Thread by @gtryan

986,597 people have voted so far in Georgia's 2022 elections. Today's thread is an explainer of how folks can use those numbers to make whatever point they want.

#gapol #gapolitics

georgiavotes.com

You'll see a lot of people trying to tell you what these vote totals mean, usually in a way that lines up with what they want to be true.

Here are a few examples of how you can play with that.

First, let's go the easy route. Assume that all the mail and in-person votes currently cast follow their 2020 statewide breakdown. (D+30 on mail, R+6 on in-person)

That would give Republicans a 27k vote lead.

But, of course, a voter in Clayton County isn't the same as a voter in Banks County. So instead, why don't we break it down by county and apply each county's voting breakdown by method.

That gives Democrats almost a 3,000 vote lead.

But 2020 was a weird year! 1.3M people voted by mail because everyone had that opportunity. Now a lot of those folks are moving to in-person voting.

Looking at each voter's 2020 voting method (if they voted) and then applying 2020's breakdown gives Democrats a 58k vote lead.

To explain this a little more, this analysis doesn't care how someone cast their vote in 2022.

It only looks at their voting method in 2020, and then applies the county-level breakdown of R%/D% votes for each voting type (e.g. D+30/D+11/R+10 for Cobb Mail/IP/E-Day)

If someone didn't vote in 2020, then it applies the 2020 breakdown to their 2022 voting method.

But why should we stick to 2020? 2021 was a more recent election.

Using each voter's 2021 voting method and applying the county-level breakdown of 2021 results would estimate an 89k vote lead for Democrats.

So there you go. With nearly 1 million votes in so far, maybe the Republicans are up by 27,304 votes and maybe the Democrats are up by 88,952 votes.

This also assumes no ticket splitting, which every poll has shown will happen.

That's today's lesson.

Be careful with the numbers.