US Election

[Opti]

And now for a comedy break.

Farage posted this picture on Twitter:

tw.t.jpg

Nige, bless him, really doesn't know how the Internet works when you hold up a sign in a photo. Twitter helps him understand.

Oh, that is soo great. What a thread.

[sTeamTraen]

ETA: Dave Wasserman has the Maricopa County results as well behind the run rate for Trump, so that looks like Arizona can be/stay called, too.

I quite like "run rate" as an analogy. You need 35 off the last 3 overs, but with 9 wickets down. Ain't going to happen. They'll scrape 7 off the first over, 11 off the second with a couple of streaky fours, and there'll be a wicket off the first ball of the last over. Losing by 16 runs after 49.1 overs doesn't sound like a lot, but in practice it was probably rarely in doubt.

[Opti]

Good shot Sir!

[lpm]

I think AZ perceptions were was confused by the speed of scoring in the PA and GA matches.

In those Biden was scoring 80% and 70% respectively. He was racking up big totals every over.

In contrast Trump was only scoring 52% in AZ on average. 52-48 is basically nothing per over. It was never going to overcome Biden's big lead - unless someone came out and suddenly started smashing loads of sixes.

In NV Biden is scoring 60%, steadily running up the score before declaring.

[Grumble]

I keep looking at the vote counts waiting for them to tick past 4 million more voters for Biden than Trump. That will be a sweet number.

[headshot]

52-48???

Where have I heard that before?

[Grumble]

52-48???

Where have I heard that before?

The reality of a two party system.

[Bird on a Fire]

52-48???

Where have I heard that before?

The reality of a two party system.

Not sure that covers it - Brexit split both parties.

[Bird on a Fire]

I've barely thought about cricket scoring since I was a schoolboy. I didn't understand it then, and I still don't.

Mind you, I take it that in cricket matches you just have to watch the game unfold, tediously, and count up the points after they happen, rather than relying on a bewildering ecosystem of news outlets to 'call' the score in advance.

[Grumble]

52-48???

Where have I heard that before?

The reality of a two party system.

Not sure that covers it - Brexit split both parties.

It was a binary choice though, if there weren’t a substantial number in favour of Brexit the referendum would never have been held in the first place. Same argument applies to the continued existence of both main parties in the US.

[Bird on a Fire]

Gotcha. Yeah, we could sort of view this election as a referendum on Trump.

I'm looking forward to seeing what the trends have been in terms of votes for Trump vs downticket votes for Republicans, compared with 2016.

[Trinucleus]

I've barely thought about cricket scoring since I was a schoolboy. I didn't understand it then, and I still don't.

Mind you, I take it that in cricket matches you just have to watch the game unfold, tediously, and count up the points after they happen, rather than relying on a bewildering ecosystem of news outlets to 'call' the score in advance.

And after five days it's a draw

[El Pollo Diablo]

He's just rocked past 74m votes now, according to CNN. And is more than 4m votes in front.

[Grumble]

He's just rocked past 74m votes now, according to CNN. And is more than 4m votes in front.

Brilliant! Not got to there on the Guardian tracker yet, I’m not quite obsessive enough to look at multiple trackers.

[EACLucifer]

I've barely thought about cricket scoring since I was a schoolboy. I didn't understand it then, and I still don't.

Mind you, I take it that in cricket matches you just have to watch the game unfold, tediously, and count up the points after they happen, rather than relying on a bewildering ecosystem of news outlets to 'call' the score in advance.

No, trying to predict where it is going is a pretty major part of cricket, both parsing how the game is going, talking about it, and commentating on it.

The situation we are discussing is run chases. In a run chase, one side will have batted already and have runs on the board, the other then needs to bat and try and get ahead before they run out of wickets or remaining overs.

If it's a 50 over game, a team chasing 300 needs to score 6 every over. If they score less at first, they need to score more later to catch it up. The analogy is that when a count is uneven, like those with mail ballots counted last, the candidate who has had their ballots counted first will have a total - runs on the board, so to speak - and the other candidate will need to overhaul that at a certain rate - because there are only a finite number of ballots remaining. If a candidate needs 67% of remaining ballots and gets 75%, they are ahead of the run rate and the required rate remaining will go down, just like a cricket team that needs 6 and over scoring 8 an over at first brings their required run rate down below 6 an over. If they get less, though, the required rate goes up as they are behind the rate. In Maricopa County, Trump needed almost 60%, and barely cleared 50% in the latest batch released. This means he's behind the rate, and will now need more than 60% in the rest to make up for using up a higher proportion of remaining ballots than the proportion of Biden's lead he wiped out. Because there's no reason to think the next ballots in the presumably quite homogenous batch of mailed in Maricopa county ballots will favour him by more, him being behind the rate means he's set to lose.

