Possible that NV might count another 50k votes today
Something a UK constituency does in c. 5hours each General Election. They are US in the US.
They use new technology and we don't.
Another example of using technology for the sake of it and messing things up. A bit like failing to put in place manual test and trace systems (or even just manual tracing systems) back in the Spring and learning from the success of countries in the Far East, trusting instead that an app would eventually do the business.
Trump may hold out until every vote has been counted - rather than accepting the network calls. That could take quite a few days.
Trump will hold out regardless. The counting of the vote is not going to make the blindest bit of difference.
At some point we will get an acknowledgment of inevitability that he will cease to be President (it could take until Congress actually counts the EV), but he'll whinge and moan and claim it's been stolen from him.
People care about American elections for the same reasons they care about American music, American movies, American TV, sometimes even American sport. Plus you don't spend that much money on publicity without some international spillover.
Is Fox the only network that has called AZ? And with AZ he only needs NV?
Must be guaranteed soon that Biden has won NV so perhaps the other networks are holding off until NV has to be called by everyone thus making Fox have to be the one that calls the Presidency for Biden?
Ralston seems to think there is vote dump incoming from Clark. That should be the “ballgame” as our American friends say but who knows anymore?
Trump may hold out until every vote has been counted - rather than accepting the network calls. That could take quite a few days.
Trump wont be accepting the network calls or anything else, for the next days and weeks he's deploying Giuliani , Master of the Dark Arts to look for fraud and conspiracy theories in the darkest corners of social media. Hoping he gets lucky and finds something that might reverse up to 4 state results! (newsflash, he wont)
Is Fox the only network that has called AZ? And with AZ he only needs NV?
Must be guaranteed soon that Biden has won NV so perhaps the other networks are holding off until NV has to be called by everyone thus making Fox have to be the one that calls the Presidency for Biden?
Ralston seems to think there is vote dump incoming from Clark. That should be the “ballgame” as our American friends say but who knows anymore?
I actually think this is a fair point. I find it interesting that remainers tend to be more interested in US politics than European politics.
People are more interested in the USA generally than most other places, and the presidential election affects people globally in a way that is more signifcant than Ireland, Slovakia, or the UK. I don't think it is surprising in the least. Nor, even though we probably do pay too much attention to it, is it that unreasonable.
It is maybe reasonable, at a stretch, for a pivotal and bizarre presidential US election,
But it doesn't end there. We obsess about US politics right down to George Floyd, SAT scores and policing policies, which has the cube root of feck all to do with us.
And we import the toxic culture wars that surround all this, to our detriment, the same way we import totally alien traditions like "Black Friday" - based on Thanksgiving!
Enough now. America has been toppled. China is now clearly the world's leading power, Asia is the centre of the global economy. This election has done nothing but underline that. Time to recalibrate.
If one of the TV networks bought the rights to show a high-budget Chinese TV series, it would do a lot to make the rise of China more visible to people.
The rise - indeed pending supremacy - of China is right there, just under the surface, in fact quite visible, if you care to look.
eg - amongst many things- China now does amazing and sophisticated art, in many forms. Movies to book jackets, to anime to political posters and TV shows.
Some Chinese posters/art created in the fight against Covid:
CNN now explaining why/when they’re going to call it. Must have heard us.
They have been saying Biden is going to win for hours (we have known this for at least a DAY) but they're not willing to put their money where their mouth is for some reason.
Even though the outcome is blindingly obvious, if CNN called PA for Biden when he's only 0.2% ahead, it may be used by Trump to bolster his false consipiracy narratives. There's no hurry, let's just enjoy the flailing. It's a bit like watching the fate of the 2nd terminator in Terminator 2 as he's melted down.
The only credit I can give is that at least I've been able to tolerate CNN this long, even if it's getting pretty wearing. They can spend time saying nothing in an engaging manner at least. If this was day 4 of listening to the BBC I'd have thrown a brick through the TV long before now.
People care about American elections for the same reasons they care about American music, American movies, American TV, sometimes even American sport. Plus you don't spend that much money on publicity without some international spillover.
American movies and TV are demonstrably the best in the world. The gap maybe narrows, but it is there (in some ways it widens thanks to the power of Netflix). American music? Hmm... maybe not so much. The American obsession with violent black music slowly detaches from the wider global preference for things like K-pop
American sport is shite. American politics is shite but tediously necessary to watch, for a few more years.
CNN now explaining why/when they’re going to call it. Must have heard us.
So what did they say?
That they arent going to call it yet basically. They need to reach 'a high level' of certainty that Trump cant't win from here. I cant see how he can, i doubt many can but thats what they are saying. And these endless delays on counting there, a lot not being declared until late PA time tonight or tomorrow even mean they might not call it today. My guess is they will take the chance (not Fox first) later this evening US time maybe
If you wonder why some people in America distrust and hate the rozzers....
Scott Walden—a police captain in the town of Flomaton, Alabama—has been placed on administrative leave and is under investigation after making an inflammatory social media post.
In the post, Walden said that people who voted for Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden need "a bullet in their skull for treason."
Walden commented on a Facebook post in which another user wrote, "The idiots who voted for Biden hated Trump enough to throw the country away. Thank the lying liberals and democrats news media." In response, Walden wrote, "they need to line up ev1 of them and put a bullet in their skull for treason."
Roughly 6,000 voters in Escambia County, the area containing Flomaton, voted for Biden, according to The New York Times. Overall, 834,968 Alabama voters supported Biden and 1,430,540 supported Trump. Trump won the state, gaining 62.3 percent of all votes compared to Biden's 36.3 percent.
