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

Brussels Sprout

V8 Interceptor wrote: »

Whatever about the US election, would any of you guys be comfortable with mail in voting here? I wouldn't. I think going down to the booth and posting your ballot is the safest and most tried and trusted method there is.

Yes. Our Seanad elections are done entirely by postal vote. I voted in one this year.

1. You register to vote.
2. They post you out your ballot, inner return envelope, outer return pre-paid postal envelope and a declaration paper
3. Vote on the ballot paper and stick it in the inner envelope and seal it
4. Sign the declaration paper. Get a witness to co-sign it. Stick that and the sealed inner envelope into the postal envelope and send it off to the Election address

Whether you vote by mail or in person there is an element of trust that you need to have that your ballot will ultimately be counted. The candidates to whom I gave my #1,2 & 3 preferences didn't get elected in that election. My first thought though wasn't that my ballot must have been thrown away or got changed to Ronan Mullen. I have faith in the people running the election that it was free and fair even if I wasn't delighted with the outcome. That's democracy.

Tchaikovsky

dogbert27 wrote: »

What happens if the college electorate confirm Biden and Trump still refuses to concede?

A concession is just a matter of courtesy from a losing presidential candidate and a gracious celebration of American democracy that helps with the peaceful transition of power. Trump will be out on his hole on Jan 20th regardless.

duploelabs

dogbert27 wrote: »

What happens if the college electorate confirm Biden and Trump still refuses to concede?

I think the conceding is just a formality, once the electorate confirm its legally done and dusted

Edit : the composer got there before me

drunkmonkey

drunkmonkey wrote: »

You don't think it's possible Hugo would have altered Election results if it was possible you know he would have the same goes for the Democrats, anyone watching the run up to the election could see Biden hadn't a chance of beating Trump.

Really?

Any evidence to support any of this?

Are you still standing over your claim that trump doesn't write any of his tweets?

Gbear

Tchaikovsky wrote: »

A concession is just a matter of courtesy from a losing presidential candidate and a gracious celebration of American democracy that helps with the peaceful transition of power. Trump will be out on his hole on Jan 20th regardless.

The concession itself isn't that important.

What's more important is that it looks like there's going to be no transition.
Biden's team isn't getting the funds released for a transition, or office spaces, and none of Trump's staff are being made available for transition meetings.

Now, I'm not sure they'd be much use, because if there was anyone sane and competent in the Trump administration, they've since left, and even so, the original staff pretty much slept through most of the transition meetings arranged for them by Obama's team, but it could be extremely damaging to have an incoming administration having no intel or resources to prepare and basically having them have to begin from a standing start on January 20.

First Up

TomOnBoard wrote:

Will Plan B succeed? Highly unlikely! Should we simply ignore the shennanigans and 'move on'? Absolutely not! Just because a coup has little chance of success does not excuse its architects and its leaders. And while the coup is playing out, extreme vigilance is needed to ensure it is ground down! The damage being done by the coup attempt is significant and is extremely dangerous in a fragile republic!

The Trumpers can clutch their straws about the election as long as they like. The US legal system is robust enough to handle it. I wouldn't waste energy worrying about it.

Trump is just building his fan base for the launch of Trump TV.

prawnsambo

First Up wrote: »

The Trumpers can clutch their straws about the election as long as they like. The US legal system is robust enough to handle it. I wouldn't waste energy worrying about it.

Trump is just building his fan base for the launch of Trump TV.

He doesn't need to do any of this stuff to build his base. Arguably, he will lose people at the margins and only the true 'faithful' will stay with him. This is desperate stuff and has only one goal - to keep him in the WH. Granted that it's highly unlikely to work, but he's doing incalculable damage to the electoral system as he flails around looking for even the most flimsy excuse to overturn the result. There is a word for what he's doing and that word is sedition.

firemansam4

astrofool wrote:

trump lost the election, lost the recounts, lost the court cases, lost his favourite news station, lost all respect from anyone, and is now faced with being a big gigantic loser who lost.

Part of this is just wrong....

He has not lost all respect from everyone.
As some posters here have shown, and a sizeable cult following in the states show that he has still got the respect of a large chunk of very gullible and easily manipulated people.

listermint

First Up wrote: »

The Trumpers can clutch their straws about the election as long as they like. The US legal system is robust enough to handle it. I wouldn't waste energy worrying about it.

