#hence this poll to help me figure out what's expected | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

themultifandomgal · 2 years

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Shelby Clan (Platonic)- Secrets Pt 2

After arriving into the room and Grace shuts the door I start to get nervous as I sit down

"Ok YN I need you to be honest here. Is James hurting you?" Grace asks hands on hips, I feel as though I'm being scolded

"What? no" I shake my head but Grace raises a brow

"Show me your wrist"

"Seriously Grace nothings going on"

"YN I saw a bruise on there the first day I met you"

"You did?" Esme asks worriedly "YN if he is hurting you we can help, he can't go into business with the Shelby's, if they found out what he had done and you hadn't said anything then..."

"They would cut me? yeah hence why I can't say anything"

"So he is hurting you?" Grace now crosses her arms

"No you just... ughh"

"I heard from Lizzie that victims of abuse won't say anything in fear that they will get it worse"

"Abuse? no, he's just... passionate"

"Look Tommy and the others won't hurt you, they will protect you. I know it's hard to imagine, Birmingham's feared Peaky Blinders hate woman beaters, but it's true" Polly now speaks. There's no point in arguing with these woman, they're all stubborn and I know they know. Being a stupid weak person I break down into tears

"Oh YN" Esme puts an arm around me

"How long has it been going on for?" Grace asks sitting next to me

"Things were fine when we first starting to see each other, then after about a year it started as little things like telling me I looked weird in a dress or it was to short. It got physical after we got engaged" I look down at the ring

"Poll tell them not to sign any deals" Grace looks up at Polly

"No don't! he will kill me if I mess this up for him" Polly ignores me and opens up the door "Polly stop please" I get up and run out after her then stop realising everyone is now looking at my tear stained face

"Tommy don't you dare go into business with this man. He's been abusing his poor fiancé since they've been together" Tommy looks a mixture of shocked and angry

"John, Arthur deal with him"

"You can't be serious? she's bloody lying for fucks sake"

"Do bruises lie?" Polly crosses her arms

"Shes done them to herself"

"Arthur John"

"Oh come on. Your going to believe the whore?" John and Arthur drag him out of the pub with him yelling

"Room now" anger still laced into Tommy's voice. Defeated I turn around and walk back into the room.

When the door closes I expect it to be just Tommy and I and that I was gonna get a beating, but to my surprise Polly, Grace, Esme and Pollys son Michael are all in the room. It was Michael to make the first move towards me, making me flinch as he goes to take my wrist

"Hey it's ok. I just want to look" he gently says. I look at Grace who nods her head. I let Michael take my wrist in his hands. He pulls my sleeve up to see the fading bruise "this one should be gone in a day or 2. Which is the most recent?" Michael looks at me with soft eyes

"M-my cheek"

"Ok let's take that makeup off and take a look eh?" Tommy says and I nod my head. Polly goes to get a wet rag. When she returns I gently take off the makeup covering the bruise

"Bloody hell" Esme gasps "no wonder you had bright red cheeks today. What the fuck has he been doing to you?"

"This one will take some time. A couple of week potentially" Micheal holds my face in his hands as gently as he can. The door opens making me jump

"Fucking hell" Arthur yells looking at my face. Tears begin to fall down my face

"Right, YN your staying with Polly and Michael tonight. Tomorrow we will figure something out, but your not going back to him"

"Not that she can" John mutters

"No one has to know what he was doing if you don't want them. This can stay in here, he's gone now, for good"

"Why did you do this for me? why are all of you being so nice to me? I've been here a week that's all"

"Time doesn't matter. All that matters is that your now safe love" Polly puts an arm around my shoulder smiling at me.

Months have gone by and the Shelby's have basically adopted me as one of them. I now help out with paperwork at the betting shop, the brothers insisting though I only deal with legal stuff, but that's fine. They have quickly all become my closest friends.

#peaky blinder imagine #peaky blinder fanfic #john shelby #tommy shelby #arthur shelby #finn shelby #Michael grey #polly grey

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genesisrose74 · 3 years

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Christmas With the Karasuno Boys (HC’s)!!

Part 2: Kageyama, Hinata, Tsukishima, Yamaguchi, Kinoshita, & Narita

Part 1 (Daichi, Suga, Asahi, Nishinoya, Tanaka, & Ennoshita) here!

A/n: Tumblr said my word count was too much so I’m splitting this bad boi up into two parts :p Enjoy!!