After Walden's comment began circulating on social media, he accused social media users of "jumping on the 'gonna get them fired' train," and defended his comment by stating that he was referring to literal traitors of the U.S. and not "liberal Democrats.
NBC looking for 0.5% lead for Biden in PA to call it.
If those 40K votes in Philli and 35K votes in Allegheny dont get all counted today (which was quite possible according to the Counting Centre Supervisors they spoke to, then he isnt reaching +0.5 today, so lets hope they can do them tonight (PA tme)
People care about American elections for the same reasons they care about American music, American movies, American TV, sometimes even American sport. Plus you don't spend that much money on publicity without some international spillover.
American movies and TV are demonstrably the best in the world. The gap maybe narrows, but it is there (in some ways it widens thanks to the power of Netflix). American music? Hmm... maybe not so much. The American obsession with violent black music slowly detaches from the wider global preference for things like K-pop
American sport is shite. American politics is shite but tediously necessary to watch, for a few more years.
Baseball is fun to watch, and non televised American football.
Rap and its derivatives too, but they are popular in other countries. What was Gangnam Style if not Rap derived?
One weird thing is how popular Country and Western music is in Africa. It can be found on sale in most markets, albeit bootlegged.
Trump may hold out until every vote has been counted - rather than accepting the network calls. That could take quite a few days.
Trump wont be accepting the network calls or anything else, for the next days and weeks he's deploying Giuliani , Master of the Dark Arts to look for fraud and conspiracy theories in the darkest corners of social media. Hoping he gets lucky and finds something that might reverse up to 4 state results! (newsflash, he wont)
Was Giuliani also looking for fraud down the front of his pants?
I actually think this is a fair point. I find it interesting that remainers tend to be more interested in US politics than European politics.
People are more interested in the USA generally than most other places, and the presidential election affects people globally in a way that is more signifcant than Ireland, Slovakia, or the UK. I don't think it is surprising in the least. Nor, even though we probably do pay too much attention to it, is it that unreasonable.
50% language and 50% culture
That fits for Ireland as well, but the UK does not go nuts about the Irish elections.
Well in the first place Irish politics is not as significnt as american, but also the distance to the USA actually makes it more interesting without any investment. Plus some good old fashioned trying to ignore anything on the island of Ireland.
A key benefit of the NHS is that we are not bombarded with ads for our deductibles, co-pays and unnecessary drugs every 10 minutes when watching the news.
Is it possible all the delay is because Robert Cahaly at Trafalgar is knocking doors in PA for the other 50,000 shy Trumpsters his data says live there?
I want to see the clip of the moment that they actually have to say it.
So far they’ve been interviewing people who have been telling them, and stopped challenging. But I suspect they’d rather keep the hope beyond the point when it is reasonable. Right now they are analysing what straws they might have left, and saying they will stay on the story through the weekend
Why the hell is the US so slow to count? We count an electorate of 35 million in a few hours.
I will try my best to be fair to them:
1. Their ballots contain multiple races on them, House, Senate, President, District Lawn Mower, Fire Hydrant Maintainer etc etc. We keep our ballots separate which I guess makes them easier to count.
2. Due to their bonkers electoral laws, often they need to verify the votes before they count them. A lot of the delay seems to be in verification rather than actual counting.
3. They are more spread out than us, so I suspect it takes a bit longer to get the ballots to the counting centres than us.
4. They seem to use silly counting machines in some places rather than just doing it the old fashioned way, which seems to be a hilariously expensive way of being inefficient, but there you go.
5. I may be wrong, but the impression I'm getting is that these operations just aren't as well staffed as in the UK, where we have an absolute army of volunteers.
All that being said, I still can't see why it takes quite as long as it does.
I actually think this is a fair point. I find it interesting that remainers tend to be more interested in US politics than European politics.
People are more interested in the USA generally than most other places, and the presidential election affects people globally in a way that is more signifcant than Ireland, Slovakia, or the UK. I don't think it is surprising in the least. Nor, even though we probably do pay too much attention to it, is it that unreasonable.
50% language and 50% culture
Also the size of the USA.
Comparing the USA to Iceland is ridiculous. It's not like we pay far too much attention on the race to be Governor of Rhode Island or Delaware.
Yes, and we also tend to underestimate the extent to which other European countries also focus on the US presidential elections because we falsely think our own interest is an expression of our particular cultural affinity.
They are all making the same psychological error. Believing that America matters as much as it did. Perhaps, I suspect, because they want to. It is a comforting lie.
The big bad man/great good man in the White House is in charge of the world. Yay. So if anything REALLY goes wrong Uncle Sam wlll wade in - reluctantly - and sort it out. And we can all go back to sleep/work/the bottle. Even the madman Trump is better than no American hyperpower at all.
That era has just passed. Uncle Xi is, if anything, the more powerful figure. And he rises all the time. And he is scary in a way even Trump is not, so we prefer to look away and look West instead.
Hey now, not even Uncle Xi gets it all his own way. Why, the vote to remove term limits so he could be emperor for life was passed 2958 to 2 (with 3 abstentions) by deelgates of the National People's Congress, a real nail biter.
Why, they even have 8 minor parties that are allowed. Quite why they bother with the pretence I don't know.
Why the hell is the US so slow to count? We count an electorate of 35 million in a few hours.
But in a lot of places they have a dozen different elections to count.
What I don't understand is how they can count >100 million votes in the first 24 hours but NV, GA , AZ etc can't count 10-50k votes in the last two days.
I actually think this is a fair point. I find it interesting that remainers tend to be more interested in US politics than European politics.
People are more interested in the USA generally than most other places, and the presidential election affects people globally in a way that is more signifcant than Ireland, Slovakia, or the UK. I don't think it is surprising in the least. Nor, even though we probably do pay too much attention to it, is it that unreasonable.