Trump is just building his fan base for the launch of Trump TV.

I think hes building this up to surround him self with sycophants for protection when the legal cases start piling in next year when hes out of office.

pixelburp

First Up wrote: »

The Trumpers can clutch their straws about the election as long as they like. The US legal system is robust enough to handle it. I wouldn't waste energy worrying about it.

Trump is just building his fan base for the launch of Trump TV.

That's all well and good, but what Trump is planting is further distrust in a sizable demographic towards the mechanisms of the State. The Deep State, Qanon conspiracies won't go away and I guarantee that this will become "the stolen election" in the minds of those with the least to lose. Those demographics were taken for granted in 2016 and if not properly addressed, the next Trump to come along will simply latch onto the continued, simmering anger felt by those people. This election was not a landslide, despite what the electoral college numbers say; enough voted for Trump to demonstrate that his brand of "politics" remains palatable.

Tell me how

Tell me how wrote: »

Turnout this year was highest in 120 years.

I suspect the population is higher also than in 120 years. Like saying the best movies are the ones with most revenue, when mostly they are just the ones with the higher ticket price.

VinLieger

Deleted User wrote: »

I suspect the population is higher also than in 120 years. Like saying the best movies are the ones with most revenue, when mostly they are just the ones with the higher ticket price.

Turnout as a percentage of population is higher than its been in 120 years...... current estimates are that its between 66% and 72%, it hasnt been higher than 66% since the year 1900

TomOnBoard

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I suspect the population is higher also than in 120 years. Like saying the best movies are the ones with most revenue, when mostly they are just the ones with the higher ticket price.

The turnout is best expressed as a % of voting eligible population (VEP), rather than as an absolute value. The VEP takes into account increases in population, relative aging and breakdowns by State/County.

While the underlying voting stats are not yet fully analysed, the % Turnout of VEP in 2020 lies in the range of 66.4% - 72.1%. The closest % Turnout in 'modern times' would be that of JFK in 1960 which reached 62.8%. You'd have to go all the way back to 1900 (73.2%) to beat the higher figure.

So, yes. The 2020 turnout was one of the highest in over a century.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_United_States_presidential_elections

Carfacemandog

The behaviour of republicans from last few weeks, and next few weeks, should been advertised on a constant loop by democrats from now until 2022 or 2024 in Lincoln Project style ads highlighting all the lies, inconsistencies, and open contempt for demo racy they have put on open display.

Trunos lawyer openly calling in oennsylvian is outright ignore their electorate should be one of the main ones, but public figures like Lyndsay Graham should be big targets too.

The American voting public (speaking as a whole, not individually) are so remarkably stupid and lacking in attention span that otherwise they will have forgotten most of this by the end of Biden's first 100 days otherwise.

First Up

pixelburp wrote:

That's all well and good, but what Trump is planting is further distrust in a sizable demographic towards the mechanisms of the State. The Deep State, Qanon conspiracies won't go away and I guarantee that this will become "the stolen election" in the minds of those with the least to lose. Those demographics were taken for granted in 2016 and if not properly addressed, the next Trump to come along will simply latch onto the continued, simmering anger felt by those people. This election was not a landslide, despite what the electoral college numbers say; enough voted for Trump to demonstrate that his brand of "politics" remains palatable.

it's not the first time the cracks in US society have been on display. Trump is just a symptom of a country ill at ease with itself and those flaws will still be there after he is gone.

Trump won't be leading the revolution. He is a shallow opportunist and a media creation and that's what he'll go back to.

Brussels Sprout

Field east wrote: »

Is it not the case that the presidential candidate gets all the EC votes in a state if he/she wins that state. ? What have these nominees got to do with overseeing this apart from formally agreeing that the winner takes all and recording the decision in the ‘minutes of the meeting’ .

The nominated delegates (the electors), are the people who actually cast the votes at the Electoral College on Dec 14th. The general election on Nov 3rd was actually technically not to choose Biden or Trump but to choose the electors who would then get to vote on them at the E.C. next month. These are typically a group of local party loyalists. So the Democrats have their group (or slate) of electors and the Republicans have a different slate of electors. In most states only Trump or Biden's names were on the ballot but in some it says "Electors for Trump/Biden" instead or something like that.

