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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

The house always wins.

Nevertheless, she persisted.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Screw the Judean People’s Front. Splitters.

Mission Accomplished!

We still have time to mess this up!

Wetsuit optional.

Not all heroes wear capes.

… makes me wish i had hoarded more linguine

Trump is going to draw a dick on that dog with a sharpie, isn’t he?

I personally stopped the public option…

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

‘Forty-two’ said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm.

Good luck with your asparagus.

Too inconsequential to be sued

The revolution will be supervised.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Everybody saw this coming.

This blog will pay for itself.

Militantly superior in their own minds…

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You are here: Home / Archives for Open Threads / Excellent Links

Excellent Links

Schadenfreudelicious Link: “Grief, anger, disbelief: Trump voters face Biden’s victory”

by Anne Laurie|  November 12, 20209:52 am| 317 Comments

This post is in: Election 2020, Excellent Links, Repubs in Disarray!

While political Twitter’s conversation about the 2020 election is about the disjuncture between the polling and the results, the offline conversation is more about the disjuncture between yard signs, rallies, and the results. https://t.co/KvHjb5le7S pic.twitter.com/VEEPIRuk9g

— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) November 12, 2020

Did we not say all the incantations correctly? Did we not sacrifice the best fruits of our labors? How can we have been forsaken, oh Dark Lords of Death?

The Associated Press does not have the Grey Lady’s smarmy sympathy for the befuddled Trumpists. (I swear, just for a moment, I wondered if Betty Cracker was muscling into DougJ’s parody territory… )

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — When Joan Martin heard that Joe Biden had been declared the winner of the presidential election, the retired nurse and avowed supporter of President Donald Trump was deeply unsettled. To steel herself, she thought about how her household weathered Hurricane Katrina when it battered her hometown of Picayune, Mississippi, in 2005.

As the storm blew toward the town, Martin rushed out into her yard to carry her 85 show chickens to safety. Outside, howling winds lashed her family’s barn, lifting the edges of the roof off its moorings.

“The next day they (the chickens) were very concerned about the changes in the yard — we had trees down,” said Martin, 79. “They were very eyes-wide. But within two days, they said, ‘Oh, yeah, we can deal with this,’ and they did. So I have to follow their lead.”

Across the country, many of the 71.9 million people who voted for Trump — especially his loyal, passionate base — are working through turbulent emotions in the wake of his loss. Grief, anger and shock are among the feelings expressed by supporters who assumed he would score a rock-solid victory — by a slim margin, maybe easily, perhaps even by a landslide….

Schadenfreudelicious Link: “Grief, anger, disbelief: Trump voters face Biden’s victory”Post + Comments (317)

Excellent Watch: The Current Leader of the Free World Congratulates President-Elect Biden

by Anne Laurie|  November 11, 20209:08 am| 267 Comments

This post is in: Biden-Harris 2020, Excellent Links, Foreign Affairs

This video of Chancellor Merkel congratulating @JoeBiden and @KamalaHarris is worth your time. Merkel talks about German history, the role of the United States and much more. Take a look:pic.twitter.com/6t7pEYgVOZ

— Marcel Dirsus (@marceldirsus) November 9, 2020

Excellent Watch: The Current Leader of the Free World Congratulates President-Elect BidenPost + Comments (267)

Trump Crime Cartel Death Watch Open Thread: Murdoch Has Declared Trump A Sunk Cost

by Anne Laurie|  November 9, 20206:47 pm| 152 Comments

This post is in: Election 2020, Excellent Links, Media, Trump Crime Cartel, Schadenfreude

Here's the clip as Fox News finally pulls the plug on Team Trump https://t.co/7XPEBhWmdk

— Jack Blanchard (@Jack_Blanchard_) November 9, 2020

This has been brewing for some time, of course. From the Washington Post, “The long love affair between Fox News and Trump may be over”:

The last day of Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign began just after 7 a.m., as polls opened on the East Coast, with a call to “Fox & Friends,” the television morning show that had turned the reality star into a U.S. president. He got his usual hero’s welcome. But it was no longer enough…

…[H]is remarks quickly turned pointed that Tuesday morning as he boasted about how well he had done in the job of president, despite unexpected challenges — not from China or Russia or North Korea, he said, but from the United States. And he mused rhetorically about what had changed the most for him since 2016.

“Fox,” he said, answering his own question. “It’s much different now.” As the hosts sputtered, he elaborated: “In the old days, they wouldn’t put sleepy Joe Biden on every time he opened his mouth. . . . It’s a much different operation — I’m just telling you.”