It is maybe reasonable, at a stretch, for a pivotal and bizarre presidential US election,
But it doesn't end there. We obsess about US politics right down to George Floyd, SAT scores and policing policies, which has the cube root of feck all to do with us.
And we import the toxic culture wars that surround all this, to our detriment, the same way we import totally alien traditions like "Black Friday" - based on Thanksgiving!
Enough now. America has been toppled. China is now clearly the world's leading power, Asia is the centre of the global economy. This election has done nothing but underline that. Time to recalibrate.
I agree about trying to replicate various cultural issues which may not always translate perfectly, but political attention I don't think is massively unreasonable.
Why the hell is the US so slow to count? We count an electorate of 35 million in a few hours.
But in a lot of places they have a dozen different elections to count.
What I don't understand is how they can count >100 million votes in the first 24 hours but NV, GA , AZ etc can't count 10-50k votes in the last two days.
This is another thing I really don't understand and again I wonder if it comes down to staffing.
I really want to go to bed, because I've living in about 6 different time zones this week, but I don't want to miss the official announcement of the result.
Why the hell is the US so slow to count? We count an electorate of 35 million in a few hours.
I expect it has something to do with "states' rights" which introduces a degree of inhomogeneity. Oh, and it's a whacking huge country. For instance, California's economy is roughly the same size as that of GB.
People care about American elections for the same reasons they care about American music, American movies, American TV, sometimes even American sport. Plus you don't spend that much money on publicity without some international spillover.
American movies and TV are demonstrably the best in the world. The gap maybe narrows, but it is there (in some ways it widens thanks to the power of Netflix). American music? Hmm... maybe not so much. The American obsession with violent black music slowly detaches from the wider global preference for things like K-pop
American sport is shite. American politics is shite but tediously necessary to watch, for a few more years.
Baseball is fun to watch, and non televised American football.
Rap and its derivatives too, but they are popular in other countries. What was Gangnam Style if not Rap derived?
One weird thing is how popular Country and Western music is in Africa. It can be found on sale in most markets, albeit bootlegged.
American soft power will persist for decades beyond its toppling as global superpower. Look at what happened to the UK. A century after the UK was supplanted by America and Germany as primary economic powers it remains in the top 3 or 4 global cultural powers (probably much more influential than Germany, still)
And America is, naturally, a lot bigger.
But, the geopolitical trends are what they are. America has also been badly damaged by Trumpism, as a brand. May take a long time to recover.
Why the hell is the US so slow to count? We count an electorate of 35 million in a few hours.
I will try my best to be fair to them:
1. Their ballots contain multiple races on them, House, Senate, President, District Lawn Mower, Fire Hydrant Maintainer etc etc. We keep our ballots separate which I guess makes them easier to count.
2. Due to their bonkers electoral laws, often they need to verify the votes before they count them. A lot of the delay seems to be in verification rather than actual counting.
3. They are more spread out than us, so I suspect it takes a bit longer to get the ballots to the counting centres than us.
4. They seem to use silly counting machines in some places rather than just doing it the old fashioned way, which seems to be a hilariously expensive way of being inefficient, but there you go.
5. I may be wrong, but the impression I'm getting is that these operations just aren't as well staffed as in the UK, where we have an absolute army of volunteers.
All that being said, I still can't see why it takes quite as long as it does.
Yes, there are several reasons for being slower, some more reasonable than others, but it's not a perfect justification.
It seems to me Trump is digging in, he has probably given himself a timescale to find enough dirt or evidence of fraud to turn this over, crazy as it sounds. I am expecting the next few days and weeks Giuliani and Trumps other hatchet men will be trawling the dark regions of twitter and other social media to try get examples of fraud in these states. Someone said about 'throwing sht at the wall until something sticks' this is my view, he will promote any tenuous and weak evidence of 'fraud' and push the narrative in the hope,,,he finds something major by chance. At some point maybe in a few weeks if hes got nothing (most likely) he will slink off and do a reality TV network.
The first danger point is this weekend, the key swing states will be called and people have the weekend to digest or protest. If Trump can directly or indirectly raise a street activist movement in some way we might get indications this weekend but trouble on the street of any notable kind will really do it for him. Mass dusts up are unlikely, the greater risk is five loons who dress in combat gear (they will call it tactical gear) on weekends shooting someone in an organised attack. Again Trump will be tagged with it and will really cause damage.
This is being almost entirely driven by Trump himself with his family and I get it, this is more than just ego or a sense of grievance. Trump knows that it isn't likely to be a quiet retirement and lecture tours and he could potentially be ruined. As far as the Trump family is concerned they are fighting for their lives, at least as they know it.
The top echelons of the GOP will simply keep things bland because Trump still has two months in the White House and they do fear that Trumpites but the gap that Biden has looks likely to work for them as much as the Democrats because it helps amplify the sense that things are done.
It's very hard to discern the motives of a narcissist such as Trump. Not all his actions can be put down to rational motives.
I think the Republican heirarchy will be praying that at some point soon he will give up and go off in a sulk while the Democrats should be hoping that he continues to throw his toys out of the pram like the spoilt brat he is. The failure of Trump to go with good grace is frankly disgracing both him and those Republicans who feel too compromised to push him towards the door in public. With two critical Senate run off races looming, that is not a good look.
I'm not as optimistic as you @Yokes that the Republican leadership will simply play ball with Biden post-this election. They buy into the narrative that the Democrats have padded the votes, they just can't publicly say it and / or accept it as a way of doing politics. They are scared re the Democrats controlling all 3 branches. No one in Washington, Republican or Democrat, believes Biden is the effective President, they all know (or think they know) that he will be gone within a year or so and Harris takes over and, at that point, all bets are off.
