This is pretty common in Canada too.
even more basic…they feel like they have some kind of tacit permission to vote for X.
So seeing Biden signs in my red district is a big deal, because the battered and bruised dems who have been in hiding out here suddenly feel a little lift, lie it’s ok to speak out.
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Do they count in advance, too? I mean, we do know the total number of absentee ballots submitted by party, so we would be able to guess pretty accurately… but then there’s the risk of undervote issues (aka shenanigans).
This is one of my big concerns. He doesn’t have to win, he just has to delay it long enough to force them to go with the original count - and there’s precedent on that. I know it’s bullshit, because the original count in Florida in 2000 wasn’t a partial count based on a big discrepancy in in-person vs. absentee/mail-in, but it’s enough for them to argue it, and it’ll likely be a 5-4 SCOTUS decision. Well, maybe. I suppose if the conservatives know they’re losing the decision anyway, they could decide to vote with the majority for appearances. At least some of them.
Social proof in action. A fun example of social proof that everyone can look out for in their day to day life and benefit from: there tend to be a few long lines at toll plazas, and a couple lanes with little/no line. People mindlessly follow the pack in a lot of these cases. If there are 20 cars in this line, it must be the right place to be.
Authority also enhances social proof. Imagine a group of three people walking up to an intersection, and the cross walk light is red. Two people arrive simultaneously, one is trailing. One of the two is wearing tattered clothes and is disheveled. The other is wearing a suit. If both people in front of him walk, the trailer will probably walk. If only one does, he’s way more likely to follow the person in the suit than the disheveled person. I could have some of the specifics off, but there was an experiment on this that I learned about in Social Psych in college.
The same concept applies to one’s own in-group.
So swinging back to yard signs, if someone perceives everyone or most people in his/her neighborhood to be voting one way or the other, they are more likely to do the same - especially low information voters. If there are neighbors they view as more successful, or more of an authority, they are particularly likely to follow them.
Another way of thinking of it is an endorsement.
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not if you take the filibuster away from them
Democrats need to be able to threaten a level of social unrest so that the cost of cheating includes such a high burden for oppressing dissent that at least a couple of conservatives on the Supreme Court will think that the most blatant cheating won’t be worth the cost.
We can argue over what degree and form of unrest is necessary to bring that about and whether that is a price that we are willing to pay, but I would argue that this is the basic equation that we need to solve if Trump cheats in a way that meaningfully affects the results. Given how committed the Trumpist constituency is, it is fair to think that fleeing the country might be preferable to doing what would be needed to bring about one’s preferred outcome, which might be something more than marching in the streets but less than outright civil war.
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This table shows when ballots can be processed and when they can be counted for each state. Unfortunately Florida can’t start actually counting until after the polls close. Many states are worse and can’t touch them at all until election day, but many states are better. I’m happy that AZ can start processing AND counting 2 weeks before election day.
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Yeah, it’s another fucking weird thing about N America.
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Maybe Euros don’t do signs for candidates, but when I was in Dublin I saw a number of signs for different issues/proposals to be voted on.
LOL Euros. WTF are “issues” and “proposals.” Good lord and their men wear scarves in the summer.
Yeah, usually the signs here are on street lamp posts and other public places, put up there by the parties/candidates themselves.
There’s also restrictions on how early they can be put up (6 weeks before the election iirc) and when they have to be removed (2 weeks after the election). 
Oi, don’t confuse us all with the French.
It was 10 years ago, but there were a couple of proposals being voted on.
Are you laughing at me because as a foreign tourist I didn’t know wtf “Proposition 4b” meant?
Nobody would confuse the UK with Europeans anymore.
They had some referenda. Perhaps it was then.
Doesn’t counting them in FL just mean running them through a machine? (Since signatures will already have been checked). If so, maybe we will get results that night except for the late-mailed ballots?
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Those would have been for referendums to change our constitution eg to make abortion legal, gay marriage etc.
For elections, the parties put up candidate posters on lampposts. Don’t think I’ve ever seen one on somebody’s house or lawn.
Ras has a new WI poll out today, Joe 53% +8, so a step back from the time of the Vince meme, but, like, if Ras can’t get Trump a better number than that, Trump can’t hope to win a remotely fair election.
Whatever happens Nov 3, our guys are winning the stair game.
https://twitter.com/KamalaHarris/status/1303080666582716416
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sending this pic to my friend in the Middle East, hoping for a shared smile to escape from my crushing medical bankruptcy in the American system. He sends me a thumbs up emoji seconds before President Biden’s drone takes out his house and his entire family
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