*****

Kageyama

This boy has a secret soft side for Christmas istg

He HATES showing it to other people on his team and shit

But holy bejeezus he is mesmerized by the holiday in every way possible

Lights, sweets, snow, just like,,, the general magic of December is the most awe-inspiring thing to him

Since he is still a sporty and pretty active mofo, you decided to fuel that on your holiday-themed date as Kags had noted that he’d never gone sledding before

Your jaw was on the FLOOR when he first told you because he would 10000% enjoy the hell out of it

And so you dragged him out to this popular sledding hill that you frequented as a child and taught him what to do

Not gonna lie, he was kind of nervous

“Well you’re experienced at it. I don’t wanna mess up”

🥺🥺🥺 bubby

“You won’t, Tobio! I can already tell you’re gonna be a sledding pro”

Feels a little better after that, but he asks you to help him out for his first run down the hill

He sits behind you with his arms secured snugly around your waist and his head nestled on top of your shoulder

Which would probably seem really funny to passerby because this boy is tol and intimidating in most other situations

As soon as the sled started down, Kags tightened his grip and made this cute little yelp of surprise

But you were laughing insanely hard at the combination of going really fast downhill whilst also having your boyfriend cling to you for dear life

And then when the sled stopped safely at the bottom he started to chuckle

FULL ON, GENUINE SOUND OF ENJOYMENT

That shit is rare

Y’all stayed at that hill for half the day because it was so fun

You got him a new, very high quality athletic roller for Christmas because his old one was just not cutting it anymore

And you also gave him this really cute bracelet with a volleyball, his jersey number, and a little strawberry milk set of charms attached to it

It matched this really pretty and subtle chain he’d bought for your birthday

His blueberry eyes got all wide with affection dfjdskfjsdk—

Got super blushy and couldn’t get a handle on his speech for a fat minute

He thinks you’re the coolest person ever no I do not take criticism

Geez you’re both adorable together, ideal “stoic boy becomes warmer during the holidays around his love” movie plot and I love it

Hinata

He is all in on Christmas. Not a chance this boy doesn’t get excited as hell

Will openly go into holiday mode as soon as November is over

Was secretly already listening to his Christmas playlist before then

He is one of the sweetest gift givers, that is FACTUAL

If you want something really badly, he will take notice and get it as your present immediately

He’ll also gift you an extra thing that’s handmade 🥺

Like some pastries that his mom helped him make, or a specially made basket of soaps with your favorite scents in it

It’s absolutely adorable and you cherish those ones especially

Is happy if you simply get him something; mans doesn’t care what it is

New practice volleyball? A brand new sweatshirt? Elated either way

You had seen an advertisement for a friendly match between Japan and Poland’s men’s volleyball teams, so you waited online on the ticket sales website until the minute it opened

Spoiler alert: you got some banger seats 😌✨

Shoyo may or may not have tackled you when he read the ticket details, letting out his excited giggle (you know the one)

“I can’t believe you got these, angel! You’re coming with me, right? You’ve gotta! Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

Gives you sweet little kisses between each individual ‘thank you’

“Of course I’ll go with you, Sho! I’m really glad you like it!”

He will give you the brightest smile of all time — that shit makes Christmas lights pale in comparison

“Have I told you how much I love you?”

RIGHT BACK AT YOU BBY

Hold his hands to warm up together when temperatures drop pls :)))

It’s become a weekly December tradition to watch a Christmas movie with Natsu at the Hinata household

She’ll sit in your lap while the three of you are cuddled under a blanket together, and Shoyo will lace his fingers with yours all discreetly

In conclusion, I am a sucker for holiday Hinata 🥺🥺🥺

Tsukishima

His room is decorated to the very minimum simply because his mom and brother had insisted on him being festive

You know those holiday instrumentals that are really calming and jazzy and stuff? Yeah, that’s the only Christmas music he will tolerate in his house

While he’s still got his usual icy demeanor, this blond bitch does get slightly less snippy with the Karasuno boys

Is always on the nose with getting you the exact thing you wanted for a present

Like,,, TO THE SMALLEST DETAIL

You don’t even have to bring that shit up beforehand, he just KNOWS

“Tsukki, how did you—?”

“It’s pretty obvious, with the way that one ad kept showing up on your phone.”

b r u h

How does he pay such good attention without even letting on??

As for his own present, you’ll usually get him two: one gag gift and one more serious gift

His dino plush collection size is partly due to the former’s contributions this time of year

Yes the dinos have names

You exchanged gifts on Christmas Eve with all the team (you made him go) and he saved your more serious one for last

It was a scarf that you’d gotten custom made, which had a Spotify code knitted into the fabric

Scanning the code opened the app to a playlist you’d created especially for him

He got pretty quiet when figuring it out and scrolling through the playlist

Would let out a certified Tsukki Nose Exhale™ when he came across certain songs

The more subdued reaction was expected because it’s Tsukishima

His little chuckles and warmer eyes were enough of a giveaway to tell you he very much enjoyed your gift

But on the walk home, he took the scarf and wrapped it around you both, and then brought his arm around your waist

“Thank you.”