While it was all of course decided back when the ballots were actually cast, its an intuitive way of looking at the counting when there is a disparity in what is counted when, either by county, or by method. For example, though Biden was behind in Georgia, he was a fraction ahead of the rate, so Nate Cohn's needle actually had him fractionally favoured - and now he's ahead with a little left to count. In Pennsylvania, meanwhile, Trump's total was always easily in reach given Biden's scoring rate - the margin he was winning mail ballots by - and overs remaining - the amount of ballots remaining, like watching a modern England ODI team chasing down 200.

[Little waster]

From the Gradgrind:-

A woman who would only give her first name, Kathy, said that it was obvious Democrats were cheating because vote totals were consistently being added to Joe Biden’s vote totals.

Baldrick here is clearly struggling with the concept of counting.

Also:-

Kathy also said that Trump had watermarked all of the ballots and all the fake ones would come out this week.

Putting aside the fact the only thing Trump has ever watermarked is the inside of his pants several times an hour, how does she think this works?

Trump let's everyone think Biden has won, the election gets called for Biden, the world's leaders send their congratulations, the US government commences the handover and then after a week Trump shouts "Gotcha!" while shining a black light on the mountain of cast ballot papers she presumably assumed the US government is keeping in a warehouse somewhere?

[Little waster]

Meanwhile even Venezuela is having fun calling the US out as a "banana republic".

[Gfamily]

NOT last night's White House presser
https://youtu.be/lTVziOdvRn0

[lpm]

Georgia has drifted down again.

But looks like there are a bunch to ballots to come from a blue zone.

[dyqik]

I think AZ perceptions were was confused by the speed of scoring in the PA and GA matches.

In those Biden was scoring 80% and 70% respectively. He was racking up big totals every over.

In contrast Trump was only scoring 52% in AZ on average. 52-48 is basically nothing per over. It was never going to overcome Biden's big lead - unless someone came out and suddenly started smashing loads of sixes.

In NV Biden is scoring 60%, steadily running up the score before declaring.

Arizona is looking closer now, following a Biden 18.7% / 81.3% Trump vote dump. However, Trump needs to keep up a 58-42 split and then exceed it slightly somewhere, and he hasn't been doing that consistently so far.

[sTeamTraen]

The rules about recounts are interesting. Sometimes they are mandatory, sometimes a candidate must call for one. The maximum gap between the candidates ranges (at least) from 2000 votes in Michigan and 0.1% in Arizona to 1% in Wisconsin. In Nevada you can ask for a recount whatever the gap, but if you lose again you have to pay the cost of the recount.

I wonder what happens if there is a discrepancy? Do they take the average of the two counts? After all, who's to say which is correct?

[dyqik]

The rules about recounts are interesting. Sometimes they are mandatory, sometimes a candidate must call for one. The maximum gap between the candidates ranges (at least) from 2000 votes in Michigan and 0.1% in Arizona to 1% in Wisconsin. In Nevada you can ask for a recount whatever the gap, but if you lose again you have to pay the cost of the recount.

I wonder what happens if there is a discrepancy? Do they take the average of the two counts? After all, who's to say which is correct?

The recount is taken as correct, as it's assumed that there's less errors as it can be done more carefully.

[lpm]

Georgia back to 4,235

[dyqik]

Trumps running slightly ahead of where he needs to in Arizona, but I don't know if these results are from Maricopa county or redder areas. Maricopa isn't expected to release more for a few hours yet.

[lpm]

Anyone got an opinion on this watermark theory?

Apparently Trump watermarked the real ballots, the Democrats smuggled in fake ballots, and in a couple of weeks Trump will jump out and say GOTCHA! The entire conspiracy will be revealed, the deep state arrested and children freed.

If true, looks like the Democrats have walked into the ambush.