Field east wrote: »

I understand that a few states divvy up the College votes in another way.
And who decides on the number of nominees per canditate? What happens if , say ,Biden wins a state by a landslide and Trump has the majority of the nominees, can the Trump nominees refuse to agree that Biden gets all the votes.

In 48/50 states whoever wins the state gets to send their slate of electors to vote for the state at the Electoral College.
Maine and Nebraska nominate an elector for each of their electoral districts (2 for Maine, 3 for Nebraska) and 2 electors for the overall winner of the state. In this year each of those states will have a mixed group of electors as one of their districts voted differently to the rest of the state.

There is no scenario possible where one candidate wins a landslide in a state and the other candidate gets the electors.

Field east wrote: »

And why is Trump thinking of replacing ‘his’ nominees with another group of them? Is it because the original selection will not do his bidding. .
Would appreciate if some boardie out there would clear this up for me.
It may be of interest to know because we could be going down this track

As outlined above if he lost a state then it's Biden's electors that will be voting on the state's behalf at the Electoral College. Trump's plan is to try and get state level Republicans to somehow instead choose his slate of electors instead of Biden's even though Biden won the popular vote in those states and in many cases they don't even have that power. This is doomed to failure. Even by going down this path Trump is doing irreparable damage to democracy in the USA and it's reputation abroad.

Manic Moran

jmayo wrote: »

Trumps latest ploy is to try see if he can convince Michigan lawmakers to disregard election and get his own delegates appointed.

Has anyone proposed the mechanics as to exactly how this would happen?
This is MI election law. Go to Chapter IV
http://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/mcl/pdf/mcl-act-116-of-1954.pdf
Similar to most states, the legislatures don't get a say in the matter.

paul71 wrote: »

Guess which community dont hold drivers licenses Manic, because they are too economically deprived to own cars, or live in urban areas where cars are not needed and dont have passports because they don't travel internationally.

Fortunately, they don't need a driver's license, or even a car. The State of Georgia provides free IDs for the specific purpose of voting. Even easier to get than State ID cards. https://dds.georgia.gov/voter-id

The above is a strawman arguement. 35000 errors you mentioned, have you researched why? L'Estrange inntead of L'estrange, the entire strike off was deliberate and targetted.

How does one deliberately target anyone with a rule that says "If your application does not match records, it will be rejected?" Things like putting "Tom" instead of "Thomas" or missing the hyphen in your name? . There's a reason why documents tend to say something like "Use your full legal name", to reduce the chances of such errors.

jmayo

dogbert27 wrote: »

What happens if the college electorate confirm Biden and Trump still refuses to concede?

Once Biden confirmed by electoral college and inaugurated on Jan 20th Trump can be physically turfed out of the white house as a trespasser.

Manic Moran wrote: »

Has anyone proposed the mechanics as to exactly how this would happen?
This is MI election law. Go to Chapter IV
http://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/mcl/pdf/mcl-act-116-of-1954.pdf
Similar to most states, the legislatures don't get a say in the matter.

I defer to your greater knowledge of US legislation and constitional matters.

Look from what I can see it looks like clutching at straws

In Michigan's Wayne County (largest county) on Tuesday night
two Republican members of the board, Monica Palmer who serves as the board of canvassers chair, and William Hartmann, refused to certify the county's election results.
Hours later they conceded.

What they are trying to pull is that if the election results are not certified ultimately by the state board then electors to electoral college are select by state legislator which of course happens to be Republican.

It is a long shot a bit like all those trumped up (pardon the pun) court cases.

They are as we would fondly say trying to pull strokes.

prawnsambo

You could say it's an excusable error and anyone can get two states mixed up. But you'd think when filing a lawsuit, you'd make sure of your facts before pressing 'send'. Evidently that didn't happen and to date, nobody has corrected it. Another case scheduled to crash and burn, but in this case, the egg will cover a lot of faces.

Quin_Dub

jmayo wrote: »

Once Biden confirmed by electoral college and inaugurated on Jan 20th Trump can be physically turfed out of the white house as a trespasser.



I defer to your greater knowledge of US legislation and constitional matters.

Look from what I can see it looks like clutching at straws

In Michigan's Wayne County (largest county) on Tuesday night
two Republican members of the board, Monica Palmer who serves as the board of canvassers chair, and William Hartmann, refused to certify the county's election results.
Hours later they conceded.