You deadass almost combusted because it was so unexpected??

“You’re welcome. Merry Christmas, Kei”

Way to respond calm and collected 😌👍

But on the inside your body was in freak out mode

He wears the scarf all the time jdfsklfjdsk

Yamaguchi

Take the most tooth rotting fluff you could imagine

And then double that and put a fucking cherry on top

That’s the equivalent of what Christmas is like with Yama Yama

Y’all are like kids in a candy store — literally

For your Christmas dates it’s all about sweets and shared giggles, so frequent trips to the candy and baking isles of the grocery store is a must

Making gingerbread houses, peppermint tasting (mostly trying those different and wild ass candy cane flavors), you name it and it’s there

Stomach aches? I don’t know her

Yeah you do but they go away with enough butterfly kisses 🥰

Tadashi is exceptionally good at decorating gingerbread houses for whatever reason

He put a poll on his instagram between yours and his final products and he won by a landslide

It’s not like yours was necessarily bad, more like he’s just an icing master

You also might have eaten too many gumdrops which left your rooftop lacking in ✨spice✨

But it’s okay because Tadashi donated some of his leftovers to you

He’s such a sweetheart uwu

Please for the love of everything get him something heartfelt as his present

You know those long distance bracelets for couples?

Basically if your s/o taps the icon on the bracelet it’ll send a little vibration to the other person’s as a notice that you’re thinking about them

This boy seeks constant reassurance, and you love to give him his deserved love and validation, so it was the perfect present

It takes a second for him to figure out what it is, but after reading the directions and testing it out, the most adorable smile erupted on his face

And then since you already had yours on, he tapped the little icon again with a giggle

“Hey there”

It becomes common habit to tap it at least once every couple hours

GOD HE IS SO CUTE

He is just so soft this time of year, give him all the love and he will return it tenfold ☺️

Kinoshita

This boy is absolutely an awkward cutie and an avid romantic

Give him the cliches and he will eat em up, no doubt

It naturally gets more apparent around the holidays

He’ll take you on pretty winter walks, give you lots of little gifts (while blushing a hell of a lot), and is just a professional at stumbling upon some mistletoe

Wow wonder how it got there, Hisashi

He’s quite a bit more confident when simply alone with you than in a crowded space

And that definitely shows when he takes you out on a secluded sleigh ride around town

Yeah you heard me

A fuckin’ sleigh ride

Horses and blankets and everything

Don’t even ask how he managed to pull it off, because he loves watching the cogs turn in your head and simply will not give you a straight answer

Of course there’s the nice driver guy who’s there, but in the back alone Kinoshita’s confidence goes 📈📈

Lots of flirting, tons of skimmed touches and shared giggles throughout the ride

I legitimately simp really hard for him

Anyways it was a gorgeous ride through town and super fun

On Christmas Eve you both exchange gifts together and tbh whatever you got him will leave him happy and flustered regardless

But when he opens the wrapping paper to find an entire set of vintage VHS tapes, he’s stunned

He owns a VHS (actually canon!) and honestly loves it to death, and the fact that you’d get him tapes of pretty high quality for his collection meant a lot

Gosh he’s so underrated but a definite sweetheart, give him all the holiday love

Narita

Another underrated bby 🥺

He’s so chill and is pretty open to anything during the holidays, so long as he gets to spend ample time with you, his friends, and his family

Definitely more of an indoor person despite being accepting of most situations

Hence why you thought a cute little indoor winter picnic would be right up his alley

Which it absolutely was 😌✨ nice work

You’d made plans while in secret communications with his family members about the whole thing

He’d been pretty stressed lately with trying to handle his schoolwork, while also helping out others with theirs

Despite being a wonderful tutor, it was clearly becoming a bit overwhelming as he tried to grapple with so much at once

So when he came home one day to find a pristine house with you settled on a blanket in his living room, he was quite surprised

There’s a cheese plate, soda cans in a cute ice box, sandwiches, snacks, a presparked fireplace — you and his family went all out

Really adorable I cannot lie

“I thought you said you were going gift shopping today?”

“I might have maybe lied :P”

So he gives the sweetest little smile and sits across from you

Y’all stay there and talk for hours

After finally getting through everything previously laid out on the blanket spread, you slid him a little rectangular box that he looked at curiously

“Already? I haven’t wrapped yours yet!”