People care about American elections for the same reasons they care about American music, American movies, American TV, sometimes even American sport. Plus you don't spend that much money on publicity without some international spillover.
American movies and TV are demonstrably the best in the world. The gap maybe narrows, but it is there (in some ways it widens thanks to the power of Netflix). American music? Hmm... maybe not so much. The American obsession with violent black music slowly detaches from the wider global preference for things like K-pop
American sport is shite. American politics is shite but tediously necessary to watch, for a few more years.
Rock and metal music is still massive and dominated by American bands. Lots of good European bands, but most are derivative of the original and better US bands.
It seems to me Trump is digging in, he has probably given himself a timescale to find enough dirt or evidence of fraud to turn this over, crazy as it sounds. I am expecting the next few days and weeks Giuliani and Trumps other hatchet men will be trawling the dark regions of twitter and other social media to try get examples of fraud in these states. Someone said about 'throwing sht at the wall until something sticks' this is my view, he will promote any tenuous and weak evidence of 'fraud' and push the narrative in the hope,,,he finds something major by chance. At some point maybe in a few weeks if hes got nothing (most likely) he will slink off and do a reality TV network.
The first danger point is this weekend, the key swing states will be called and people have the weekend to digest or protest. If Trump can directly or indirectly raise a street activist movement in some way we might get indications this weekend but trouble on the street of any notable kind will really do it for him. Mass dusts up are unlikely, the greater risk is five loons who dress in combat gear (they will call it tactical gear) on weekends shooting someone in an organised attack. Again Trump will be tagged with it and will really cause damage.
This is being almost entirely driven by Trump himself with his family and I get it, this is more than just ego or a sense of grievance. Trump knows that it isn't likely to be a quiet retirement and lecture tours and he could potentially be ruined. As far as the Trump family is concerned they are fighting for their lives, at least as they know it.
The top echelons of the GOP will simply keep things bland because Trump still has two months in the White House and they do fear that Trumpites but the gap that Biden has looks likely to work for them as much as the Democrats because it helps amplify the sense that things are done.
It's very hard to discern the motives of a narcissist such as Trump. Not all his actions can be put down to rational motives.
I think the Republican heirarchy will be praying that at some point soon he will give up and go off in a sulk while the Democrats should be hoping that he continues to throw his toys out of the pram like the spoilt brat he is. The failure of Trump to go with good grace is frankly disgracing both him and those Republicans who feel too compromised to push him towards the door in public. With two critical Senate run off races looming, that is not a good look.
I'm not as optimistic as you @Yokes that the Republican leadership will simply play ball with Biden post-this election. They buy into the narrative that the Democrats have padded the votes, they just can't publicly say it and / or accept it as a way of doing politics. They are scared re the Democrats controlling all 3 branches. No one in Washington, Republican or Democrat, believes Biden is the effective President, they all know (or think they know) that he will be gone within a year or so and Harris takes over and, at that point, all bets are off.
Sounds like there will be great value in backing Biden to last all 4 years, and probably Biden to win in 2024 as well!
Why the hell is the US so slow to count? We count an electorate of 35 million in a few hours.
But in a lot of places they have a dozen different elections to count.
What I don't understand is how they can count >100 million votes in the first 24 hours but NV, GA , AZ etc can't count 10-50k votes in the last two days.
This is another thing I really don't understand and again I wonder if it comes down to staffing.
It's more that nobody wants to be the one that tips this election past the tipping point.
AZ secretary of state expects count to continue all weekend.
Yawn
After saying Friday night.
Being cynical, AZ laws are extremely tight on a recount (0.1%) so, unlike other places like Georgia, they haven't got the luxury of being able to kick it into touch unless it is very very close. They simply don't want to be the ones that call this election.
Why the hell is the US so slow to count? We count an electorate of 35 million in a few hours.
But in a lot of places they have a dozen different elections to count.
What I don't understand is how they can count >100 million votes in the first 24 hours but NV, GA , AZ etc can't count 10-50k votes in the last two days.
Yes, this is one of the reasons some of the slow vote explanations ring hollow, since most of it got done within reasonable time.
I really want to go to bed, because I've living in about 6 different time zones this week, but I don't want to miss the official announcement of the result.
The way things are going in PA I think you could do a Rip Van Winkle and still wake up in time for that!
It seems to me Trump is digging in, he has probably given himself a timescale to find enough dirt or evidence of fraud to turn this over, crazy as it sounds. I am expecting the next few days and weeks Giuliani and Trumps other hatchet men will be trawling the dark regions of twitter and other social media to try get examples of fraud in these states. Someone said about 'throwing sht at the wall until something sticks' this is my view, he will promote any tenuous and weak evidence of 'fraud' and push the narrative in the hope,,,he finds something major by chance. At some point maybe in a few weeks if hes got nothing (most likely) he will slink off and do a reality TV network.
The first danger point is this weekend, the key swing states will be called and people have the weekend to digest or protest. If Trump can directly or indirectly raise a street activist movement in some way we might get indications this weekend but trouble on the street of any notable kind will really do it for him. Mass dusts up are unlikely, the greater risk is five loons who dress in combat gear (they will call it tactical gear) on weekends shooting someone in an organised attack. Again Trump will be tagged with it and will really cause damage.
This is being almost entirely driven by Trump himself with his family and I get it, this is more than just ego or a sense of grievance. Trump knows that it isn't likely to be a quiet retirement and lecture tours and he could potentially be ruined. As far as the Trump family is concerned they are fighting for their lives, at least as they know it.