It was the last day of a campaign Fox had done so much to support, but it was a preview of the war — now one week old but months in the making — that may have permanently ruptured the bond between President Trump and his once-favorite television channel. As he faces expulsion from the White House, Trump has vowed revenge on the network that propelled his political career, according to close White House aides — perhaps by publicly attacking Fox or undermining its business model by endorsing a competitor…

In recent months, he had begun to complain — on Twitter and to his aides — that Fox had turned on him. That impression was only heightened when reports emerged that Murdoch was telling associates that the president was going to lose…

Which leads to this excellent, if daintily-phrased, NYTimes article from last week — “New York Post Shifts Tone on Trump as a Top Editor Plans His Own Exit”:

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… With Mr. Trump headed toward a likely defeat, top editors at the tabloid told some staff members this week to be tougher in their coverage of him, said two Post employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions.

In addition to the shift in tone, there will be a change in personnel: Col Allan, the Australian tabloid wizard who was once seen in the Post newsroom wearing a Make America Great Again cap, will call an end to his career of more than 40 years at Murdoch papers in New York and Sydney.

Mr. Allan, who was The Post’s editor in chief from 2001-16, rejoined the paper as an adviser in January 2019, just as the presidential campaign was underway. Since his return, he has had a strong hand in shaping coverage, several staff members said. He confirmed his planned retirement in an email interview…

Several staff members said Mr. Allan had more or less run the newsroom since his return. “I have contributed little other than some minor advice,” Mr. Allan said of his work on the paper’s election coverage…

Col Allan is an old-fashioned tabloid thug who was brought back specifically to grease the skids for Trump’s re-election. If Murdoch (or whichever Murdoch kid is making the decisions this week) has given Allan his walking papers, it’s a pretty blatant announcement that they’re not throwing good money after bad.

Trump Crime Cartel Death Watch Open Thread: Murdoch Has Declared Trump A Sunk CostPost + Comments (152)

“Interesting” Read: If Only This *Were* Haberman’s Professional Obituary…

by Anne Laurie|  November 9, 20209:33 am| 185 Comments

This post is in: Election 2020, Excellent Links, Media, Trumpery, Our Failed Media Experiment

I wrote about a dominant figure at the end of an era https://t.co/9VFhXD8pHp

— Ben Smith (@benyt) November 9, 2020

To be honest, were *I* Maggie Haberman, I’d have been a lot more suspicious of ‘(No Longer) #BuzzfeedBen’, the man Dean Baquet hastily hired in the wake of Smith’s much-circulated hit piece on… Dean Baquet. But it seems they’re old friends, fellow miscreants in the newsbeat trenches, so…

Of course, Haberman — and her NYTimes bosses — couldn’t resist what must’ve seemed like a victory lap! But when you read the piece, well… those sneaky barbs:

… That was the beginning of the end of one of the most astonishing runs in the history of American journalism. Ms. Haberman has been, for the last four years, the source of a remarkably large share of what we know about Donald Trump and his White House, from the Mueller investigation to his personal battle with the coronavirus to his refusal to accept defeat. She’s done more than a story a day, on average, and stories with her byline have accounted for hundreds of millions of page views this year alone. That’s more than anyone else at The Times…

Politics used to be covered as a kind of a sport, but it doesn’t feel like that anymore. (John King of CNN was jeered for calling vote counting “fun” on election night.) And despite the television glamour and lucrative book contracts that flooded in for reporters in the Trump era, the real work of reporting is painstaking and exhausting: getting people, one by one, to tell you things they should not, and then telling your readers about them.

Ms. Haberman was particularly well-suited for this journalistic moment because of her sheer relentlessness and hunger, and her lack of smug self-satisfaction. She seems to need to prove herself every day. She texts while she drives, talks while she eats, parents while she reports, tweets and regrets it, doomscrolls. She hates Twitter so much she stepped back from the platform in 2018 and wrote an Op-Ed about it, and then started tweeting again. (Relatable!)…

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… I learned to report from Maggie — and to fear her — in City Hall in New York, where she was a reporter for The New York Post, and where she first covered Donald Trump. When I arrived in 2001, Ms. Haberman cut a striking figure there: She wore a leather jacket and smoked cigarettes on the building’s iconic front steps, chatting with the cops.