“Mine can wait a bit! Just open yours”

And so he does, and you watch with a face-splitting grin as he looks down in awe

You got tickets to see his favorite rock band in concert while they were on tour

He sprung onto you and pulled you into the tightest hug ever

“Holy shit you’re the best I love you so much how do you get even more loveable every day—!?!l”

It’s a jumble of words but you’re able to put it together and it makes you giggle

He deadass sprints upstairs to go get your gift and make sure that you feel as equally appreciated as he does

In simple words: wholesome holiday sweetness 🥰

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hydrus · 6 years

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Version 330

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I had a great week. There are some more login scripts and a bit of cleanup and speed-up.

The poll for what big thing I will work on next is up! Here are the poll + discussion thread:

https://www.poll-maker.com/poll2148452x73e94E02-60

https://8ch.net/hydrus/res/10654.html

The new 'manage logins' dialog is easier to work with. It now shows when it thinks a login will expire, permits you to enter 'empty' credentials if you want to reset/clear a domain, and has a 'scrub invalid' button to reset a login that fails due to server error or similar.

After tweaking for the problem I discovered last week, I was able to write a login script for hentai foundry that uses username and pass. It should inherit the filter settings in your user profile, so you can now easily exclude the things you don't like! (the click-through login, which hydrus has been doing for ages, sets the filters to allow everything every time it works) Just go into manage logins, change the login script for www.hentai-foundry.com to the new login script, and put in some (throwaway) credentials, and you should be good to go.

I am also rolling out login scripts for shimmie, sankaku, and e-hentai, thanks to Cuddlebear (and possibly other users) on the github (which, reminder, is here: https://github.com/CuddleBear92/Hydrus-Presets-and-Scripts/tree/master/Download%20System ).

Pixiv seem to be changing some of their login rules, as many NSFW images now work for a logged-out hydrus client. The pixiv parser handles 'you need to be logged in' failures more gracefully, but I am not sure if that even happens any more! In any case, if you discover some class of pixiv URLs are giving you 'ignored' results because you are not logged in, please let me know the details.

Also, the Deviant Art parser can now fetch a sometimes-there larger version of images and only pulls from the download button (which is the 'true' best, when it is available) if it looks like an image. It should no longer download 140MB zips of brushes!

other stuff

Some kinds of tag searches (usually those on clients with large inboxes) should now be much faster!

Repository processing should also be faster, although I am interested in how it goes for different users. If you are on an HDD or have otherwise seen slow tag rows/s, please let me know if you notice a difference this week, for better or worse. The new system essentially opens the 'new tags m8' firehose pretty wide, but if that pressure is a problem for some people, I'll give it a more adaptable nozzle.

Many of the various 'select from a list of texts' dialogs across the program will now size themselves bigger if they can. This means, for example, that the gallery selector should now show everything in one go! The manage import/export folder dialogs are also moved to the new panel system, so if you have had trouble with these and a small screen, let me know how it looks for you now.

The duplicate filter page now has a button to edit your various duplicate merge options. The small button on the viewer was too-easily missed, so this should make it a bit easier!

full list

added a proper username/password login script for hentai foundry--double-check your hf filters are set how you want in your profile, and your hydrus should inherit the same rules

fixed the gelbooru login script from last week, which typoed safebooru.com instead of .org

fixed the pixiv login 'link' to correctly say nsfw rather than everything, which wasn't going through last week right

improved the pixiv file page api parser to veto on 'could not access nsfw due to not logged in' status, although in further testing, this state seems to be rarer than previously/completely gone

added login scripts from the github for shimmie, sankaku, and e-hentai--thanks to Cuddlebear and any other users who helped put these together

added safebooru.donmai.us to danbooru login

improved the deviant art file page parser to get the 'full' embedded image link at higher preference than the standard embed, and only get the 'download' button if it looks like an image (hence, deviant art should stop getting 140MB brush zips!)

the manage logins panel now says when a login is expected to expire

the manage logins dialog now has a 'scrub invalidity' button to 'try again' a login that broke due to server error or similar

entering blank/invalid credentials is now permitted in the manage logins panel, and if entered on an 'active' domain, it will additionally deactivate it automatically

the manage logins panel is better at figuring out and updating validity after changes

the 'required cookies' in login scripts and steps now use string match names! hence, dynamically named cookies can now be checked! all existing checks are updated to fixed-string string matches

improved some cookie lookup code

improved some login manager script-updating code

deleted all the old legacy login code

misc login ui cleanup and fixes

other:

sped up tag searches in certain situations (usually huge inbox) by using a different optimisation

increased the repository mappings processing chunk size from 1k to 50k, which greatly increases processing in certain situations. let's see how it goes for different users--I may revisit the pipeline here to make it more flexible for faster and slower hard drives

