Morning all. Thank you David for the tip. I think 50/1 is good enough for Pete but I wouldn't go much shorter than this. I think there is no way KH would allow herself to be pushed out of the way for the Presidency and, if Joe B steps down before, she is automatically in the driving seat.
Now for the hand grenade. Apologies if this was posted before and some of you may now this already. Anyway re the counts.
One misnomer about US elections is that voters get to choose which electors are sent to the Electoral College. Actually they don't. It the state legislatures in each state. The Supreme Court has been specific on this and it has also been specific that the authority lies with the state legislatures, not the Supreme Courts of each state or the Governor or the Secretary of State.
The US Supreme Court has ruled explicitly post-2016 that electors cannot be faithless and must abide by the rulings of the state legislature.
Normally, this wouldn't matter as it is a case of procedure. This year it could come very much into play. The state legislatures of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia are all Republican led.
There is one scenario where the state legislatures in each state simply refuse to accept the results, claiming that there has been electoral fraud and appoints its own electors under mandate. This is why the fact that the RNC and the Republican Establishment have lined up behind Trump is important. It suggests the Republican machinery is set to fight.
Would this be catastrophic? Yes Undemocratic? Yes (but there are legitimate questions over the way elections have been run in the cities) Is it possible? Also yes.
"Legitimate questions" my arse.
The only legitimate questions I see are around the outrageous voter suppression by Republicans.
Plus I suspect republican majority state legislatures are quite happy to be in power, and Trump no longer to be president. I realise the republican party are basically a criminal organisation - and I'm glad you seem to be admitting this now, but I don't think it's a realistic option, just a fantasy in Trump's head.
I posted on here yesterday the key reason why HRC didn’t do a recount in Michigan in 2016 even though she was a few thousand behind was that a large number of precincts in Detroit had posted voter numbers that were in excess of their registered voters, and Michigan state law doesn’t allow precincts to be included in a recount where that happens. The explanation given was that a number of the ballot machines failed on the day and the feeders they fed the votes into erroneously duplicated a number of ballots.
Nothing was investigated further becauSe it didn’t matter to the final results but there were a number of obvious questions around that not least why election feeding machines, which should have been tested rigorously by the manufacturer before the distributors to cope with high volumes and election style processing, started to malfunction on the day.
There is a reason why so many American shows feature corrupt local politicians and why so many local politicians in the States have gone to jail for fraud etc
This doesn't make sense - re: no recount in 2016. It's not that certain votes would be excluded from the recount, and her vote would therefore go down (obviously - otherwise had she won by a few thousand then Trump could have had a recount and won the race!). It's just that the numbers for those counties wouldn't change. So a recount wouldn't have disadvantaged her if it had happened (which i think is what you are implying - apologies if wrong).
Hi Alex, the issue is that the whole precinct’s votes are excluded from a recount if this occurs so her overall numbers would have fallen given these were heavily Democrat wards. So it’s very unlikely she would have won while raising questions over what had happened.
Hi Mr Ed - I think you must be wrong - you are misunderstanding what "excluded from the recount" means. It means "won't be counted again" ie. "won't be changed". It doesn't mean "the count will be redone, as if those votes didn't exist". This is obvious if you think about it for a brief moment.
Any other interpretation (ie. yours) would mean that there would be no way that a recount could give the same result as a count. If a recount isn't expected to give the same result, then the original results couldn't be certified as accurate. You are suggesting that Hillary's vote would have gone down (because of where the votes with the issue were located ie. Hillary voting counties). But supposing she had WON the state! The implication would be that Trump could have demanded a recount knowing that her vote would go down and therefore he would likely win. Clearly there is no way that this could be correct and the law cannot mean what you think it means.
Hi @Alex, here’s the link to the article . It looks pretty clear but maybe I have misinterpreted
Does anybody have any idea when this will be over? Or will I be discussing mail in ballots in Chatham County, GA over my vegan Xmas dinner?
Depending on family interests it could be over in the next day or so but you would still want to discuss it over Xmas dinner. Do you not normally discuss electoral minutiae and arcana around the Xmas table?
If we all discuss Trump that means lots of extra turkey will be shared for free.
Correct me if I'm wrong but was there a time around 3:00am GMT on Wednesday when people were seriously wondering if Biden would hold VA?
I think it was just before I went to bed 'knowing' that Trump had somehow won again.
Yes, I did (I’ll get in there before others). In my defence, John King on CNN raised it several times that he was getting texts from both Democrats and Republicans as to why Trump (at the time) had such a big lead
Ah thanks for fessing up!
You actually got me wandering around the VA map on DecisionDesk checking county by county. I think it was at that point I 'knew' the game was up for Biden.
Not your fault at all though: a combination of my tiredness, drunkeness and general lack of belief.
PS Please keep posting your 'alternative' views - it's what makes PB interesting.
Trump will gamble that being seen on prime time TV to be actually dragged from the WH by secret service will only help his post-presidency career as a martyr for Trumpism and as a TV channel promoter.
Might even help in 2024 rerun or Ivanka run.
Thoughts?