The top echelons of the GOP will simply keep things bland because Trump still has two months in the White House and they do fear that Trumpites but the gap that Biden has looks likely to work for them as much as the Democrats because it helps amplify the sense that things are done.
It's very hard to discern the motives of a narcissist such as Trump. Not all his actions can be put down to rational motives.
I think the Republican heirarchy will be praying that at some point soon he will give up and go off in a sulk while the Democrats should be hoping that he continues to throw his toys out of the pram like the spoilt brat he is. The failure of Trump to go with good grace is frankly disgracing both him and those Republicans who feel too compromised to push him towards the door in public. With two critical Senate run off races looming, that is not a good look.
I'm not as optimistic as you @Yokes that the Republican leadership will simply play ball with Biden post-this election. They buy into the narrative that the Democrats have padded the votes, they just can't publicly say it and / or accept it as a way of doing politics. They are scared re the Democrats controlling all 3 branches. No one in Washington, Republican or Democrat, believes Biden is the effective President, they all know (or think they know) that he will be gone within a year or so and Harris takes over and, at that point, all bets are off.
Sounds like there will be great value in backing Biden to last all 4 years, and probably Biden to win in 2024 as well!
Haha, you're right. Bet against me and you will always win (well, not always )
Why the hell is the US so slow to count? We count an electorate of 35 million in a few hours.
I expect it has something to do with "states' rights" which introduces a degree of inhomogeneity. Oh, and it's a whacking huge country. For instance, California's economy is roughly the same size as that of GB.
Agreed but then do it properly at county level and report centrally to the statehouse.
Why the hell is the US so slow to count? We count an electorate of 35 million in a few hours.
But in a lot of places they have a dozen different elections to count.
What I don't understand is how they can count >100 million votes in the first 24 hours but NV, GA , AZ etc can't count 10-50k votes in the last two days.
This is another thing I really don't understand and again I wonder if it comes down to staffing.
It's more that nobody wants to be the one that tips this election past the tipping point.
I actually think this is a fair point. I find it interesting that remainers tend to be more interested in US politics than European politics.
People are more interested in the USA generally than most other places, and the presidential election affects people globally in a way that is more signifcant than Ireland, Slovakia, or the UK. I don't think it is surprising in the least. Nor, even though we probably do pay too much attention to it, is it that unreasonable.
50% language and 50% culture
Just for a bit of fun, and while we're waiting for the painfully slow American count, if the "Anglosphere" countries were part of the US electoral college (crazy, I know!), they would have the following EVs:
UK 111 (England 93, Scotland 9, Wales 6, NI 3) Ireland 8 Canada 62 Australia 42 NZ 8
If Puerto Rico were a State, it would have 5 EVs, the other four US territories would share an EV between them, and the UK's territories and Crown Dependencies would share another EV.
Caveat, I used total population of the USA (as opposed to Electorate) as well as of the other Anglosphere countries/territories.
Is Fox the only network that has called AZ? And with AZ he only needs NV?
Must be guaranteed soon that Biden has won NV so perhaps the other networks are holding off until NV has to be called by everyone thus making Fox have to be the one that calls the Presidency for Biden?
Ralston seems to think there is vote dump incoming from Clark. That should be the “ballgame” as our American friends say but who knows anymore?
Once Fox calls NV that's it.
Then everyone can get on with it in PA.
In his daily 1000 the cheerful returning officer type geezer in Clark (he’s not really cheerful btw I was being ironic) said there would be a dump before 4pm their time I calculated as about midnight our time.
He also said it wouldn’t be as big as this morning’s dump.
Possible that NV might count another 50k votes today
Something a UK constituency does in c. 5hours each General Election. They are US in the US.
Yes that's an easy argument to put forward but I'm not convinced.
In 2010, the UK General Election coincided with local elections in London. For East Ham, we had both a GE ballot and local council ballot and that meant an extended verification process with the GE boundaries not co-terminous with the Newham Borough boundaries. It took well into the morning before we had results.
It's much easier with one election and one ballot - in the US there are any number of contests (Senate, Congressional and a plethora of more local contests). That's democracy - the more of it there is, the longer it takes.
We also have all the different rules each State has in terms of what's counted and when. When I saw Trump ahead by 14 in PA on Wednesday morning, I was stunned until I remembered the mail-in ballots hadn't been counted and a tweet put up on here showing Trump needed a 16-point advantage to be sure of winning the State.
Other states had already started counting the mail-in ballots, some accept ballots arriving AFTER the election as long as they are post-stamped before the close of polling. Then you have military ballots - the US has many more service personnel overseas than the UK and they all vote in their home state (presumably).
Yet for all this, most states can be called as soon as polls close. Wyoming and Oregon are easy calls (indeed, 39 states plus DC are easy). The other eleven are a little harder and we now see Georgia with Biden ahead by 1500 out of more than 5 million votes cast.
The closest result last December in England was Bury North which the Conservatives won by 105. Applying the current Georgia difference would be 14 votes. I imagine with a difference like that we would be in to multiple recounts.
Because Trump knows he has millions and millions of 'follow me to the grave' supporters he feels he can refuse to accept the result until he finds the 'holy grail' of some election reversing fraud (that isnt there ofc). He also with the way he has lived his life feels he, and his MAGAs can 'bully' the rest of the USA into letting him win by wearing them down with endless lawsuits and conspiracy theories. Crazy I know but its Trumps playbook.
Why the hell is the US so slow to count? We count an electorate of 35 million in a few hours.
I will try my best to be fair to them:
1. Their ballots contain multiple races on them, House, Senate, President, District Lawn Mower, Fire Hydrant Maintainer etc etc. We keep our ballots separate which I guess makes them easier to count.