many of the 'select from a list of texts' dialogs--such as when you select a gallery to download from--are now on the new panel system. the list will grow and shrink depending on its length and available screen real estate

misc:

extended my new dialog panel code so it can ask a question before an OK happens

fixed an issue with scanning through videos that have non-integer frame-counts due to previous misparsing

fixed a issue where file import objects that have been removed from the list but were still lingering on the list ui were not rendering their (invalid) index correctly

when export folders fail to do their work, the error is now presented in a better way and all export folders are paused

fixed an issue where the export files dialog could not boot if the most previous export phrase was invalid

the duplicate filter page now has a button to more easily edit the default merge options

increased the sibling/parent refresh delay for 1s to 8s

hydrus repository sync fails due to network login issues or manual network user cancel will now be caught properly and a reasonable delay added

additional errors on repository sync will cause a reasonable delay on future work but still elevate the error

converted import folder management ui to the new panel system

refactored import folder ui code to ClientGUIImport.py

converted export folder management ui to the new panel system

refactored export folder ui code to the new ClientGUIExport.py

refactored manual file export ui code to ClientGUIExport.py

deleted some very old imageboard dumping management code

deleted some very old contact management code

did a little prep work for some 'show background image behind thumbs', including the start of a bitmap manager. I'll give it another go later

next week

I have about eight jobs left on the login manager, which is mostly a manual 'do login now' button on manage logins and some help on how to use and make in the system. I feel good about it overall and am thankful it didn't explode completely. Beyond finishing this off, I plan to continue doing small work like ui improvement and cleanup until the 12th December, when I will take about four weeks off over the holiday to update to python 3. In the new year, I will begin work on what gets voted on in the poll.

#release

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theconservativebrief · 6 years

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The 2018 midterm elections have arrived, and with them the infamous exit polls that start to roll out before official results come in.

We might know what happened between Beto O’Rourke and Ted Cruz in Texas, or Stacey Abrams and Brian Kemp in Georgia, long before the final votes are counted. Or at least we’ll have some signs, thanks to television networks and other media outlets releasing the results of exit polls that try to predict how votes are shaking out.

Exit polling can be a tricky business, though, and not necessarily reflective of how elections will turn out — some early exit polls in 2016 pointed to a victory for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump, for example.

Given the high stakes of the 2018 midterms and the intense interest, many Americans will likely be watching the exit polls closely on Tuesday. Beyond projecting a winner, exit polls can also help explain why a candidate won — indicating which voters went to the polls in bigger numbers.

But the system isn’t perfect, and two news outlets this year are trying something new. Here’s what to expect tonight when the polls close and exit polls start rolling in.

Nationwide exit polls date back to the 1970s, according to Pew Research, starting with CBS and soon followed by the other networks. They started to pool their efforts in the 1980s, when they formed Voter Research and Surveys, which eventually became Voter News Service (VNS) in 1993.

VNS dissolved after some mishaps in 2000 and 2002, and the National Election Pool (NEP) was formed after that. Up until this election, NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, CNN, and the Associated Press hired a pollster — most recently, Edison Research — to conduct exit polls.

This year, things are going to go a little differently because Fox News and the Associated Press have split off and are doing their own thing.

ABC, CBS, CNN, and NBC will again work with Edison, interviewing voters at polling locations in all 50 states. Edison has also sent interviewers to in-person early voting locations and interviewed early and absentee voters by phone prior to the election.

In 2016, Edison interviewed some 85,000 people on day-of voting and spoke with about 16,000 early an absentee voters by phone.

AP, Fox News, and the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago have instead this year teamed up for a new project dubbed VoteCast, which will survey 120,000 registered voters and have three parts — a random phone and online survey of registered voters, a group of voters from NORC’s panel, and an opt-in online survey.

Multiple other news organizations, including the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post, will use the VoteCast system in 2018.

“We thought it was necessary to try something new,” Arnon Mishkin, head of Fox News’s Decision Desk, said at a polling conference in Denver earlier this year, according to NPR.

The issue at hand was, in part, early exit polling in 2016 pointing to a win for Clinton.

Sally Buzbee, executive editor of the AP, told the Post recently that recognizing the exit polls had been wrong about Clinton was a “sobering moment that told me that we needed to try to see if we could use an alternative going forward.”

So this year, we’ll see two sorts of sets of exit polling results that could, potentially, tell different stories.

The primary purpose of the exit poll is to allow TV networks and the AP to project who’s won races as soon after the polls close as possible.

