Biden didn't 'take the lead' in Pennsylvania. If he wins, he always had it.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Politics • Analysis

Biden didn’t ‘take the lead’ in Pennsylvania. If he wins, he always had it.

By Philip Bump
November 6, 2020 at 10:24 a.m. EST

In the weeks before Nov. 3, millions of mail-in ballots were submitted by voters in every county in Pennsylvania. On Election Day itself, millions more voters went to polling places to cast ballots weighing in on a slew of political contests, none receiving more scrutiny than the race for president. It seems almost certain by now that more of those votes will have been cast for former vice president Joe Biden than President Trump, handing Biden a victory in the state.

Given the allegations being made by Trump in his desperate bid to hold power, it’s important to reiterate this point. It’s not that Biden on Friday morning moved into the lead in the state; it’s that the counting finally caught up with reality. ... This reality was obvious days ago. On Wednesday morning, about 12 hours after polls closed in Pennsylvania, I noted that the outstanding vote in the state was more than enough to give Biden a healthy lead, based on the number of ballots and where they were cast. Over the next 48 hours, those ballots were — slowly — counted, and, sure enough, Biden received more of them.

We like to think about the vote-counting process the way we consider sporting contests, a jockeying back-and-forth between competitors. But it’s not that. It’s as though, instead, a football game took place in private with the scoring plays released to the public after the fact, in random order.

Say that the Pittsburgh Steelers are playing the Philadelphia Eagles in a closed stadium, with no television cameras. The Steelers quickly score four touchdowns, giving them a 28-point lead. The Eagles score three field goals and two touchdowns, each time having the Steelers score another touchdown in response. Final score, 63-23 Steelers.

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This is all artificial! The ballots were already in and, in each case, counting them necessarily leads to the same place. Just as with that hypothetical football game, it’s just the order of the counting that generates a sense of flow.

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Philip Bump
Philip Bump is a correspondent for The Washington Post based in New York. Before joining The Post in 2014, he led politics coverage for the Atlantic Wire. Follow https://twitter.com/pbump

[BusyBeingBest]

1. Yup. The votes were already there. It's just the order of being counted.

[bullimiami]

3. and not only that. the mail-in or absentee ballots were there first. before the election day votes.

[exboyfil]

2. And Trump's Tweets demonstrate a profound misunderstanding

of the process.

[TwilightZone]

4. I suspect it might be an intentional misunderstanding of the process.

Rather than a lack of knowledge. We've had about five years of that.

[genxlib]

6. Misunderstanding?

Or deliberate misleading of idiotic followers.

I honestly don't know.

[exboyfil]

7. Mendacity or incompetence

Take your pick. Both disqualify him to be President.

[genxlib]

9. I lean towards mendacity

Simply because of all of the sequence of events.

1. See mail-in advantage to Dems
2. Deny the state ability to count early by lawsuit
3. Knowingly set up logjam in manufactured delay
4. Declare winner when the red mirage appears
5. Stamp feet loudly to disallow the ongoing count.

Too much going on there to be simple stupidity. Perhaps Trump himself falls under the stupid category but somebody certainly orchestrated this series of events.

[consider_this]

5. Yes, and

as I posted elsewhere, I am so tired of the terminology of broadcasters saying that a particular state is the one to decide the election, because that is just not true - it is just the one, or one of a few, that still have results outstanding to be reported. They are not the ones determining the election - all states are.

[genxlib]

8. And it all could have been avoided

If Pennsylvania had been allowed to start counting the mail-in votes in the weeks and days before election day.

They wanted to but were stopped. Who was it that stopped them again? Oh yeah, the same cynical, evil bastards that are trying to make it seem like they are improper because they are "late"

The whole scenario was manufactured to playout this way.

[Binkie The Clown]

10. Schroedinger's Ballots exist in a superposition of states until observed. nt

[PoliticAverse]

11. Someone put a lot of effort into some semantic bullshit.

We like to think about the vote-counting process the way we consider sporting contests,

That is the author's error - no, "we" do not think of the vote counting that way.

Biden has now taken the lead in the count in Pa.