2. Due to their bonkers electoral laws, often they need to verify the votes before they count them. A lot of the delay seems to be in verification rather than actual counting.
3. They are more spread out than us, so I suspect it takes a bit longer to get the ballots to the counting centres than us.
4. They seem to use silly counting machines in some places rather than just doing it the old fashioned way, which seems to be a hilariously expensive way of being inefficient, but there you go.
5. I may be wrong, but the impression I'm getting is that these operations just aren't as well staffed as in the UK, where we have an absolute army of volunteers.
All that being said, I still can't see why it takes quite as long as it does.
Also - our seats have similar numbers of voters, so the larger rural ones count last as the boxes get a countryside tour. Once they get to the count, staffing levels are broadly similar everywhere and they get done at a similar pace.
In the US, the counties are generally even sized in terms of space (often they were mapped out before the settlements really grew), but hugely varied in terms of population. So rural ones count quickly and come in first, the cities have masses of voters, but they don’t seem to staff up proportionately to the numbers of voters they have, possibly because the number of council staff isn’t proportional to population in the first place, so big places have fewer people (relatively) available.
It seems to me Trump is digging in, he has probably given himself a timescale to find enough dirt or evidence of fraud to turn this over, crazy as it sounds. I am expecting the next few days and weeks Giuliani and Trumps other hatchet men will be trawling the dark regions of twitter and other social media to try get examples of fraud in these states. Someone said about 'throwing sht at the wall until something sticks' this is my view, he will promote any tenuous and weak evidence of 'fraud' and push the narrative in the hope,,,he finds something major by chance. At some point maybe in a few weeks if hes got nothing (most likely) he will slink off and do a reality TV network.
The first danger point is this weekend, the key swing states will be called and people have the weekend to digest or protest. If Trump can directly or indirectly raise a street activist movement in some way we might get indications this weekend but trouble on the street of any notable kind will really do it for him. Mass dusts up are unlikely, the greater risk is five loons who dress in combat gear (they will call it tactical gear) on weekends shooting someone in an organised attack. Again Trump will be tagged with it and will really cause damage.
This is being almost entirely driven by Trump himself with his family and I get it, this is more than just ego or a sense of grievance. Trump knows that it isn't likely to be a quiet retirement and lecture tours and he could potentially be ruined. As far as the Trump family is concerned they are fighting for their lives, at least as they know it.
The top echelons of the GOP will simply keep things bland because Trump still has two months in the White House and they do fear that Trumpites but the gap that Biden has looks likely to work for them as much as the Democrats because it helps amplify the sense that things are done.
It's very hard to discern the motives of a narcissist such as Trump. Not all his actions can be put down to rational motives.
I think the Republican heirarchy will be praying that at some point soon he will give up and go off in a sulk while the Democrats should be hoping that he continues to throw his toys out of the pram like the spoilt brat he is. The failure of Trump to go with good grace is frankly disgracing both him and those Republicans who feel too compromised to push him towards the door in public. With two critical Senate run off races looming, that is not a good look.
I'm not as optimistic as you @Yokes that the Republican leadership will simply play ball with Biden post-this election. They buy into the narrative that the Democrats have padded the votes, they just can't publicly say it and / or accept it as a way of doing politics. They are scared re the Democrats controlling all 3 branches. No one in Washington, Republican or Democrat, believes Biden is the effective President, they all know (or think they know) that he will be gone within a year or so and Harris takes over and, at that point, all bets are off.
Sounds like there will be great value in backing Biden to last all 4 years, and probably Biden to win in 2024 as well!
Is Fox the only network that has called AZ? And with AZ he only needs NV?
Must be guaranteed soon that Biden has won NV so perhaps the other networks are holding off until NV has to be called by everyone thus making Fox have to be the one that calls the Presidency for Biden?
Ralston seems to think there is vote dump incoming from Clark. That should be the “ballgame” as our American friends say but who knows anymore?
Once Fox calls NV that's it.
Then everyone can get on with it in PA.
In his daily 1000 the cheerful returning officer type geezer in Clark (he’s not really cheerful btw I was being ironic) said there would be a dump before 4pm their time I calculated as about midnight our time.
He also said it wouldn’t be as big as this morning’s dump.
It seems to me Trump is digging in, he has probably given himself a timescale to find enough dirt or evidence of fraud to turn this over, crazy as it sounds. I am expecting the next few days and weeks Giuliani and Trumps other hatchet men will be trawling the dark regions of twitter and other social media to try get examples of fraud in these states. Someone said about 'throwing sht at the wall until something sticks' this is my view, he will promote any tenuous and weak evidence of 'fraud' and push the narrative in the hope,,,he finds something major by chance. At some point maybe in a few weeks if hes got nothing (most likely) he will slink off and do a reality TV network.
The first danger point is this weekend, the key swing states will be called and people have the weekend to digest or protest. If Trump can directly or indirectly raise a street activist movement in some way we might get indications this weekend but trouble on the street of any notable kind will really do it for him. Mass dusts up are unlikely, the greater risk is five loons who dress in combat gear (they will call it tactical gear) on weekends shooting someone in an organised attack. Again Trump will be tagged with it and will really cause damage.
This is being almost entirely driven by Trump himself with his family and I get it, this is more than just ego or a sense of grievance. Trump knows that it isn't likely to be a quiet retirement and lecture tours and he could potentially be ruined. As far as the Trump family is concerned they are fighting for their lives, at least as they know it.
The top echelons of the GOP will simply keep things bland because Trump still has two months in the White House and they do fear that Trumpites but the gap that Biden has looks likely to work for them as much as the Democrats because it helps amplify the sense that things are done.
