Thread by @vpapupdates

Early voting thread: Statewide, some 928,681 early ballots were cast through yesterday's deadline. See the totals, timeline from your locality -> bit.ly/3RpDI8B #Virginia #2022midterms

The final Saturday total was 60,770 in-person ballots, roughly one-third fewer than last year's 97,709. MORE -->

Keep in mind that the early votes will grow with more mail ballots. Mail ballots may still be considered if they a) postmarked on or before Election Day and delivered by noon Monday 11/14 and b) dropped off in person at the polls on Tuesday. MORE-->

Last year, >33K mail ballots were processed on election eve and Election Day. In addition, another 24K mail ballots were tallied on the post-election deadline. The post-election mail votes broke nearly 3:1 for @TerryMcAuliffe over @GlennYoungkin bit.ly/3nV6mBE

We'll be the first to admit we don't understand if early voting has any predictive agency. People seem to read what they want into the numbers. For instance, many assume there is a direct relationship between early voting and an election's competitiveness. Let's test->

What are the 3 most competitive #Virginia congressional districts this year? There may be some quibbling here about rank of 1/2 and 4/5, but let's assume for a minute this is the rank of competitiveness:

1: 2nd
2: 7th
3: 10th
4: 1st
5: 5th

MORE-->

OK, now let's rank each of these districts by the % of registered voters who cast in-person votes:

VA02 - Rank 3 (12.7%)
VA07 - Rank 4 (11.9%)
VA10 - Rank 2 (13.0%)
VA01 - Rank 1 (14.2%)
VA05 - Rank 5 (11.3%)

Here's the rank by surge in the surge of in-person voting in the final 48 hours. The % is (# of ballots cast Fri/Sat)/(# of ballots cast in all previous days)

VA02 - Rank 5 (20.9%)
VA07 - Rank 7 (20.5%)
VA10 - Rank 3 (26.1%)
VA01 - Rank 8 (18.7%)
VA05 - Rank 11 (16.8%)

The top ranked districts in terms of a surge both were in Northern #Virginia: VA08 (35.3%) and VA11 (31.0%). There, the patterns in mode of voting could have more to do w/cultural norms & ease of voting (expanded remote polling sites)

If anyone can point us to a peer-reviewed academic study on the predictive power of early voting, we'd be most obliged.