Their Internals Must Look Bad – “There’s so many cases already of irregularities”

Actually there are jurisdictions (sadly PA isn’t one of them) that allow county clerks to process mail-in/absentee ballots either as they are received or at a certain date prior to election day – precisely so that once the polls are closed they can start feeding them into the vote counting machines. By processing I mean all the admin stuff, verifying signatures, dates etc. and in some case notifying voters there’s an error that need to be corrected. You can guess which states try to allow for THAT and they aren’t Red! I think in a couple of states they even allow for running ballots through the machines starting on election day before the polls close, but not keeping track of or reporting any results until after the polls have closed. Again, PA goes out of its way to PREVENT any pre-processing of ballots – they are all set aside until after the polls have closed. That’s why we had the mess in PA in 2020 – a huge turnout combined with a GOP legislature’s efforts at voter surpression to create long lines at too few precincts in urban areas meant it took that much longer to first count the ballots cast and only then get to work on the mail-in stuff. In other words, the “Red Mirage” was and remains a deliberate strategy to cast doubt on the results.

While it was the GOP that got the idea of using absentee ballots going (decades ago) by heading to nursing homes and visiting elderly voters that had trouble getting around (the elderly have for reasons that defy logic strongly supported the very GOP that wants to take away their precious Medicare, and gut Social Security. Go figure) it was Democrats who, in the face of the GOP making things so difficult in areas that vote strongly Democratic fought for expansion of early voting including by mail. Once upon a time in most places it to get an absentee ballot one had to prove they were going to be out of the state on election day, or had some issue (usually medical, something common with elderly folks hence the GOP targeting them when all this began) that would prevent them from voting in person on election day. Things got to the point where Democrats were kicking the GOP’s ass on this and the GOP has been fighting back in slimy ways ever since. “Signature Matches”, overly complicated instructions for dating ballots and the “ballot carrier envelope” inside the larger envelope a ballot is mailed back it, etc. Again, in GOP places it’s not hard to guess WHICH ballots (those of registered Democrats and even Independents – the GOP mines for data to determine how people might lean) get rejected and which get accepted despite “minor flaws.”

But the bottom line is that there shouldn’t be an chance for a “Red Mirage” because in states where mail in voting is the standard like Oregon and Colorado to name a couple off the top of my head most ballots received before election day are ready to be counted as soon as the polls close. And the results are available on election night! If states were required by federal election law to, in federal elections process ballots as they are received and be ready to put any that have been received prior to election day through the machines there would be virtually NONE of this “red mirage” bullshit.

But the GOP doesn’t want that. Free and fair elections, and efficient & quick vote counting are the LAST thing they want! So the fight reforms tooth and nail. Only a strong federal election law will fix this.

Joseph- at least in our State, each Early Voting Poll location reports the vote count for the day to the Board of Elections, among others. The ballots per se are not being counted but the voters themselves are. So yes, at least in our state we do have running totals. For example, the precinct my friend worked the other day had a record-breaking 700 Early Voters for the day. And the women outnumbered the men 4-1. I am doing Poll Greeting outside during Early Voting so I don’t have any numbers for you, but on Election Day when I work inside I will know since I have the last shift that day observing. Of course there are tallies of Early Voting!

Couldn’t agree more.