It's very hard to discern the motives of a narcissist such as Trump. Not all his actions can be put down to rational motives.
I think the Republican heirarchy will be praying that at some point soon he will give up and go off in a sulk while the Democrats should be hoping that he continues to throw his toys out of the pram like the spoilt brat he is. The failure of Trump to go with good grace is frankly disgracing both him and those Republicans who feel too compromised to push him towards the door in public. With two critical Senate run off races looming, that is not a good look.
I'm not as optimistic as you @Yokes that the Republican leadership will simply play ball with Biden post-this election. They buy into the narrative that the Democrats have padded the votes, they just can't publicly say it and / or accept it as a way of doing politics. They are scared re the Democrats controlling all 3 branches. No one in Washington, Republican or Democrat, believes Biden is the effective President, they all know (or think they know) that he will be gone within a year or so and Harris takes over and, at that point, all bets are off.
Sounds like there will be great value in backing Biden to last all 4 years, and probably Biden to win in 2024 as well!
Haha, you're right. Bet against me and you will always win (well, not always )
Florida has a population of more than 21 million and counts its vote in a matter of hours.
Nevada has a fraction of that, pretty much all of it in the Las Vegas metro, and it takes days.
Can someone explain why?
What happens there, stays there?
Don't some states like FL and OH count their postals early,,,and can start counting them before election day so they only need to be called or perhaps checked and called after the polls close? Whereas some states like PA dont even start counting postals til the polls close. Not saying its a good thing but I know some states have totally different rules on postal votes besides just if they count them first or last in the process.
Because Trump knows he has millions and millions of 'follow me to the grave' supporters he feels he can refuse to accept the result until he finds the 'holy grail' of some election reversing fraud (that isnt there ofc). He also with the way he has lived his life feels he, and his MAGAs can 'bully' the rest of the USA into letting him win by wearing them down with endless lawsuits and conspiracy theories. Crazy I know but its Trumps playbook.
Say the militias enter counting centres, halt the counts, and destroy ballots, thereby also triggering general pandemonium. What happens to the ECVs of states thus affected?
The Georgia officials say there are about 5,000 service votes to be counted, one would assume they would be heavily for Trum, so in the end he should be in the lead there, but not enough to prevent the statutary recount.
Clinton won the Georgia military votes in 2016 (presumably they skew African American), so I'd be very surprised if Biden didn't win them this year.
Absolutely. Hilary won that batch. In last four years Trumps abrasive attitude has been taken as disrespectful to military and veterans on numerous high profile occasions. To be fair to Donald, off the cuff comments probably made a lot of due to sensitivities regarding things military and veteran, such as his McCain comments, and at times he hasn’t shown patience with the required duties a president should show to the fallen. The conclusion is, surprise at a worse win for Biden from this batch than Hilary got.
I'm not as optimistic as you @Yokes that the Republican leadership will simply play ball with Biden post-this election. They buy into the narrative that the Democrats have padded the votes, they just can't publicly say it and / or accept it as a way of doing politics. They are scared re the Democrats controlling all 3 branches. No one in Washington, Republican or Democrat, believes Biden is the effective President, they all know (or think they know) that he will be gone within a year or so and Harris takes over and, at that point, all bets are off.
Well, if he doesn't make it to 31/12/2021, it will be the first time since 1881 the USA will have three Presidents in a year (Rutherford Hayes, James Garfield and Chester Arthur).
Because Trump knows he has millions and millions of 'follow me to the grave' supporters he feels he can refuse to accept the result until he finds the 'holy grail' of some election reversing fraud (that isnt there ofc). He also with the way he has lived his life feels he, and his MAGAs can 'bully' the rest of the USA into letting him win by wearing them down with endless lawsuits and conspiracy theories. Crazy I know but its Trumps playbook.
Say the militias enter counting centres, halt the counts, and destroy ballots, thereby also triggering general pandemonium. What happens to the ECVs of states thus affected?
Just watching the scene at the Pittsburgh voting centre. It's more lively in the village hall for the Little Snoring parish council election count.
They're not starting counting in Pittsburgh until 2200 our time. Yeah I don't know why either.
It wasn’t even clear why they didn’t count them yesterday - instead they took the day off for administrative training or some such. Now they restart at 1700 local time on a Friday night.
I am badly missing my gym. I used to go there, do 30 minutes hard work on the crosstrainer, say hi to a few acquaintances, and walk home and shower, change, eat. Then I would get a natural high which kept me sane until bedtime.
I need to replace it. With what? I don't like jogging at all. It's too cold to work out ,outdoors, even if it were possible.
I need the brief sharp intensity of 30 minutes on a crosstrainer, BPM 110-120, using all those muscles.
Is this do-able to home with juse a yoga mat and some determination?
Comments
Another example of using technology for the sake of it and messing things up. A bit like failing to put in place manual test and trace systems (or even just manual tracing systems) back in the Spring and learning from the success of countries in the Far East, trusting instead that an app would eventually do the business.
At some point we will get an acknowledgment of inevitability that he will cease to be President (it could take until Congress actually counts the EV), but he'll whinge and moan and claim it's been stolen from him.
Just fucking call it.
Once the networks have called it, it just means people in general have accepted it.
Then everyone can get on with it in PA.
eg - amongst many things- China now does amazing and sophisticated art, in many forms. Movies to book jackets, to anime to political posters and TV shows.
Some Chinese posters/art created in the fight against Covid:
https://designyoutrust.com/2020/03/on-the-front-line-chinese-artists-pay-tribute-to-medics-in-the-fight-with-coronavirus-outbrake/
It's a long way from Maoist Socialist Triumphalism
American sport is shite. American politics is shite but tediously necessary to watch, for a few more years.
