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[potofsoup]

hey folks, was told I should post some of my election efforts here.

1) Voting comic: https://summercomfort.tumblr.com/post/626311829792112640/i-made-a-chart-of-some-nitty-gritty-info-about

2) Spreadsheet of vote by mail details: http://tinyurl.com/votingdeets2020

3) PPT of California information, with some specificity to our county. (we're printing it out and posting it downtown): https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1j26GjAbyH6vkhBAY2oKbrW2C2NdQMv8H4hPvq_PnlG4/edit#slide=id.p

Re: Spreadsheet -- I collated data from pre-COVID and pre-USPS-FUBAR times -- if your state has recent changes, please drop a comment so that I can update. Trawling through state election websites has been... difficult. Just the other day I found information that isn't on our county election website.... on a grocery store shopping cart. Yes. >_>

Comments

[potofsoup]

The Fivethirtyeight page is great! But it doesn't get into some of the nitty gritty stuff that I care about. For example, in some states you're required to get your mail-in ballot notarized. That knowledge might change whether someone decides to register for Vote By Mail or not.

Yes, I link to the US Vote foundation in my spreadsheet -- it's good for finding the county level voting office information, though sometimes that's different from where the ballot should be dropped off.

I've already incorporated the ncsl and vote.org information into my spreadsheet. Bless NCSL and vote.org

Still to find a rundown of WHEN the ballots get mailed out that isn't NCSL. NCSL is good in that they've done the hard work of looking at state-level policies, but they haven't adjusted for the latest changes. For example, due to the USPS FUBAR, California now accepts ballots up to 17 days after postmark, but ncsl data only says 3.

"Early Voting" data is also extremely vague. A lot of places lump mail-in ballot drop-off with Early Voting, but it really needs to be disambiguated this year. For example, the ad that I saw on my grocery store cart from our county election office said: "Vote By Mail and Early Voting" starts on Oct 5, but then also says "Vote Centers open Oct 31 -- wear a mask!" Which probably means that Ballot drop-off locations are open starting Oct 5, but in-person casting of ballots doesn't happen until Oct 31. So if I'm someone who is worried about ballot drop-off boxes getting vandalized, then I should wait until Oct 31. Or deliver to the county election office in person. But is there a form of "early voting" that isn't vote centers? If not, why does it say that both of those start Oct 5?

Also, I'm very wary of Democracy Docket's suggestion to do community collection of ballots. I put this in my spreadsheet, but most states only allow immediate family, and often have a low upper limit on how many a single person can deliver (4 or 6, usually), mostly to prevent ballot harvesting.