But she did her real work in Room 4a, in the basement, where the junior reporters for the tabloids and assorted other misfits like me were relegated, downstairs from the legendary main press room, Room 9. Room 4a was a cluttered office with mismatched desks and, once, a squirrel. I sat facing her and every morning watched her routine, which was terrifying. First, she picked up the competing newspaper, The Daily News, and leafed through for stories she wished she’d broken, deducing who had been the source of each one. Then, she called the sources — she already knew them well, of course — and chatted in a friendly way, before telling them she felt genuinely betrayed that they hadn’t gone to her, that she was worried she’d be in trouble with her boss for getting beaten and, honestly, that she was incredibly angry at them…

She’s often the only one able to reliably confirm facts in Mr. Trump’s chaotic and dishonest orbit. She was also under his skin: He attacked her personally on Twitter and sparred with her in person, but kept giving her interviews until last year. This Oct. 19 he tweeted directly to her about his confidence in winning the election and his “BOFFO” rallies…

Her most recent Bad Tweet came on Oct. 14, when she pasted in a quote from a New York Post article on photos and documents the paper said it had taken from the hard drive of a laptop purportedly belonging to Hunter Biden. She’d intended to raise an eyebrow at the mention of F.B.I. involvement — suggesting they hadn’t found the information serious and, perhaps, a hint as to where Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani got the information. Democrats interpreted her tweet as simply promoting a story whose origins were shadowy. “MAGA Haberman” trended. She sent a round of frantic texts to friends asking if she’d screwed up, and ultimately deleted the tweet.

Mr. Trump’s own Twitter account is mostly hidden behind warnings these days. The president, though, will go. And Ms. Haberman is not going to move to Washington to join the new White House team, she said, but instead anticipates covering some blend of the new administration and the enduring Trump orbit from New York. She hopes that she’ll break more news, and worries that she’ll lose her touch. “I’m dispensable,” she said, an assertion that Times editors would take issue with…

Smith’s piece was only released last night, and it’s already drawing unfavorable attention. Of course the NYTimes is not going to be swayed by a bunch of vulgar social media abuse, especially abuse directed at a ‘beloved’ legacy hire, but I can’t imagine this is going to help Haberman’s search for a new sinecure…

it is incredibly inappropriate for any media institution, almost all of which failed seriously in their coverage of Trump, to give itself a celebratory handjob in print now.

— James Palmer (@BeijingPalmer) November 9, 2020

For the record, ethical journalists treat their sources as human beings who should be protected and listened to, not people who can be manipulated into a scoop and bullied away from other journalists

— Zack Kopplin (@ZackKopplin) November 9, 2020

The NYT is a "legacy" publication in the same sense of the word as in the phrase "legacy admission" pic.twitter.com/VkXus8HAAn

— Zoomcock Archivist (@canderaid) November 9, 2020

The New York Times bears clear and direct responsibility for Trump’s election in 2016.

They have never even acknowledged their mistakes and the cost let alone atoned for them.

Now they’re heaping praise on themselves for having profited wildly from their failures.

— The Hoarse Whisperer (@TheRealHoarse) November 9, 2020

“Interesting” Read: If Only This *Were* Haberman’s Professional Obituary…Post + Comments (185)

Late Night Schadenfreude: “Inside Trump’s loss: A culmination of self-destructive decisions”

by Anne Laurie|  November 9, 202012:50 am| 146 Comments

This post is in: Election 2020, Excellent Links, Trump Crime Cartel

The story of Trump's loss is both familiar in its pattern of self-destructive decisions and altogether surprising in how little the President appeared to prepare himself emotionally for defeat https://t.co/7RxkgXWzs0

— Kevin Liptak (@Kevinliptakcnn) November 8, 2020

There will be a mort of these stories over the next few weeks, and you all know I am not too nice to share the wealth:

When the White House essentially relocated to Air Force One over the final weeks of the campaign, President Donald Trump had a common reaction whenever he saw his rival Joe Biden appear on one of the airplane’s many televisions.

“Imagine losing to him?” he would ask no one in particular as he hurtled toward another regional airport in another battleground state, according to sources onboard.