‘You have to win the peace’
‘Rubbing Remainers noses in it isn’t going to bring the country together’
And many, many more...
Scott Walden—a police captain in the town of Flomaton, Alabama—has been placed on administrative leave and is under investigation after making an inflammatory social media post.
In the post, Walden said that people who voted for Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden need "a bullet in their skull for treason."
Walden commented on a Facebook post in which another user wrote, "The idiots who voted for Biden hated Trump enough to throw the country away. Thank the lying liberals and democrats news media." In response, Walden wrote, "they need to line up ev1 of them and put a bullet in their skull for treason."
Roughly 6,000 voters in Escambia County, the area containing Flomaton, voted for Biden, according to The New York Times. Overall, 834,968 Alabama voters supported Biden and 1,430,540 supported Trump. Trump won the state, gaining 62.3 percent of all votes compared to Biden's 36.3 percent.
After Walden's comment began circulating on social media, he accused social media users of "jumping on the 'gonna get them fired' train," and defended his comment by stating that he was referring to literal traitors of the U.S. and not "liberal Democrats.
https://www.newsweek.com/alabama-police-captain-put-leave-after-threatening-shoot-biden-supporters-1545338
Rap and its derivatives too, but they are popular in other countries. What was Gangnam Style if not Rap derived?
One weird thing is how popular Country and Western music is in Africa. It can be found on sale in most markets, albeit bootlegged.
Come on, PA, let’s wrap this thing up.
... but I did leave myself open there. So full marks.
Looks like this is the only call you will get tonight!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imxAeQZjBeI
1. Their ballots contain multiple races on them, House, Senate, President, District Lawn Mower, Fire Hydrant Maintainer etc etc. We keep our ballots separate which I guess makes them easier to count.
2. Due to their bonkers electoral laws, often they need to verify the votes before they count them. A lot of the delay seems to be in verification rather than actual counting.
3. They are more spread out than us, so I suspect it takes a bit longer to get the ballots to the counting centres than us.
4. They seem to use silly counting machines in some places rather than just doing it the old fashioned way, which seems to be a hilariously expensive way of being inefficient, but there you go.
5. I may be wrong, but the impression I'm getting is that these operations just aren't as well staffed as in the UK, where we have an absolute army of volunteers.
All that being said, I still can't see why it takes quite as long as it does.
Why, they even have 8 minor parties that are allowed. Quite why they bother with the pretence I don't know.
And America is, naturally, a lot bigger.
But, the geopolitical trends are what they are. America has also been badly damaged by Trumpism, as a brand. May take a long time to recover.
Being cynical, AZ laws are extremely tight on a recount (0.1%) so, unlike other places like Georgia, they haven't got the luxury of being able to kick it into touch unless it is very very close. They simply don't want to be the ones that call this election.
UK 111 (England 93, Scotland 9, Wales 6, NI 3)
Ireland 8
Canada 62
Australia 42
NZ 8
If Puerto Rico were a State, it would have 5 EVs, the other four US territories would share an EV between them, and the UK's territories and Crown Dependencies would share another EV.
Caveat, I used total population of the USA (as opposed to Electorate) as well as of the other Anglosphere countries/territories.
Remember, this is just for a bit of fun!
He also said it wouldn’t be as big as this morning’s dump.
Hope this helps.,
In 2010, the UK General Election coincided with local elections in London. For East Ham, we had both a GE ballot and local council ballot and that meant an extended verification process with the GE boundaries not co-terminous with the Newham Borough boundaries. It took well into the morning before we had results.
It's much easier with one election and one ballot - in the US there are any number of contests (Senate, Congressional and a plethora of more local contests). That's democracy - the more of it there is, the longer it takes.
We also have all the different rules each State has in terms of what's counted and when. When I saw Trump ahead by 14 in PA on Wednesday morning, I was stunned until I remembered the mail-in ballots hadn't been counted and a tweet put up on here showing Trump needed a 16-point advantage to be sure of winning the State.
Other states had already started counting the mail-in ballots, some accept ballots arriving AFTER the election as long as they are post-stamped before the close of polling. Then you have military ballots - the US has many more service personnel overseas than the UK and they all vote in their home state (presumably).
Yet for all this, most states can be called as soon as polls close. Wyoming and Oregon are easy calls (indeed, 39 states plus DC are easy). The other eleven are a little harder and we now see Georgia with Biden ahead by 1500 out of more than 5 million votes cast.
The closest result last December in England was Bury North which the Conservatives won by 105. Applying the current Georgia difference would be 14 votes. I imagine with a difference like that we would be in to multiple recounts.
Nevada has a fraction of that, pretty much all of it in the Las Vegas metro, and it takes days.
Can someone explain why?
Crazy I know but its Trumps playbook.
In the US, the counties are generally even sized in terms of space (often they were mapped out before the settlements really grew), but hugely varied in terms of population. So rural ones count quickly and come in first, the cities have masses of voters, but they don’t seem to staff up proportionately to the numbers of voters they have, possibly because the number of council staff isn’t proportional to population in the first place, so big places have fewer people (relatively) available.
https://twitter.com/tbonier/status/1324687796016218112
Great scheduling guys.
I am badly missing my gym. I used to go there, do 30 minutes hard work on the crosstrainer, say hi to a few acquaintances, and walk home and shower, change, eat. Then I would get a natural high which kept me sane until bedtime.
I need to replace it. With what? I don't like jogging at all. It's too cold to work out ,outdoors, even if it were possible.
I need the brief sharp intensity of 30 minutes on a crosstrainer, BPM 110-120, using all those muscles.
Is this do-able to home with juse a yoga mat and some determination?