Ahead of Election Day, NBC News laid out how it will present data that might help you understand what the calls mean — projected winner means the network believes a candidate will win but the vote count isn’t complete, apparent winner means that the candidate has likely won but results could depend on a recount or official tallies, and the winner will be declared when a race is beyond the margin for a recount. You’ll also, of course, hear a lot of “too early” or “too close” to call.

But the exit poll isn’t just about whom people voted for — that’s why there are interviewers even in safe states. Voters are asked to provide basic demographic information like gender, age, and ethnicity. They’re also asked some questions about their personal viewpoints and behaviors, like their religion and churchgoing habits, and about major issues facing the country.

That means the exit poll data is actually more detailed, in some ways, than the official US Census vote tallies that come out several weeks after the election. It can offer the first hints, and often the most important ones, of what voters thought this election was about. That’s very important to pundits as they try to interpret what it means.

“It’s more than calling a race,” Jay McCann, a political science professor and exit polls expert at Purdue University, told me. “The big question is what explains an outcome, and exit polls, by virtue of the fact that you’re interviewing individual voters at the site when they’ve just made the decision, that would give you some insights that other kinds of polls conducted further away in time couldn’t really give you.”

In 2004, for example, post-election chatter focused on ”values voters.” Voters who attended religious services regularly had overwhelmingly voted for George W. Bush. That narrative came out of the exit poll data.

Of course, what voters say is important to them is partly what campaigns have told voters is important — there’s political science research suggesting that when a campaign hammers particular issues, those are the issues that the candidate’s supporters say are most important to them. But the exit poll is still the best opportunity the national media has, in some ways, to figure out who voted, why, and how.

The media outlets running the exit poll want to be able to describe who’s voting, and whom they’re voting for, to the public as early as possible. But they don’t want to have any influence on who ends up voting — they don’t want anyone deciding not to vote because they’ve already seen what the exit polls say and they don’t think their vote will matter. (There’s some evidence that this happened back in 1980, when some outlets projected that Ronald Reagan would win the presidential election before polls closed on the West Coast.)

Sometimes, networks slip up. In 2014, for example, Fox News showed early exit poll results in New Hampshire before polls had closed there in a tight Senate race. The network argued that it hadn’t broken the exit poll rules because it technically didn’t show how many respondents had voted for Jeanne Shaheen or Scott Brown — it showed how many people said they would vote for each candidate if the race came down to a runoff.

There’s never been a completely leaked exit poll in the US, but there are sometimes hoaxes.

Some reporters are allowed to see some exit poll results as they come in, but they’re under strict security.

At about 5 pm ET, media outlets start reporting what the exit polls say about who turned out — namely, who turned out earlier in the day. And as soon as the polls close in particular states, media outlets are allowed to start projecting winners based on exit polls results. In other words, a slew of projections are likely to start coming in at about 7 pm on the East Coast.

The New York Times this year will also bring back its infamous “needle,” which will tip back and forth starting in the evening as results begin to come in with projections about who will control the House of Representatives, the range of seats each party could hold, and an estimate for the final national popular vote, among other things.

Exit polls are an imperfect system; hence the issue with early signs pointing to Clinton in 2016 that’s causing some outlets to switch things up.

“There are a couple of challenges in the current environment,” McCann told me. “There may be a systematic tendency for some types of people not to want to participate.”

Early voting poses a challenge for exit pollsters because they’re still figuring out exactly how to approach it. Both the NEP and VoteCast survey early voters, but early voting is a relatively new — though very fast-growing — trend, and they’re still figuring out processes. Early voting polls via phone run into the same problems a lot of phone polls do — that it’s hard to poll people who only have mobile phones and who don’t often pick them up.

“I have to assume, and there’s been some reporting on this, that it’s much more haphazard,” McCann said.

Sample size can also be a challenge because the smaller the sample, the less likely it is to be representative. Exit polls are reliable when it comes to large demographics (men, women, Democrats, Republicans) but less reliable as it gets more granular (young voters, Jewish voters). Analysts also believe that exit polls have a tendency to oversample voters of color who live in majority-white areas.

Exit poll results on Tuesday will be eye-opening in terms of how voters feel about issues such as health care and immigration, who turned out to vote, and whom specific groups voted for. And, of course, they’ll be telling about who wins and loses.

But some other components of the 2018 midterm elections will take a lot longer to figure out. Turnout, for example, could take days, weeks, or months to completely decipher, simply because completely counting all votes takes a long time. Mail-in and absentee vote processing can last past the election, and in California, the most populous state, ballot counting can be especially drawn-out.

The Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey, which has collected voter and registration data since 1964, will look at self-reported registration and voting activity and release its results in the spring or summer of next year. (Its breakdown of the 2016 election was released in May 2017.) As Pew notes, that data and other post-election surveys often don’t get as much media attention as exit polls — the news cycle has often moved on — but that information could provide a fuller and more accurate picture of the midterms.