When his large-screen television flashed poll numbers showing an unmoving deficit to Biden, Trump sometimes brought his fist down on his wooden desk, jolting the glass of Diet Coke that always seemed to be nearby…

Trump so far has refused to accept the election results, waging a legal strategy to contest them in courts and issuing false allegations of fraud. There are currently no plans to invite Biden to the Oval Office for the traditional meeting between the incoming and outgoing presidents, a historic sign of the peaceful transfer of power. Aides instead are working to craft ways for the President to feel validated even in loss, including through more rallies…

There will be rallies, as long as they can find venues to book. Even if the venue turns out to be an unpaved parking lot between an adult book stare and a crematorium…

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… But after claiming publicly and falsely that he won the election, sources say Trump is not denying the outcome privately. And two people said Jared Kushner, the President’s son-in-law and senior adviser who oversaw his campaign from the White House, has approached Trump about conceding the election…

Two people named ‘Javanka’ and ‘Ired’, quite possibly.

… Throughout his second run for office, which technically began the day his presidency started in 2017, Trump appeared convinced the formula that had won him the White House during his first-ever political race would work again. He did not alter his calculus — which included overtly racist rhetoric and an inclination for division — to account for being the incumbent. He forged ahead as normal while the worst public health crisis in a century beset the nation.

The limitations of Trump’s political acumen were not shared by everyone on his team, many of whom worked fruitlessly to calibrate a message focused on accomplishments rather than grievances. Many Republicans attempted to steer the President away from attacking mail-in ballots, fearful they could depress his support in a pandemic, according to people familiar with the conversations.

But in the end, those closest to Trump accommodated his whims and obliged his obsessions, including his insistence on not wearing a mask in public and his demand to convene massive rallies as coronavirus cases spiked. Even viral contagion in the West Wing, and Trump’s own three-night hospitalization with the disease, did little to alter his virus-be-damned approach.

In a political operation where managing Trump’s mood swings became a central responsibility, the task of presenting the President with realistic expectations fell to the wayside. As printers aboard Air Force One spat out charts and data in the final stretch meant to sustain the President’s gusto, the more grim projections that showed his narrow electoral paths were left out, aides said. For a campaign whose financial troubles meant tough choices on where to place television ads, a reliable buy became the Washington cable market, where the President was certain to see.

Even as recently as last week, Trump’s advisers used tightening polls to convey momentum in their conversations with the President. He was motivated by the larger and larger crowds who gathered for his rallies, describing the scenes like a rock concert that repeated itself multiple times per day…

You thought yesterday’s spontaneous celebrations were amazing? Wait till you see what Inauguration Day in January will look like!

Late Night Schadenfreude: “Inside Trump’s loss: A culmination of self-destructive decisions”Post + Comments (146)

Excellent Read(s): “Joe Biden’s Long Wait Is Over”

by Anne Laurie|  November 8, 20203:58 pm| 156 Comments

This post is in: Biden-Harris 2020, Excellent Links, Proud to Be A Democrat

The scene tonight in personhttps://t.co/S9e9EH68hk pic.twitter.com/PKjSsOSqEc

— Katherine Miller (@katherinemiller) November 8, 2020

A delightful backgrounder for last night:

WILMINGTON, Delaware — About five hours before polls closed on Election Day, 21 empty pickup trucks appeared in the parking lot of the Chase Center, sitting in two careful rows facing the stage where Joe Biden was supposed to address the nation in a victory speech later that evening.

The fleet of Jeep Gladiators and Jeep Wranglers, along with some Ford Rangers and Chevy Silverados, had been arranged in alternating colors of red, white, and blue, all with open backs or sunroofs, and hoods stamped with BIDEN–HARRIS decals. They were reserved for the family and friends who would be arriving with Biden to his socially distanced “drive-in” rally — the proverbial front row in a sea of other cars. Sitting opposite a freshly installed panel of bulletproof glass, US Secret Service protection befitting a president-elect, they had the clean and perfect look of new rental cars, windows darkened, paint gleaming in the sun. In the style of a tailgate, aides had placed a pair of blue folding chairs in the back of each truck.

By 11 p.m., it was clear there wouldn’t be a final result that night. Light-up foam batons, stamped with the campaign logo for guests in the parking lot, never got distributed. After midnight, when Biden finally did arrive, his motorcade sped into the parking lot of the adjacent Westin hotel, and his party took their seats in the Jeeps: There was his brother Jimmy Biden, Jill Biden’s sisters, and the former vice president’s sister, Valerie Biden Owens, watching from the roof of a Jeep. They had waited a long time for this night. Around 12:30 a.m. on Wednesday, they finally got to see him take the stage, only to say “we’re going to have to be patient” and “keep the faith.” After three minutes, Biden waved goodbye, and headed home…

Throughout the week, his campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon hosted daily Zoom briefings, laying out projections for the outstanding vote. On Thursday, Biden published a transition website, saying he was dedicated to preparing for his possible administration and would “continue preparing at full speed.” That afternoon, he and Harris attended briefings on the economy and the coronavirus pandemic, which is deep in a deadly third wave that has brought the total number of American deaths to more than 236,000. On Friday, Biden aides believed they would finally get their call, going public with plans for a victory party, broadcast live on primetime television. The networks held off, and once again, Biden passed the stage, empty and waiting, to address reporters inside the Chase Center.