What they are trying to pull is that if the election results are not certified ultimately by the state board then electors to electoral college are select by state legislator which of course happens to be Republican.

It is a long shot a bit like all those trumped up (pardon the pun) court cases.

They are as we would fondly say trying to pull strokes.

There are two plays - One is to try to get the State Legislature to ignore the popular vote and send their own slate of Electors and the other is simply to prevent the results being Certified by the deadline essentially meaning that in theory , the EC votes from that State are simply excluded.

The latter potentially works if they stymie enough states such that no one can reach 270 , throwing the decision to congress.

Neither has a realistic or viable show at actually coming to pass , but the utter destruction of public confidence in the Electoral process cannot be understated.

The fringe elements that support Trump are currently holding firm in support of his efforts , but when they do inevitably fail in a couple of weeks time, what then?

They aren't suddenly going to simply say "Grand so , we gave it a shot but Biden won" - What are those guys going to do??

Carfacemandog

First Steve Bannon, and now Rudy Giuliani is saying to cut the head off democrats apparently!?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/rudy-giuliani-fox-news-cut-head-off-democrats-trump-biden-2020-11%3famp

Giuliani then said: "These people want to destroy us. They're very, very bad people. They're not ordinary Democrats.

"There are wonderful Democrats in this country. They may disagree with you and me, you know them.


"Somehow the Democrat party was hijacked by Clinton and since then it's gone more corrupt, and more corrupt, and more corrupt.

He then added "Somebody's got to cut the head off," while making a throat-slitting gesture.

Hannity brought the interview to an end as Giuliani, who is spearheading the Trump campaign's effort to overturn his election defeat to President-elect Joe Biden, interjected: "yeah but I".

Hannity then insisted that "I'm not trying to cut you off," before moving on to the next segment.

MJohnston

I think Rudy has been a forehead sweat mopper for a long time now, but his son, who also works for Trump, is COVID positive:

https://twitter.com/JakeSherman/status/1329814772875997185

prawnsambo

Just a postscript to my post above about the confusion between Minnesota and Michigan. That's the one that Sydney Powell was referring to when she said that precincts had more votes than voters in the video that we were urged to watch yesterday. The Elite Strike Force strikes again.

Brussels Sprout

MJohnston wrote: »

I think Rudy has been a forehead sweat mopper for a long time now, but his son, who also works for Trump, is COVID positive:

https://twitter.com/JakeSherman/status/1329814772875997185

Pretty sure he's Trump's main golf partner - not that Trump is likely to get it again. He was also at that mad presser yesterday where none of the speakers wore masks

pixelburp

First Up wrote: »

it's not the first time the cracks in US society have been on display. Trump is just a symptom of a country ill at ease with itself and those flaws will still be there after he is gone.

Trump won't be leading the revolution. He is a shallow opportunist and a media creation and that's what he'll go back to.

For sure, but what I'm speculating upon is that Trump took the beehive, shook it vigorously, and will now walk away from the creeping disaster that feels increasingly likely to occur. That he wielded a shotgun like a toy, something to threaten, never considering the fact it was loaded. I've said it before but the person to really fear is not Trump, but the person who comes AFTER Trump; the one with actual political savvy to weaponise the now riled up demographics, and manipulate them to whatever outcome is pursued.

paul71

pixelburp wrote: »

For sure, but what I'm speculating upon is that Trump took the beehive, shook it vigorously, and will now walk away from the creeping disaster that feels increasingly likely to occur. That he wielded a shotgun like a toy, something to threaten, never considering the fact it was loaded. I've said it before but the person to really fear is not Trump, but the person who comes AFTER Trump; the one with actual political savvy to weaponise the now riled up demographics, and manipulate them to whatever outcome is pursued.

Yes it is interesting to consider that world was actually lucky that Trump was a complete idiot, I am not concerned about him running in 4 years. Pence or Kushner now thats more concerning.

Tchaikovsky

Kushner's a dumbo too, thankfully. In the land of style over substance, him and Pence won't be attracting enough followers.

jmayo

prawnsambo wrote: »

You could say it's an excusable error and anyone can get two states mixed up. But you'd think when filing a lawsuit, you'd make sure of your facts before pressing 'send'. Evidently that didn't happen and to date, nobody has corrected it. Another case scheduled to crash and burn, but in this case,

Just when you think they can't get any more idiotic you have people comparing population in one state with voters in another.
They really are morons.