Original Source -> Exit polls will give us an early — but imperfect — glimpse of the Election Day results

via The Conservative Brief

#IFTTT #The Conservative Brief

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newstfionline · 7 years

Text

‘If Money is Not Distributed, You Are Finished’

By Milan Vaishnav, Foreign Policy, February 27, 2017

“It is too hot for campaigning, sir,” the aide explained. “We will take our lunch and then try again in the late afternoon.” It was 104 degrees in the shaded area of the porch where I was sitting and the aide’s words provided a welcome reprieve.

It was 2014, and elections were only two weeks away in this predominantly rural constituency located in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. On this particularly scorching day, I had come to spend some time with a candidate who was standing for elections to the Andhra legislature, which represents the state’s 50 million residents. Due to the relentless heat this time of year, candidates would visit constituents first thing in the morning before breaking around 10 or 11, at which point the sun’s glare became unbearable. They would resume again in the late afternoon, when the worst had passed, and stay out as late as their bodies could stand it before collapsing.

Fortunately for me, I was scheduled to accompany the candidate in his well-air-conditioned SUV for his afternoon and evening engagements. The candidate, whose identity I agreed not to reveal but will call “Sanjay,” was a newcomer to politics. Sanjay was well-educated, quite wealthy by Indian standards, and had several years’ experience in the private sector. Despite his parents’ qualms and his wife’s protestations, he had decided to take the plunge into electoral politics--backed by a wider party, but drawing on his own financial resources. “This has been a great experience,” Sanjay told me in the car as we drove to a nearby village for a rally, “but my wallet does not agree with me.” We both laughed before he continued, “This election is costing me between $1.5 and $2 million.”

Doing the math in my head, I figured Sanjay’s estimate of his campaign expenses was in the ballpark of thirty to forty times the legal limit for a state election (roughly $47,000). His costs rose substantially as the election drew nearer. Sanjay went on to explain that most of the money was his own or his family’s--as a newcomer, he could not rely on big corporate donations, and his party was not much help, either.

His personal wealth was precisely what made him an attractive candidate to the party to begin with.

In February and March 2017, voters in five Indian states are going to the polls. In each instance, the share of wealthy candidates in the fray is even larger than in the previous election; in the north Indian state of Punjab, for instance, 37 percent of contestants are “crorepatis” (that is, they possess a wealth greater than one crore, or 10 million rupees). In the tranquil coastal state of Goa, the assets of sitting politicians have grown by 50 percent in the past five years. But the challenges posed by the rising costs of elections are not unique to India; in democracies the world over, the need to amass a hefty campaign war chest is limiting the talent pool for office while often opening the door to vested interests. And in countries with weak checks and balances, the burgeoning costs of democracy raise the likelihood that, once elected, politicians will use the trappings of office to recoup their expenses.

Under Indian law, although there are strict limits on how much money individual candidates can spend on their campaign, these limits are routinely flouted. The spending caps are both unrealistically low and exceedingly hard to enforce. As a result, candidates and parties engage in a shadowy game of channeling largely undocumented cash in an effort to tilt the playing field in their favor.

To get around strictures prescribed by India’s autonomous Election Commission, candidates have come up with ingenious workarounds. In Sanjay’s case, rather than risk distributing actual bottles of alcohol in the waning hours of the campaign--which could raise unnecessary suspicion--party workers provided households with vouchers (that looked like innocent scraps of paper) for free booze that they could redeem at local liquor outlets. For most households, country hooch would suffice. For influential notables or well-to-do residents, the campaign was compelled to gift name-brand liquor.

I was dubious whether this type of “vote buying” was actually effective. In 2010, I had met a voter in the poor, northern state of Bihar who, mistaking me for a politician, desperately asked me to buy his vote. When I asked him how much he required, he admitted that one party had already given him 100 rupees. So, if I gave him money, too, would he vote for me, I asked? He let out a devilish grin and confessed he takes money from all candidates but then votes for whomever he wishes on the actual day.

I relayed this story to Sanjay and he nodded approvingly. “If money is distributed, voters might give you a chance. But if money is not distributed, you are finished,” he said. It was difficult, if not impossible, to secure an airtight quid pro quo, but the money and goodies were a sign of goodwill and largesse. Politicians like Sanjay held out hope that if they gave more money than the next guy, norms of reciprocity would kick in and voters would feel obliged to vote “the right way.” Doling out cash on the eve of elections was--as a veteran India-watcher once explained to me--akin to a poker game: All players need to ante up before the dealer hands you your cards. It’s the price of admission.

