US Presidential Election 2020 Thread II - Judgement Day(s)

Quin_Dub

BluePlanet wrote: »

Can anyone cite an example of a recount in US Presidential elections that actually flipped the result?

Carfacemandog wrote: »

I can't off hand but wisconsin has had 2 recounts, one in 2016 which brought a change of 132 votes, and another in 2018 that saw a change of about 300 votes.

The current gap in wisconsin is 20k votes, with the closest two being Georgia and Arizona at 14k and 13k respectively. The margin are simply too much for recounts to overturn.

It's never happened in a Presidential Election.

There have been 31 State-wide recounts in the last 20 years.

The "change" that occurs has never been more than a few hundred and has only changed the actual result 3 times.


Governor of Washington State 2004 - Multiple recounts changed the initial win by 261 votes to a loss by 129 Votes - So a 390 Vote Swing
State Auditor of Vermont 2006 - Initial lead of 137 Votes became a loss by 102 vote , a 239 Vote Swing
Minnesota Senator Race 2008 - Initial win of 215 changing to a loss by 225 (Al Franken the winner) a 440 vote Swing

Quin_Dub

moon2 wrote: »

I've been hunting around to see if there's a historical analysis of the minimum number of votes needed to flip the election outcome. Looking solely at popular vote isn't that useful, neither is the EC margin particularly useful by itself. So far I've not been able to find anything.

To take your analogy further, if most men are about 6'6 then they wouldn't be tall no matter who they're standing beside.

I feel american elections are typically tighter than what we see in other countries, but due to the convoluted nature of how they elect its harder to see that.

They absolutely are.

The permanent 2 Horse race drives that allied to the fact that there is probably 75% of the population who will never change their vote no matter who the candidate is or what they have/have not done.

At worst they just won't vote , hence the typically low turn-out.

Here for example when we're all pissed off at the Big Parties , we vote Green or Independent etc. as a "protest" vote of sorts.

No such option exists in the US.

robinph

Brussels Sprout wrote: »

Yes exactly. That's exactly what I did. I sought out the absolute minimum number of votes required to flip the map.

It's the same exercise that was done in 2016 to show that Clinton, in the end, only lost by 78k votes across 3 states.

I don't recall that ever being really presented as any reason for recounts across multiple states or a sign of voter fraud, just a statistical curiosity and sign at how a bit of campaigning in different places could have made a difference.

There was disbelief that people could vote for someone like Trump, and predictions that he'd be a disaster as a president, and that he'd not be statesman like at all. But thankfully he's been a model president throughout and never said or done anything unprecidentidial!

8-10

It's funny that Trump can call for a recount in a State that he won in 2016 with less of a margin than Biden leads by in 2020, and he called winning that State a 'landslide' in 2016

Brussels Sprout

robinph wrote: »

I don't recall that ever being really presented as any reason for recounts across multiple states or a sign of voter fraud, just a statistical curiosity and sign at how a bit of campaigning in different places could have made a difference.

Oh yeah I'm not advocating for either of those. Biden won, fairly and squarely and the sooner everyone accepts that the better.

prawnsambo

Following on from Quin_Dub's post on possible Trump manoeuvrings, this thread covers that exact situation. Also worth reading the replies as there are a few extra nuggets of information there.

Inquitus

The USPS Workers gofundme got deleted, thankfully he won't profit from his lies

fr336

WTF is going in with trump packing the pentagon with his picks? Very worrying.

Irish Praetorian

Manic Moran wrote: »

Difficult to give a figure. There are a fair few who support Trump and his policies, without necessarily supporting Trump as a person, but as a rule, the folks I run into are fairly overwhelmingly Republican. Statistically, I believe officers are more likely lean Democrat than enlisted, and I do know some enlisted who are definitely on the progressive end of the scale, but they are all in the overall minority.

That said, I have seen absolutely nothing from anyone to indicate that any of us want the military to get involved in taking sides as an organisation. We've over two centuries of, shall we say, militant neutrality on the matter starting with George Washington, that sort of tradition is hard to break.

Of course, what they -want- and what they're -ordered- are two separate things. The Eisenhower vs Arkansas incident in the 50s showed that soldiers will carry out instructions to the best of their ability from one side one day, and then from the other side the next day, pursuant to the lawful chain of command at the time. In that, they place trust in the senior leadership that they are being given lawful orders. I have seen nothing to indicate that the Joint Chiefs or Combatant Commanders (Technically, the Joint Chiefs are not actually in the chain of command) would be willing to partake in an unlawful destruction of the peaceful or smooth transfer of civilian power, the President is quite limited in what he can do with troops inside the US (Another advantage of the US being 50 independent States). A more interesting question is what a State governor could do, but even if the most irrational Red state governor in the country decided to order his soldiers to take action (As Governor Faubus did in 1957), what would they do? Invade Pennsylvania from Kentucky to take over the counting centers? There would be nothing for them to do in their own jurisdiction.