Quin_Dub wrote: »

There are two plays - One is to try to get the State Legislature to ignore the popular vote and send their own slate of Electors and the other is simply to prevent the results being Certified by the deadline essentially meaning that in theory , the EC votes from that State are simply excluded.

The latter potentially works if they stymie enough states such that no one can reach 270 , throwing the decision to congress.

Neither has a realistic or viable show at actually coming to pass , but the utter destruction of public confidence in the Electoral process cannot be understated.

The fringe elements that support Trump are currently holding firm in support of his efforts , but when they do inevitably fail in a couple of weeks time, what then?

They aren't suddenly going to simply say "Grand so , we gave it a shot but Biden won" - What are those guys going to do??

The Republican top brass that are either actively involved in this charade ala Graham are for some reason tying their futures to Trump.
Not sure if it is that they think there are huge Trump support base in their constituency and they want to keep them on side or if they really need Trump to protect them from something?
Hard to see how they walk back from the vehement positions they have adopted, much like the loons in the grassroots of the party that are Trumpists to the death.

Others like Pompeo are part of the incrowd and is just keeping his job.
There are other top Republicans a bit like McConnell that are trying to walk a tightrope and refuse to outright say Trump lost, but also are a bit more circumspect about saying that if there are issues they should be investigated.
They are not helping democracy and are probably only playing along to not antagonise a very powerful Trump lobby within Republican grassroots.
They would ditch Trump in a heartbeat if they thought they would get no blowback.

paul71 wrote: »

Yes it is interesting to consider that world was actually lucky that Trump was a complete idiot, I am not concerned about him running in 4 years. Pence or Kushner now thats more concerning.

Kushner has no chance.

Whatever about Donald playing to the white supremacists and bible bashers with all his baggage (ala Jewish daughter and inlaws, lots of extra marital stuff), I can't see any way in hell they would go for an orthodox Jew.
Pence on the other hand has the credentials they need, but has the charisma of a kipper and just simply has not got the chutzpah of Trump.

And even though this word would have grown out of Jewish community Kushner definitely doesn't have chutzpah either.
In fact he is even more of a wet kipper than old Pence.

I think old Donald would like No. 1 offspring Ivanka to be the anointed one to take over the political reins, once of course he finally hangs up his hat.
Trump would want nothing better than to come back and win again.

Foxtrol

TomOnBoard wrote: »

The election is not over. It hasn't actually happened yet! Basically, what has happened is that voters in each State have told a slate of electors which of the candidates for President they wish to have those electors vote for in December. That's what's happened so far. As a result of the Nov 3 election, 306 of the 538 electors have been selected by voters to represent their wish that Biden would receive their votes at the Electoral College.

In the light of the failure of the Trump campaign to achieve 270 or more of these EC 'pledges', the Trump team is actively pursuing a Plan B that focuses on having a number of the 306 'pledges' taken from Biden and given to Trump. The Plan is actively subverting confidence in the election process and is undermining the result so as to either get 270+ of the EC votes OR sow enough FUD to have the matter decided through manipulation in Congress.

Will Plan B succeed? Highly unlikely! Should we simply ignore the shennanigans and 'move on'? Absolutely not! Just because a coup has little chance of success does not excuse its architects and its leaders. And while the coup is playing out, extreme vigilance is needed to ensure it is ground down! The damage being done by the coup attempt is significant and is extremely dangerous in a fragile republic!

There is a difference between holding those who are part of the attempted 'coup' accountable right now for their reckless actions and people posting what appears panickily about some master plan the Trump campaign has, as if it a) exists and b) there is any reasonable likelihood of it succeeding. Trump's team are throwing as much crap at the wall and hoping something sticks, with most of the routes posters/twitter keep highlighting are simply impossible unless you have democrats in the house going along with it.

At this point there is a far greater likelihood that Trump does something like attack Iran or carry out some wild personal vendettas than any of the 'coup' crap sticking to the wall and Trump staying president.

prawnsambo

Ten states have now certified their election results. The latest being Kentucky. By my count (although just a curiosity) that makes 70 EC votes for Trump and 6 for Biden so far. Florida certifying early is a surprise though. They usually take yonks.