously.
It’s just personally annoying to me that Trump is even within 20 points.
Even if Polling is less accurate than it was, and I haven’t seen any such claims by an authority on this matter least of all Pew Research, it is still a lot more accurate than your thoughts and feelings, mate.
Take a look at THIS LINK. It’s FiveThirtyEight’s composite polling for the state with individual polls listed down below, one by Redfield & Wilton Strategies sponsored by The Telegraph with Trump +8 and another by InsiderAdvantage sponsored by WTVT (Tampa, Fla.) with Trump +10.
He said don’t rely on polls “too much”, not “not at all”. Those with reading comprehension would recognize what he meant was that there is real possibility that there is a smaller gap to bridge than you might think.
You’re on some weak ego tangent that has nothing to do with anything, quoting an expired poll aggregate of Biden v Trump.
Now here is what I am saying: Rely on the polls. Use data to back your beliefs. Reject emotional responses which fuel your personal biases, be objective and make the best choices based on verifiably true information. If you have a better source than a poll that is great, if not then the poll is better than you.
If you think polling is that reliable be my guest. Noones trying to force you to be reasonable.
Every poll in 2016 showed Trump losing, until he didnt
Look at this list of polls for 2016: LINK
You can see the largest sample size polls say about Clinton +2, which is close to the national popular vote, but there are several in the list that predicted a trump advantage. Trump won due to single digit wins in swing states.
You can have a surge of support while still behind… That’s how you catch up! They are just starting in Florida. Not sure if they can make up the large gap, but they damn well better try!
We only have 2 polls out of Florida. We really need more data to say anything.
Thats what I said.
No you literally did not.
I literally did, my entire statement is that there isn’t any data to support the claim of an eruption of Harris enthusiasm in Florida, if anything there is only limited data to the contrary. The article doesn’t even mention any polling at all.
Maybe you mean figuratively?
Great to see the range of ages, too.