That leaves one, very large wildcard. The DC. National Guard, located, coincidentally enough, right where the transfer of power is located. And unlike any other Guard, it's both able to lawfully conduct operations in the city normally prohibited to the military and has President at the top of the chain of command. Which is a full battalion of military police, and a bunch of other folks like transportation, Air force security, etc. So, if Trump ordered the DC Guard to fortify the White House and turn it into a fortress, I presume they'd do it. Probably half-heartedly (eg I can't imagine they'd dig trenches in the Rose Garden), but they'll do it.
And then, at 12:01 on 20th January, someone would relay a message to them from the new commander in chief across town to stand down, and that would be the end of it.

Your Naval Officer friend is correct. It's been a note of some concern that military service is now considered to be almost a family affair, with a very large proportion of folks in the service with relatives who served. And they, in turn, tend to be from where their folks are/were serving, which tends to be in the rural areas since that's where many of the bases are. And, yes, there's a large cohort from the inner cities, as it's viewed as a way out which gives free job training and other benefits. Those folks tend to gravitate to the support roles. (Not many post-army civilian jobs for infantry, but helicopter mechanics are another matter entirely, for example).

That militant neutrality sounds like the envy of many a society in history, although I would worry should matters develop in a certain manner going forward, if it could become yet another piece in the rather stultified political environment of the US. Assuming that they are by in large inclined to play ball, that is support the terms of the Constitution and follow the duly elected leader (in this case Trump for now and Biden in late January) there seems to be little trouble for us to expect in January. However, I would wonder if they would at all feel conflicted if that status quo moving forward involved the occupant of the White House being elected with increasingly small portions of the popular vote. I mean this election could have gone the other way with perhaps 150k of the votes going the other way in key states - that is out of a popular vote margin of about 5 million in favour of Biden. I wonder is there a margin at which the military, no more than the wider population to be fair, starts to question the disconnect between the candidate with the most votes and the 'winner' of the system. Or even take a somewhat possible scenario with this election - let us say the Republican controlled legislatures of sufficient states won by Biden decided to sent electors to vote for Trump and give him the presidency; what would the military do if anything?


Just on the point in regards the National Guard, am I mistaken or can they be 'Federalized' by Executive Order (or whenever the president so desires?) - I seem to have vague recollections of that happening at some point during the Civil Rights Era, as a means of undercutting one of the states ability to cause a fuss. Adjunct to this, National Guard and active service Army are different kettles of fish I presume; this may be outside your wheelhouse but is there much in the way of distinctions between the two in terms of political affiliation or demographic makeup? Again, I recall hearing the term weekend-warrior somewhere and I'm left with the enduring view of it being something for suburban householders to do in their spare time - but then I'm near certain a few of those units were deployed to Iraq/Afghanistan so I don't want to commit to an ill-informed pisstake without getting the facts straight.

I'd query one or two more points, but at this stage I may be dragging us off topic and into 'hey did you shoot a gun, did you kill anybody, did you fly a fighter-jet' territory.

everlast75

Boris rowing in behind other world leaders in referring to the trump presidency in the past tense

https://twitter.com/cspan/status/1326533282654277632?s=19

Timberrrrrrrr

everlast75 wrote: »

Boris rowing in behind other world leaders in referring to the trump presidency in the past tense

https://twitter.com/cspan/status/1326533282654277632?s=19

More world leaders need to start using the term "president elect Biden"

Blowfish

Irish Praetorian wrote: »

However, I would wonder if they would at all feel conflicted if that status quo moving forward involved the occupant of the White House being elected with increasingly small portions of the popular vote. I mean this election could have gone the other way with perhaps 150k of the votes going the other way in key states - that is out of a popular vote margin of about 5 million in favour of Biden. I wonder is there a margin at which the military, no more than the wider population to be fair, starts to question the disconnect between the candidate with the most votes and the 'winner' of the system.

It's possible alright that they'd be uncomfortable with it, but from everything I've seen (even as someone who often disagrees majorly with how the US military is used), the US military would be extremely unwilling to involve themselves and would always defer to the courts as the ones responsible for resolving any disputes or issues with elections.


Now, the one caveat is that the military will obey all legal orders from the president and while I'd agree with Manic that they'd quite happily down tools on Jan 20th if instructed to, there are still plenty of 'legal' orders that would cause havok before then. Hypothetically (though I'm no lawyer so could be way off), Trump could state that the 'election fraud' is depriving people of their constitutionally protected rights, hence under the Insurrection Act (third bullet point here) he is mobilising the National Guard and ordering them to 'secure' the counting locations. I don't envy the situation that'd stick the top end of the US military in were that to happen.

everlast75

Timberrrrrrrr wrote: »

More world leaders need to start using the term "president elect Biden"

It's embarrassing and the lack of Trump supporters on here to defend his course of action is notable.