“As slow as it goes, it can be numbing,” he said of watching the numbers come in on TV. “But never forget: The tallies aren’t just numbers. They represent votes and voters, men and women who exercise the fundamental right to have their voice heard.”…

======

Biden's 'victory caused people to weep in joyful relief as they became aware of the heaviness that had afflicted their hearts, after they’d suddenly been relieved of it.' Do read this beautiful essay by @RobinGivhan https://t.co/75l50R1MvX

— Margaret Sullivan (@Sulliview) November 8, 2020

… As the country waited for ballots to be counted, it was Biden — not the occupant of the Oval Office — who was reassuring people that this democracy was intact, that the system was working and that the center would hold. He was the voice of calm optimism in the midst of tumultuous times.

When he became president-elect late Saturday morning, he did something far more herculean than accepting responsibility for a worsening pandemic and a struggling economy. He removed a terrible, suffocating weight from the back of this nation. For the more than 74 million Americans who voted for him — and surely even for some of those who did not — Biden’s election allowed this country to laugh, to dance and to breathe. He cracked open a space where the light could shine through. Indeed, his victory caused people to weep in joyful relief as they became aware of the heaviness that had afflicted their hearts, after they’d suddenly been relieved of it…

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Black voters raised up Biden because he was the tonic they believed a divided and exasperated nation could accept and he was the reliable partner they could trust. He was a pragmatic choice, but that doesn’t lesson his value. He was the loyal and supportive vice president to Barack Obama — willing to stand behind the country’s first Black president and to share both the beauty of that and the ugliness of it. The country was on the cusp of an era grappling with White grievance and White privilege and Biden, who had competed with Obama in the primaries, accepted his professional shortfall and joined his team. And that said something about Biden’s character, namely that it’s not a hostage to his personal success.

He turned around and helped a Black woman — an Asian American woman — take in the rarefied air of high power when he chose Sen. Kamala D. Harris (Calif.) as his running mate. She brought her own skills and constituency to the ticket. She benefited him in his ambitions, and if he has taught this country any single lesson from this choice and his victory, it’s that there’s wisdom in making space for the expertise and abilities of Black women…

At a moment when this country’s wounds are deeper and more dire than financial, Biden — the man who has grieved under the public’s gaze, been professionally humbled in the harsh spotlight, spoken earnestly and impolitically of his support for same-sex marriage, and admitted mistakes in his earlier stances on criminal justice — seemed uniquely suited to this moment that was deeply in need of compassion. He is a man who understands that leadership sometimes means simply being human and being able to see the humanity in others. Leadership means carrying the burden so that others might breathe easier or can shine brighter…

======

Joe Biden told us we were better than the president* we elected in 2016, that the better angels of our nature were not taking a few years off. He will be the 46th President of the United States. https://t.co/aqv6ZJ4Njy

— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) November 7, 2020

(My Irish granny, and Irish-American Nana, would give the tone of this piece so much side-eye. The phrases ‘shanty Irish bog-trotter’ and ‘common as pig tracks’ might well have been spoken.)

… Joe Biden has come through a lot of history, and not unscathed, either. I applied to be one of his speechwriters in 1976, fresh out of college. (I didn’t get the gig, which is why he hasn’t built his library already.) Since then, he’s run for president three times. In 1988, he was sunk by a plagiarism scandal brought to light by operatives in the employ of Michael Dukakis. (When Mike Dukakis oppo’s you out of a race, it’s like losing a fistfight with Plato.) In 2008—Twenty years later!—he was swept aside by the phenomenon of Barack Obama, of whom he memorably once said,

“I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”

And this is why campaign aides jump out of windows.