When we reached the village rally, I was introduced to a man who had previously contested elections in the area but was now campaigning for Sanjay. I asked the man why he chose not to run again; he rubbed his thumb and forefinger together, making the universal gesture for cash. “I just finished paying off the last one,” he said with a laugh. Without going into detail, I casually mentioned my conversation with Sanjay about campaign costs. “That’s nothing,” he remarked. “The man who is running for the [national-level] parliamentary seat from this area is spending several times as much.”

Later that night, when we returned to Sanjay’s party office after a series of exhausting though exhilarating rallies, I asked him why he decided to get into politics. He cited all the usual reasons one would expect: public service, a desire to help people, a belief he could better represent the constituency than the incumbent. But given the huge expenses, was the financial investment worth it? “If I am lucky enough to win, next time, I’ll need even more money,” he lamented, already pondering his potential reelection expenses. “How does one remain honest and succeed in politics in this country?” he wondered aloud.

The next day, in between campaign stops, I asked Sanjay about the supposed link between the crush of money and criminal activity (or “muscle,” as it is called in the Indian parlance). The nexus between crime and elections in India is deeply woven into its political fabric.

“Parties have a pretty good sense of what elections cost now and what they’re likely to cost in the future,” Sanjay said. “They know that they have to find well-off candidates to fight elections for them.” What costs 100 million rupees today will cost 200 million rupees five years from now when the next election comes around, he said. But, I interjected, not all were criminals--he did not have a criminal record, for instance. “But there are not enough of us,” he replied. “Without money, you cannot do anything. You will be wiped out. You first have to make money, and then you can do good after you’re entrenched and secure.”

Sanjay related to me the example of one of his party’s senior leaders, who had amassed a large fortune through a series of questionable business dealings that traded heavily on his political connections. He is a good man, Sanjay assured me (in what sounded like a blatant rationalization), but he needed to build a big enough war chest that would allow him to do good in the future. For those in a rush to make money, there were lots of shortcuts available, and parties are always willing to look the other way. “Political parties are full of excuses,” he said with a smirk.

Before departing Sanjay’s constituency, I spent some time with one of the young men tasked with handling the large amounts of cash Sanjay’s campaign would distribute on the eve of elections. The boy, whose parents were longtime friends of the candidate’s, described to me the intricate network of cash distribution he would play a small role in facilitating. The constituency was divided into five segments and for each segment, the candidate had entrusted one family member or close associate with the responsibility of providing “goodies” on the eve of voting. Each of the five “block” leaders, in turn, had five deputies, and so on. The boy was one such deputy, but for someone entrusted with so much responsibility he appeared deeply uninterested in politics, telling me that he was doing it only as a favor since Sanjay was a close family friend. When I asked him if he ever thought of joining politics, his response was swift: “No way.” Politics was a dirty game, he said, and money was having a corrosive effect.

A few weeks before I arrived in Andhra Pradesh, the state held municipal elections, and the boy was asked by another politician friend of the family to help in the final days of that campaign. The candidate he was tasked with helping had come up with a clever plan to win votes: Rather than handing out cash to voters, he would distribute free cell phones. The phones were worth several hundred rupees, but the candidate had ordered in bulk and hence received a huge discount from his supplier. The ploy backfired, the boy explained, because most voters already had a mobile phone and had no use for a second one. Furthermore, voters felt the candidate was behaving like a cheapskate. The rival candidate in the area who stuck to traditional cash handouts won handily. Whether money had anything to do with the candidate’s loss was impossible to verify, but it was immaterial; there was a perception that it cost him the election.

On my way to the local airport to catch a flight out of town, I paid one last visit to Sanjay in his makeshift party office. I regaled him with stories the young boy had told me--stories, of course, that Sanjay had already heard. I promised Sanjay I would return in several months if he won his election. “If I win,” Sanjay daydreamed, “maybe I will run for member of parliament in five years.” He paused, smiling, “But to do that, I’ll have to become a billionaire first.”

In the end, Sanjay lost the race by a narrow margin: just 6,000 votes out of more than 163,000 ballots cast. While money made him competitive, it was not enough to catapult him over the top--especially against a well-resourced incumbent backed by a strong party organization. After the poll, Sanjay retreated to his small business, licking his wounds and plotting his future. Last month, I traded messages with Sanjay and he told me that he remains active in politics, making frequent trips to nurture his constituency. He is even thinking of contesting elections in 2019, but first things first: He has to replenish his bank balance.

This article has been excerpted from Milan Vaishnav’s new book, When Crime Pays: Money and Muscle in Indian Politics (Yale University Press, 2017)

#India #Indian politics #Indian voters #Milan Vaishnav

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