2022 U.S. Congressional (and Other) Elections

[N.E. Brigand]

After Republicans sued, elections commissioners in Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, the largest county in that state, agreed to add an extra step that will slow down the vote counting there: what should have been done by Wednesday morning may take up to a week. This safety check isn't used in any other Pennsylvania county.

Or as one conservative writer at Axios describes this news:

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Meanwhile also in Pennsylvania (and potentially much more importantly).

John Fetterman’s Pa. Senate campaign is suing to have undated and misdated ballots counted

Lt. Gov. John Fetterman’s campaign for U.S. Senate has joined the legal fight over whether mail ballots with no date or the incorrect date should be counted in Tuesday’s election.

The Democratic campaign sued Pennsylvania elections officials Monday asking a federal judge to order that all mail ballots be counted regardless of what date, if any, voters wrote on the outside of the envelope.

State law requires that voters handwrite a date on the outer envelope when returning their mail ballots, and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled last week that undated and wrongly dated mail ballots be set aside and not counted. The court issued a follow-up order Saturday setting specific date ranges that the handwritten dates must fall within.

There will likely be tens of thousands of undated and wrongly dated ballots rejected statewide under that ruling. Because mail ballots are so disproportionately used by Democrats over Republicans, that will likely mean thousands, if not tens of thousands, of net votes for Fetterman that are rejected.

[River]

If the ballot arrived before deadline why does it need a date? In my state the dating is required only for a witness, and a witness is only required (and otherwise completely ignored) if the voter can't sign and has to make a mark.

ETA: I will add that signature verification judges in my state don't look at dates on the witness line. They just make sure it was signed if the voter made a mark. And it has to be the voter's mark. Signing for someone and claiming PoA doesn't work. Neither does trying to sign for someone and then signing the witness line.

[N.E. Brigand]

Polling analyst Dave Wasserman writes: "It's pretty apparent from precinct-level data in VA and county-level data in FL that Democrats have a turnout problem today - one that's unlikely to be solved in the next six hours."

[elengil]

If the ballot arrived before deadline why does it need a date? In my state the dating is required only for a witness, and a witness is only required (and otherwise completely ignored) if the voter can't sign and has to make a mark.

I'm guessing this is one of those laws that was implemented so they had reasons to throw out ballots.

[N.E. Brigand]

The poll-watchers are seeing lots of signs of limited Democratic turnout. If you know someone you think should vote but hasn't, encourage them to get out there in the next couple hours.

In my position, I really have to be careful about discussing politics at work, so as not to seem to be unduly influencing anyone, but I had a somewhat depressing conversation with that coworker I mentioned the other day, who's voting in her first midterm. It's great that she's voting, of course, and she's pro-choice and anti-Trump, so her vote will be to the country's benefit, and she's pretty vocal about diversity issues (she was rather bothered several months ago when a coworker didn't know what Juneteenth was), but I was stunned by how little she knows about politics or history. She's got a college education and 15+ years as an office professional. Today she asked me if it was true that the U.S. Constitution only counts people of her race as 3/5 of a person. And she didn't know which political party was supported by those on the violent side of the January 6th insurrection. In fact, she seemed to only vaguely know what happened that day.

[Dave_LF]

The obvious conterargument is that D turnout *should* be down because they've voting by mail. Are the pundits accounting for that?

(I voted in person because I just feel that's the best way to minimize the risk that bad or incompetent actors will screw with your ballot)

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The obvious conterargument is that D turnout *should* be down because they've voting by mail.

Or just voted early. Not sure if this just wishful thinking but ...

[elengil]

I realize that the answer is "you're not a battleground state so there's no drama to be had" but I am both irritated and amused that Washington - a 100% vote-by-mail state, apparently also has no voter fraud, no problems with election rigging, no 'voting day' drama... because there's nothing to gain by discussing us.

[RoseMorninStar]

I realize that the answer is "you're not a battleground state so there's no drama to be had" but I am both irritated and amused that Washington - a 100% vote-by-mail state, apparently also has no voter fraud, no problems with election rigging, no 'voting day' drama... because there's nothing to gain by discussing us.

El, isn't that something?

I don't even want to turn on the news.

[RoseMorninStar]

OK.. so this happened in town. So glad we voted by mail.
Knife-wielding man arrested at West Bend polling place after yelling "stop the voting"

Also: a 26-year-old in Southwestern Ohio murdered his neighbor because he thought he was a Democrat.