Obama, of course, held no grudges and, by picking Biden as a running mate, revived his career as cool Uncle Joe, one of the more remarkable charisma transfusions in the history of American politics. There is no question that Biden was transformed by the vice presidency, making him the first vice president to be elevated rather than minimized by that office, at least without the president’s having died. The gaffe-ridden friend of the Delaware financial-services industry slipped on the aviators, unleashed his killer smile, and found his way back to being the decent guy, friend of the Amtrak commuters, damn fine Dad, that everybody who really knew him always said he was…

Excellent Read(s): “Joe Biden’s Long Wait Is Over”Post + Comments (156)

Election Watch Open Thread: Examining the Mechanics, with the AP

by Anne Laurie|  November 3, 202011:22 am| 34 Comments

This post is in: Election 2020, Excellent Links, Open Threads

Here’s a look at what you need to know about your voting rights on #ElectionDay.

Get more election explainers from @AP: https://t.co/wufsnyO5ON pic.twitter.com/ibT3ugj3m6

— The Associated Press (@AP) November 1, 2020

If you want to look at election stories that are actually informative, the Associated Press has been doing this job for quite a long time, and they’re very professional. From Esquire:

… The Associated Press has called U.S. elections since 1848, when it used a new technology, the telegraph, to declare Zachary Taylor the next president of the United States. In our lifetime, Election Day has pretty much gone like this: visit your local polling place, vote, flip on the TV around prime time, and watch the returns come in. By the time you go to bed, the media has declared a winner. While cable networks have their own teams of experts who compile data and project winners, they rely on the AP’s reporting and data to cross-reference their work. And the AP supplies results to its subscribers, including The New York Times, Google, and myriad local newspapers. The general consensus is if the AP declares a winner, it must be true…

So, how is the Associated Press planning to call a winner in this historic election, to ensure it gets this one right despite the unprecedented hurdles, because getting it wrong could spill the country into chaos?…

The AP’s election-coverage operation is massive and complex, but here’s the simplest way to describe how it calls elections. An editorial team consisting of reporters, editors, and photographers produces stories about Election Day. A team of sixty analysts interprets data coming in from each state to declare winners in about seven thousand elections, from the White House to local races. And “a bridge” of editors, according to [Washington bureau chief] Pace, connects these two sides; she’s part of that team.

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In addition to the people, there’s a machine component called VoteCast. This is basically the AP’s new version of exit polling—a way to ask 140,000 people, starting October 28 via phone and online surveys, if they voted, for whom they cast their ballot, and why. Until the invention of VoteCast in 2018, AP reporters asked people leaving their polling place for whom they voted. This year marks the first time VoteCast is being deployed in a presidential race. VoteCast is more effective than traditional exit polling for capturing early, mail-in, and absentee voters, making it a better tool for 2020, when more than half of the electorate is expected to vote before Election Day.

On November 3, the staff working with the AP’s VoteCast data will confine themselves to a so-called quarantine room, prohibited from sharing that information with anyone before 5:00 p.m. EST. (After the 1980 presidential election, media outlets struck a handshake agreement that they wouldn’t declare the winner in a state before its polls closed.) Once the VoteCast staff are free to roam the newsroom, the AP editorial team can start reporting on trends in that data, like the issues that were most important to voters. They won’t report on what VoteCast may be saying about Trump or Biden leading in any state…

AP Explains: Just as there are 50 different timelines for early voting in states across the U.S., there are 50 different ones for how the votes are counted. #Election2020 https://t.co/0URzOvOV6n

— The Associated Press (@AP) October 28, 2020

Here's a good graphic on when early ballots can be or will be processed: pic.twitter.com/7B7YSlhbK1

— Polling USA (@USA_Polling) November 1, 2020

50 states. 7,000 races. Thousands of people pursuing the results.

Here's how The Associated Press will count the nation's vote in real time on Election Day, as it has for more than 170 years.https://t.co/S3NS8RKfst

— The Associated Press (@AP) November 1, 2020

AP Explains: Are the nation's voting systems secure? With misinformation rampant in the lead-up to #Election2020, here's what we know about the structures in place to ensure safe voting.

More #Election2020 explainers from @AP: https://t.co/rvKSnQWgUYhttps://t.co/ph3Ows77YS

— The Associated Press (@AP) November 2, 2020

THREAD: How soon will we know who won the presidential election? What happens if the results are contested? @AP answers your election-related questions. 1/7https://t.co/pjgoPobiDN

— AP Politics (@AP_Politics) November 2, 2020

The view of this momentous U.S. election from Cuba, China, Iran, Mexico and Canada. There are some anxious world leaders and critical global pressure points sure to be impacted whoever wins. Read @AP coverage here: https://t.co/nVgSis8nrO

— The Associated Press (@AP) November 1, 2020

Election Watch Open Thread: Examining the Mechanics, with the APPost + Comments (34)

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