The party of gerrymandering, voter suppression and welcoming foreign interference in the election crying foul and hypocrisy is nauseating in the extreme.

Quin_Dub

fr336 wrote: »

WTF is going in with trump packing the pentagon with his picks? Very worrying.

I'm really not sure.

Do they get some kind of lump sum payment if they are part of an outgoing administration?

"Ministerial Pension" as it were?

astrofool

They're changing from political appointments to civil servants, which makes it harder for them to be moved on (or sit on their tod for years collecting a top salary).

serfboard

Robert2014 wrote: »

Everyone was fed up with it before it went to the Supreme Court and Gore accepted its verdict.

Donald Trump is not Al Gore. As someone said, Donald Trump will go to his grave not accepting the verdict.

Quin_Dub wrote: »

Here for example when we're all pissed off at the Big Parties , we vote Green or Independent etc. as a "protest" vote of sorts.

Indeed, but we can do that here because we have PR. There is a push in some quarters in the US to get "Ranked Choice" voting (as the Americans refer to it), more widely adopted.

Here, in the last election, the alternative to the big two that we voted for - Sinn Fein - could have ended up being more than a protest vote if they had fielded more candidates.

BlitzKrieg

serfboard wrote: »

Donald Trump is not Al Gore. As someone said, Donald Trump will go to his grave not accepting the verdict.

or is able to bury the verdict that no one notices or cares.

He has lost in the past (Trump University being a prime example) and he's buried under a bunch of legalize and just does not talk about it. Same with the Russia investigation, he latches on to one specific aspect and drowns out all the other results with the one point.

Until he gets a similar out he that he can use to drown out the sheer deafless euphoria that his defeat he'll keep on throwing tantrums.

Depressingly its a tactic that has worked for him far too much.

everlast75

Today's "there's always a tweet"...


https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/805486509914779649?s=19

MJohnston

Anyone know any good tweeters who are covering the lawsuits closely?

I wish Arizona would hurry up and count their ****ing votes - the sooner there’s an insurmountable Electoral College gap between the two candidates the better.

prawnsambo

MJohnston wrote: »

Anyone know any good tweeters who are covering the lawsuits closely?

I wish Arizona would hurry up and count their ****ing votes - the sooner there’s an insurmountable Electoral College gap between the two candidates the better.

This guy probably. Seems to have a pretty close eye on proceedings and tweeting snippets of affidavits like this.

TomOnBoard

MJohnston wrote: »

Anyone know any good tweeters who are covering the lawsuits closely?

I wish Arizona would hurry up and count their ****ing votes - the sooner there’s an insurmountable Electoral College gap between the two candidates the better.

I find @lawcrimenews and @KlasfeldReports good and fairly up to the minute.

If you really want to get into the legal/filing weeds on a variety of shenannigans, take a look at @File411

extra gravy

https://twitter.com/MaxMMarin/status/1326536652215316481?s=19

Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt gave an interview earlier where he dismissed claims of voter fraud stating "I can't comprehend how hungry people are to consume lies and to consume information that is not true,"

He also stated that his office had received death threats. The toddler-in-chief was obviously watching and posted this crap afterwards. He is inciting those death threats and putting the lives of American election workers and officials at risk. The sooner this dangerous, pathetic loser is out of the White House the better.

prawnsambo

Also Dave Wasserman is tweeting as states certify their results. Four have certified so far: Delaware, Wyoming, Oklahoma and South Carolina.

Manic Moran

Just on the point in regards the National Guard, am I mistaken or can they be 'Federalized' by Executive Order (or whenever the president so desires?) - I seem to have vague recollections of that happening at some point during the Civil Rights Era, as a means of undercutting one of the states ability to cause a fuss. Adjunct to this, National Guard and active service Army are different kettles of fish I presume; this may be outside your wheelhouse but is there much in the way of distinctions between the two in terms of political affiliation or demographic makeup? Again, I recall hearing the term weekend-warrior somewhere and I'm left with the enduring view of it being something for suburban householders to do in their spare time - but then I'm near certain a few of those units were deployed to Iraq/Afghanistan so I don't want to commit to an ill-informed pisstake without getting the facts straight.

