Brad Sallows said:>Were any Florida results released before 8 p.m. Eastern?
I have no screenshots of live update sites. Will this do as a statement of the state of FL's intent?
"The results of 800,000 ballots will be announced at 7 o'clock tonight so you will get a very good idea of what things look like in Broward at 7 o'clock," predicted Broward Supervisor of Elections Peter Antonacci before polls closed."
I'll accept that and concede that I was likely wrong. I won't insist you dig up concrete proof, it's more likely that you're right on this one than not.
>Your other examples - voter ID requirements, etc - doesn't speak to the notion that results reporting in one state 'suppresses' the vote in others.
The other example speaks to shifting the goalpost to "choice". Choices are influenced, and I'm writing about influence.
You are, but more narrowly within 'influence', you're writing about 'voter suppression'. All suppression is influence; not all influence is suppression.
>'Voter suppression' isn't merely people deciding not to vote for whatever reason.
Did I claim it was the only kind of suppression? I claim it is one kind of suppression. It doesn't have to be intentional. We can partition suppression into "intentional" vs "unintentional" if you wish, and into "statutory" vs "influential", and whatever other axes you wish. Much of suppression clearly consists of attempts to influence people with information, whether it is factual, false, misrepresentation, or speculative. Regardless of plausible deniability, I'll continue to believe that some people are willing to give things a nudge in a preferred direction when they're in a position to do so.
Finally, it doesn't even matter if you refuse to call it "suppression". There's still a problem with a thumb on the scale that doesn't need to be there. To recap: people who want to maximize turnout and count every vote should be against speculative early calls, not finding reasons to excuse them. If you disagree with those aspirations, fine.
'Suppression' implies intent. 'Voter suppression' is action or wilful inaction to try to get people in a targeted cohort to not vote. You can find various definitions of it from scholarly sources - I could not, from a quick search, find it having been defined in USSC case law, though that doesn't mean it's not in there somewhere - and you will find that pretty consistently, there's intent and deliberation.
I will agree that there is a potential for early calls in the east to influence voters in the west, but I absolutely reject, based on actual definitions of the term (here's one, here's another, that these early calls serve to suppress votes.
I'm not quibbling with you that potentially anything can influence votes, but suppression? Absolutely not in this particular instance.