[River]

So it's early and all but, um, guys, Grassley's challenger is >10 points up.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Unfortunately, that was an illusion. Grassley has already been called the winner.

But the biggest shock of the night is that Lauren Boebert is losing so far 51.6% to 48.3% with 80% counted. Still too close to call, however.

Overall, things are not going as badly as the could be, though the House is still probably going to the GOP and the Senate is still too close to call.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

It looks like the Georgia Senate race is going to a runoff. Which may or may not determine control of the Senate.

[Túrin Turambar]

Warnock beating Walker was my wish for today, so, could be better, could be worse. Not a bad result for an incumbent party in the mid-terms. It's a bit of a reverse of 2020 where it was the Democrats failing to live up to expectations in Congress - having President Trump on the ballot seems to do odd things to elections. Looks like Lauren Boebert will lose, which gives me some optimism. MTG being re-elected with two-thirds of the vote, though...

[N.E. Brigand]

I voted about 15 minutes before polls closed in Cleveland, did some grocery shopping and picked up some dinner and headed back to work to get through a big project that's been looming. Have deliberately avoided the news for the past 7 hours, fearing the worst, and finally checking in, while I see that Tim Ryan lost to J.D. Vance even more soundly than I expected, overall the news is much better than I expected. Fetterman won. Warnock at least didn't lose yet. Democrats appear to have flipped two House seats in Ohio despite Ryan losing?

Definitely not a "red wave," although certain areas went big for Republicans.

[Sunsilver]

YaY! Fetterman defeated Dr. Oz!

[N.E. Brigand]

NBC's current projection is for Republicans to control the House.

By a one-seat margin.

Obviously I'd love for Democrats to control it, but this is shaping up to be the best midterm performances by the President's party in two decades (when Republicans gained seats in the year after 9/11).

[N.E. Brigand]

In part because of some hypocritical dirty tricks by Democrats who helped Gibbs win the primary because they thought he would be easier to beat in November. I think that is just wrong.

I agree Peter Meijer not only would be a stronger Republican candidate than John Gibbs in the general election, but that the U.S. would be better off having Meijer than Gibbs in Congress. And I agree that one party meddling in another party's primary process is a dirty trick.

That said, gerrymandering is an even worse dirty trick, and Republicans nationally won on that front, so I can understand why Democrats felt the need to try this. At this time, both moves are permissible parts of the U.S. political process. And the U.S. would be better off having Democrats control the House than having Republicans control the House even if one of them is Peter Meijer.

Like gerrymandering, cross-party interference comes with risks. Gerrymanders are very helpful in years when the elections will be reasonably close, but in rebounding wave years, gerrymanders backfire on the party that designed them. Likewise the danger of influencing another party's primaries to assist the weaker general election candidate (and analysts do say that Gibbs' victory last night does give Democrats the edge in November) is that that person actually wins, you may have helped someone dangerous get into Congress.

But Meijer's defeat is ultimately the fault not of Democrats but of the Republican voters in his district. According to this report at Fox News, the House Democratic caucus's dirty tricks largely consisted of spending a lot of money for a Congressional race -- more than John Gibbs's own campaign spent -- to air a television campaign ad with this message:

John Gibbs is too conservative for West Michigan. Handpicked by Trump to run for Congress, Gibbs called Trump "the greatest president," and worked in Trump’s administration with Ben Carson. Gibbs has promised to push that same conservative agenda in Congress. A hard line against immigrants at the border and so-called "patriotic" education in our schools. The Gibbs/Trump agenda is too conservative for West Michigan.

As far as I can see, all facts stated in that ad are true, and I certainly agree with the opinions it expresses. And if a Republican who saw that ad was thereby convinced to vote for Gibbs rather than Meijer, whose fault is that?

Back in August in a U.S. House race in Michigan, extremist Republican candidate Josh Gibbs defeated rational Republican incumbent Rep. Peter Meijer -- one of ten Republicans who voted to impeach President Donald Trump for his role in the January 6th insurrection -- with the "help" of Democrats, who ran ads in that district telling voters that Gibbs was too extreme for the district. The Republican voters there apparently are that crazy.

But the district's voters overall are not so crazy: Gibbs was defeated tonight by Democratic challenger Hillary Scholten, flipping that seat from red to blue.

Meijer endorsed Gibbs, by the way.

[N.E. Brigand]

For the first time since 1983, Democrats will control the Michigan state senate.