You are correct, the National Guard (Not the State Guard, but they're smaller and less well armed. Normally if one says "The Guard" it means National Guard) can be federalised into Title 10 Status, at which point they become in effect members of the Regular Army subject to all the laws of the regular force, and removed from the State chain of command. But it also means that there are limits as to what they can do. In the case of 1957 (the Civil rights era instance to which you refer), yes, it was conducted under the Insurrection Act, however, the Act requires "unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States, make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in any State by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings." In 1957, there was a Supreme Court ruling being ignored by the State authorities. In this Trump case, there is no particular reason for it to apply so although he can 'invoke' the act, there's little saying that an order under it is not clearly unlawful in most circumstances. (Thats' the trigger. It has to be obviously unlawful to be refused, not just questionable)

I guess there was one big loophole I missed. The prohibition on using the Federal Army in domestic law enforcement actually does not apply to Marines in the law. It does in practice because of regulations, but regulations can be changed. The end result, though, would be absolutely the same as for the DC Guard. On 20 January, the Marines go home. And, of course, there's the question of "If they're enforcing the law, what laws are they enforcing?" Being ordered to do something blatantly illegal (eg seize a vote counting center) is going to be refused, there has to be some legitimate purpose to do it.

In terms of demographic makeup, yes, there would be a difference as the Guard is locally recruited. Some 90%+ of the PA Guard, for example, would be from PA. Most Guard units would have deployed, the concept is "The Total Army Force". Unlike the Irish or British reserves, we all go to the same schools and have the same equipment. My Basic Training unit in Fort Knox was about split Army/Guard/Reserve:40/40/20. I'm currently assigned to the HQ of 1st Armored Division, a regular army unit, and I go whenever they go.

CrabRevolution

https://alex.github.io/nyt-2020-election-scraper/battleground-state-changes.html#
Been following this for the latest counts.

Gets frustrating when you see there's been an update and think it could be a decisive move in one of the remaining states, but when you check it out it shows something like 1 vote being tallied in Georgia. Bit of a letdown!

prawnsambo

South Dakota now certified. That makes five. Tick tock.

TomOnBoard

CrabRevolution wrote: »

https://alex.github.io/nyt-2020-election-scraper/battleground-state-changes.html#
Been following this for the latest counts.

Gets frustrating when you see there's been an update and think it could be a decisive move in one of the remaining states, but when you check it out it shows something like 1 vote being tallied in Georgia. Bit of a letdown!

I dunno how you're going to get through the next fortnight or 3 weeks in GA, so! The Secretary of State said today it going to a complete MANUAL recount... That's 5 million votes, designed to be read/counted by machine that are not going to be counted by machine.... :eek:

prawnsambo

prawnsambo wrote: »

South Dakota now certified. That makes five. Tick tock.

Six with Vermont. I suspect that these will continue through the day and then slow down as the others continue their counts.

prawnsambo

And here's the first one that gets to the heart of the matter. Not sure how that can get any traction in court.

Irish Praetorian

Manic Moran wrote: »

You are correct, the National Guard (Not the State Guard, but they're smaller and less well armed. Normally if one says "The Guard" it means National Guard) can be federalised into Title 10 Status, at which point they become in effect members of the Regular Army subject to all the laws of the regular force, and removed from the State chain of command. But it also means that there are limits as to what they can do. In the case of 1957 (the Civil rights era instance to which you refer), yes, it was conducted under the Insurrection Act, however, the Act requires "unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States, make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in any State by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings." In 1957, there was a Supreme Court ruling being ignored by the State authorities. In this Trump case, there is no particular reason for it to apply so although he can 'invoke' the act, there's little saying that an order under it is not clearly unlawful in most circumstances. (Thats' the trigger. It has to be obviously unlawful to be refused, not just questionable)

I guess there was one big loophole I missed. The prohibition on using the Federal Army in domestic law enforcement actually does not apply to Marines in the law. It does in practice because of regulations, but regulations can be changed. The end result, though, would be absolutely the same as for the DC Guard. On 20 January, the Marines go home. And, of course, there's the question of "If they're enforcing the law, what laws are they enforcing?" Being ordered to do something blatantly illegal (eg seize a vote counting center) is going to be refused, there has to be some legitimate purpose to do it.

In terms of demographic makeup, yes, there would be a difference as the Guard is locally recruited. Some 90%+ of the PA Guard, for example, would be from PA. Most Guard units would have deployed, the concept is "The Total Army Force". Unlike the Irish or British reserves, we all go to the same schools and have the same equipment. My Basic Training unit in Fort Knox was about split Army/Guard/Reserve:40/40/20. I'm currently assigned to the HQ of 1st Armored Division, a regular army unit, and I go whenever they go.

Intriguing, and I'm glad I held fire on my weekend-warrior quip, because from what you describe it really sounds like the National Guard is a lot more capable as a fighting force than most people might realize. I would almost be concerned given the kind of regional affiliation you describe, but I presume from what you say and don't say, that the NG has, like the Army, a bit of a Republican lean in its membership.

In any case, I appreciate the insights; you're an utter wellspring of knowledge on the topic. You know if you had the time, you should get yourself a YT channel, do some videos on this kinda stuff.