Josh Barro Profile picture
24 Nov, 5 tweets, 1 min read
I was struck when I was working at the polls by how many voters asked me whether they needed to sign their ballots before putting them in the scanner.
Other things: Many voters were confused by New York's unusual fusion voting system, where both Biden and Trump appeared on two different ballot lines. If you vote for the same candidate twice, your vote DOES count, for the party that appears leftmost (D for Biden, R for Trump)
But if a voter does that, the ballot scanner nonetheless flags it as an overvote. And because you shouldn't ask the voter exactly how they overvoted or discuss their intent, we just had to send them to spoil their ballots and get new ones to mark only once.
Voters were also confused by New York's judicial elections, because the instructions seem stupid when you read them: it says "vote for four" and there are only four candidates. What's the point of that? Good question; there is no point.
Finally (and maybe related to the "where do I sign?" thing) I had a number of voters try hard to show me their marked ballots when asking questions. While the secret ballot is a cornerstone of our system, obviously a lot of voters feel they personally have nothing to hide.

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More from @jbarro

23 Nov
Feels like New York -- which has a new, extremely convoluted, possibly about-to-be-amended, and maybe circumventable commission-based redistricting process -- isn't getting enough attention in the discussions of how redistricting will affect 2022.
For decades, New York's districts have been drawn as bipartisan, incumbent-protection plans. If Democrats can wrest full control of the process, they could draw a significantly more favorable map for themselves.
The wrangling over this in Albany is going to be extremely complex and I can't really figure out what result is likely, but it's something I'd read a long reported piece about ;)
Read 4 tweets
13 Nov
While 2022 is likely to be tough for Dems, I think there's one area of upside that's being underrated -- this year, Dems are winning the national popular vote by a slim margin and thus barely winning the House. People talk like Dems have maxed out their vote share.
What Dems need to do in 2022 is what they did in 2018: Win the House NPV decisively. Obviously that's hard in a midterm year where you have the WH, but probably easier when you're not running on a big unpopular entitlement change, as ruling parties did in '94/'06/'10/'18.
The last first-term midterm where a president sought re-election while presiding over a divided congress was 2002, and that president's party gained seats. Obviously special circumstances, but the circumstances in 2022 may be pretty special too, with COVID waning & fast growth.
Read 4 tweets
10 Nov
I think this is right. A lot of tax provisions in TCJA and CARES that Republicans care about are set to expire soon. This is likely to be a key driver of agreements on economic legislation in a divided government.
And here Kyle has a useful table of what expires when.
The key stuff that will come up in the short term is on business taxation: businesses will start to get less favorable tax treatment for capital investments, and GOP will want to improve that. This is business tax relief about which Dems are relatively comfortable, too.
Read 5 tweets
9 Nov
Some personal news: I am excited to announce that next month, I will rejoin @businessinsider as a columnist focusing on politics, business and the economy. I will also be doing analytical writing on topics like why infrastructure is so expensive in the US.
@businessinsider I first joined BI in 2013. It has been amazing to watch the site's successful growth and evolution under @hblodget and @nichcarlson, through several business cycles in online journalism.
They are making great hires and doing more essential coverage than ever (you probably noticed their string of politics scoops this year, for example) and I'm excited to be rejoining the expanded team.
Read 8 tweets
7 Nov
I kind of think Biden should just declare victory. He’s obviously won. There’s nothing in the constitution that says you have to wait for the Associated Press.
But I have also been fairly unbothered by Trump’s bloviating. People say things.
Anyway, I don’t get the idea that Biden needs to wait for “optics” or “norms.” Three months from now, nobody is going to care that Joe Biden didn’t wait for the AP to say he won the race he won.
Read 4 tweets
6 Nov
Genuinely having trouble deciding if this is true or not. I think it probably is. Of course, Biden also won.
I dunno, you could probably turn UBI and some of his other quirky ideas into powerful attack ad fodder.
On the other hand — if Joe Rogan had spent the election pulling for the Democrat, that probably would have been worth something with young secular men
Read 4 tweets

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