Deporte Mundial

While the election is still officially nearly one month away, in reality it
is much, much closer. As in ‘the call is coming from inside the house’ is
closer. Yes, for many of us, the election is here - my husband and I are
both registered as permanent vote-by-mail voters.
In San Diego County, ballots to the absentee voters
have been mailed out. Voting
at the Registrar of Voters office in Kearny Mesa started Monday, and an
estimated 200 voters cast their ballots that day.
Just over 60 percent of all
the ballots cast in San Diego County in the June election were cast by
absentee voters. Five
million people statewide, nearly a third of the 16.1 million registered voters
in California, are scheduled to receive their ballots by mail.
But what does that do for the late campaigning? We just finally got
our No on 8 yardsigns in the mail last week. We get deluged daily with requests for more money
to fund the last minute campaigning between now and Election Day. There
are all kinds of rumored plans or possibilities for different events in the
upcoming months to change media focus and create publicity one way or another.
Haven’t heard them? Most aren’t worth repeating on KPBS’ website,
but just Google ‘[candidate] October surprise’ and giggle at the results.
But does that last minute push still work with the rise in early voting?
If a candidate or issue is leading 55 percent to 45 percent in October, and 30 percent of
the voters vote along those lines, the change on momentum must be so profound
that of the remaining 70 percent of the voters, nearly 54 percent adopt what
was previously the minority position.
Since voters-by-mail don’t all vote on a specific day, the variables get
complicated. The above is just an example of one possible scenario, with
the point being that attempting to change the outcome of an election after
voting has started has diminishing returns.
Once some voters have locked in their votes, and become unchangeable, the
percentage of remaining voters that have to be swayed to change the outcome
rises, and thus the cost to influence the election has to rise also. The
small change necessary to sway a close election doubles if the changing force
comes after half the electorate has already voted.
I guess a Hail
Mary is still a Hail Mary whether you need to sway two or 20 percent of the
voters, and there certainly may be a disproportionately large group of
undecided and swayable voters among the late voters, but at some point isn’t
futile just futile, and in a sense, pathetic?

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