Calling it and Provisional Ballots.

It’s time to call it.

Ok, I got that out of the way (but I’ll get back to it later.)

About those provisional ballots, the Kornackis on the TeeVee are explaining why people voted provisionally this way:

Voter got mail in ballot. Voter waited until last minute to mail or Dropbox it. Voter decided to vote in person instead. Got to polling place and realized they didn’t have their ballot. Left it at home on the kitchen table or bathroom sink or who knows where. 🙄 So ballot can’t be spoiled resulting in a validated vote. Instead, voter gets a provisional ballot.

Now, I’m not saying that this didn’t happen. Indeed, if most provisional ballots were the result of this kind of decision making/absent mindedness, you might very well find a more even distribution of Republicans and Democrats in this batch of ballots that must now be painstakingly checked to make sure no one has voted twice.

Screw that. Call the race and count the provisional ballots later. Here’s the more likely scenario for why voters did provisional ballots:

Voter applied for mail in ballot. Voter did not received mail in ballot in time. This happened to many voters in Butler county. Yep, the mail ins got “lost” in the mail. Who knows how this happened. I’m not blaming the local mailmen. But something definitely went wrong.

Or, just as likely, the vendor that some counties contracted with to print and mail the ballots accidentally or purposefully skipped a several wards or townships or precincts. It could have happened. The ballots just never got mailed.

So, voter has been calling board of elections frantically all week before the election and is told, “don’t worry, just vote by provisional ballot”.

Voter goes to polling place, has no ballot to spoil. Voter gets provisional ballot. Voter votes. Ta-da!

I think this is probably the true story behind the provisional ballots. How could we find out? Check to see if the provisional ballots were concentrated in any particular wards and precincts.

In fact, we already have hints that this may be the case because the provisional ballots are from heavily Democratic areas. Maybe that’s because there are more people in those areas around Philly and suburbs. Maybe it’s because certain Philly areas were subject to missing mail in ballots.

I don’t know where this notion came from that “OMG, improbably, this batch of provisional ballots from these heavily D districts violate all of the historical precedents and have a shit ton of Republican ballots in them!! We’ve never seen anything like this!!” Maybe there were one of two small tranches from East Jabip, Carbon county where men and men and sheep are scared where the number of Republicans represent the vast majority of voters who would live there and they actually did leave their provisional ballot in barn or something.

But those small tranches are not indicative of future returns. The rest of the provisional ballots are very likely to follow the trend with the mail in ballots and skew heavily Democratic.

But since Biden is leading by such a large number now and all that’s left if provisional ballots and those ballots come from heavily Democratic areas that are going for him by 3:1, it’s highly unlikely that Trump is going to get the 80% of the remaining provisional ballots he needs to flip PA into his column.

It’s over. Biden won. Stick a fork in it. It’s done.

Let’s get on with the celebrations. Dragging this out is making our victory anticlimactic. Maybe this is the plan. Don’t you Democrats let this win go to your heads. You’re not that great. It’s very demotivational and takes attention away from Kamala Harris’s achievement, putting the attention back on the petulant toddler in the White House. Once again, the media succumbs to Trump’s outrageous attention seeking behavior.

Don’t do that. You’re going to drive viewers away with this kind of cynical manipulation for the sake of ratings. Dragging this out is like having a long session of sex without the orgasm. All you get is sore and frustrated.

Call it already and quit testing our patience. Steve Kornacki is getting on our last nerve.