3 Things to Keep in Mind After the Polls Close
1. Poll results and election results are two separate things.
This can be confusing because we talk about elections as "heading to the polls." Polling before the election tries to predict the results based on who pollsters think will vote and asking a sample of them how they're planning to vote. Due to the margin of error, it's best to think of a poll result as a range of numbers.
Take for instance this Ipsos national poll of 973 likely voters conducted over the weekend. The results show Harris at 50% and Trump at 48%. But the margin of error is 2 percentage points. So, it's better to think of those results as Harris is at 48-52% and Trump is at 46-50%. The final result could be anywhere in that range, the poll is predicting. So if Trump wins 50% of the vote and Harris wins 48% of the vote, the poll got it right because both numbers are within the margin of error.
Additionally, due to the nature of sampling, any single poll can be off, even when its methodology is sound. A bad poll result doesn't necessarily suggest a bad pollster.
The reason for pointing this out is that some politicians, Trump in particular, have pointed to poll results as evidence of election shenanigans. But poll results and election results aren't the same thing. Polling is hard. Pollsters don't always get it right. And even when they are right, you have to take the margin of error into account.
2. It'll probably take a while to know who won.
About half the electorate will probably have early voted this time. In some states, those votes can't be counted until after all the polls have closed. This means that we probably won't know the results in some close states tonight, such as Arizona, Nevada, and Pennsylvania.
Further, Trump has already signaled that he'll challenge the results if he loses, and the RNC put $90 million into its recount account. This sets up the possibility of lawsuits and recounts that delay the final count.
3. Expect a lot of misinformation.
Right-wing media has already been spreading much election misinformation throughout this election season. We can expect that to ramp up even more between Election Day and when the electors meet on December 17, or perhaps when Congress counts the votes on January 6.
For example, last week, a right-wing influencer filmed a man removing ballots from a ballot box. He posted it online, zooming in on the man's face and claiming it looked "very suspect." The man was a postal worker just doing his job, but now has received death threats.
Also, expect Russia and other foreign actors to use this time to sow chaos. Earlier today, there were bomb threats at Georgia polling locations that was the work of Russia, the Georgia secretary of state announced at a press conference.
Additional Reading
Politico: “A Trump Field Director Was Fired for Being a White Nationalist”
A white nationalist worked on the Trump campaign in an important position in Pennsylvania for five months — until Friday, when the Pennsylvania GOP fired him after learning about his views from my reporting.
Last week, I confirmed that Luke Meyer, the Trump campaign’s 24-year-old regional field director for Western Pennsylvania, goes by the online name Alberto Barbarossa. As Barbarossa, he co-hosts the Alexandria podcast with Richard Spencer, organizer of the 2017 white nationalist Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. On his podcast and others, and in posts online, Barbarossa regularly shares white nationalist views.
NYT: “On Telegram, a Violent Preview of What May Unfold on Election Day and After”
A New York Times analysis of more than one million messages across nearly 50 Telegram channels with over 500,000 members found a sprawling and interconnected movement intended to question the credibility of the presidential election, interfere with the voting process and potentially dispute the outcome. Nearly every channel reviewed by The Times was created after the 2020 election, highlighting the growth and increased sophistication of the election denialism movement.
USA Today: “Trump supporters expect election fraud and violence”
University of Chicago political science professor Robert Pape said this is the “most violent political era” since 1968, when anti-war and civil rights protests were rocking the country and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated.
“We are in a wildfire season,” said Pape, who studies political violence in the U.S. and abroad and runs The Chicago Project on Security & Threats. “We’re going through a tinder box moment of several months that started back in July … and it’s likely, unfortunately, to continue through Jan. 20 and quite likely even beyond that.”
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