I pretty much agree with this, if Trump has to leave (and at some point he will) he is sure as hell going to choose the manner of his leaving,,,publicly and protesting to the last
He could completely overshadow the inauguration by the manner of his leaving the White House. Would seem to be an irresistible option for him.
Presumably the "escorting" off the premise would have to be timed to the moment that he is no longer president which I guess is noon on the day that the new one is publically sworn in.
But maybe there is some other archaic rule.
I remember the American refugee release from Iran was timed to when exactly Carter left the white house, (or when Reagan went in). Wasn't there some talk of a conspiracy between Iran and the republicans about that?
Is there a scenario where Trump finally accepts that it's over and simply walks? Not suggesting that he voluntarily stops being President - he'll be that for life - but why stick around in the White House when you own a beachfront resort in Florida?
Trump will gamble that being seen on prime time TV to be actually dragged from the WH by secret service will only help his post-presidency career as a martyr for Trumpism and as a TV channel promoter.
Might even help in 2024 rerun or Ivanka run.
Thoughts?
I pretty much agree with this, if Trump has to leave (and at some point he will) he is sure as hell going to choose the manner of his leaving,,,publicly and protesting to the last
He could completely overshadow the inauguration by the manner of his leaving the White House. Would seem to be an irresistible option for him.
Presumably the "escorting" off the premise would have to be timed to the moment that he is no longer president which I guess is noon on the day that the new one is publically sworn in.
But maybe there is some other archaic rule.
I remember the American refugee release from Iran was timed to when exactly Carter left the white house, (or when Reagan went in). Wasn't there some talk of a conspiracy between Iran and the republicans about that?
Morning all. Thank you David for the tip. I think 50/1 is good enough for Pete but I wouldn't go much shorter than this. I think there is no way KH would allow herself to be pushed out of the way for the Presidency and, if Joe B steps down before, she is automatically in the driving seat.
Now for the hand grenade. Apologies if this was posted before and some of you may now this already. Anyway re the counts.
One misnomer about US elections is that voters get to choose which electors are sent to the Electoral College. Actually they don't. It the state legislatures in each state. The Supreme Court has been specific on this and it has also been specific that the authority lies with the state legislatures, not the Supreme Courts of each state or the Governor or the Secretary of State.
The US Supreme Court has ruled explicitly post-2016 that electors cannot be faithless and must abide by the rulings of the state legislature.
Normally, this wouldn't matter as it is a case of procedure. This year it could come very much into play. The state legislatures of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia are all Republican led.
There is one scenario where the state legislatures in each state simply refuse to accept the results, claiming that there has been electoral fraud and appoints its own electors under mandate. This is why the fact that the RNC and the Republican Establishment have lined up behind Trump is important. It suggests the Republican machinery is set to fight.
Would this be catastrophic? Yes Undemocratic? Yes (but there are legitimate questions over the way elections have been run in the cities) Is it possible? Also yes.
"Legitimate questions" my arse.
The only legitimate questions I see are around the outrageous voter suppression by Republicans.
Plus I suspect republican majority state legislatures are quite happy to be in power, and Trump no longer to be president. I realise the republican party are basically a criminal organisation - and I'm glad you seem to be admitting this now, but I don't think it's a realistic option, just a fantasy in Trump's head.
I posted on here yesterday the key reason why HRC didn’t do a recount in Michigan in 2016 even though she was a few thousand behind was that a large number of precincts in Detroit had posted voter numbers that were in excess of their registered voters, and Michigan state law doesn’t allow precincts to be included in a recount where that happens. The explanation given was that a number of the ballot machines failed on the day and the feeders they fed the votes into erroneously duplicated a number of ballots.
Nothing was investigated further becauSe it didn’t matter to the final results but there were a number of obvious questions around that not least why election feeding machines, which should have been tested rigorously by the manufacturer before the distributors to cope with high volumes and election style processing, started to malfunction on the day.
There is a reason why so many American shows feature corrupt local politicians and why so many local politicians in the States have gone to jail for fraud etc
This doesn't make sense - re: no recount in 2016. It's not that certain votes would be excluded from the recount, and her vote would therefore go down (obviously - otherwise had she won by a few thousand then Trump could have had a recount and won the race!). It's just that the numbers for those counties wouldn't change. So a recount wouldn't have disadvantaged her if it had happened (which i think is what you are implying - apologies if wrong).
Hi Alex, the issue is that the whole precinct’s votes are excluded from a recount if this occurs so her overall numbers would have fallen given these were heavily Democrat wards. So it’s very unlikely she would have won while raising questions over what had happened.
Hi Mr Ed - I think you must be wrong - you are misunderstanding what "excluded from the recount" means. It means "won't be counted again" ie. "won't be changed". It doesn't mean "the count will be redone, as if those votes didn't exist". This is obvious if you think about it for a brief moment.
Any other interpretation (ie. yours) would mean that there would be no way that a recount could give the same result as a count. If a recount isn't expected to give the same result, then the original results couldn't be certified as accurate. You are suggesting that Hillary's vote would have gone down (because of where the votes with the issue were located ie. Hillary voting counties). But supposing she had WON the state! The implication would be that Trump could have demanded a recount knowing that her vote would go down and therefore he would likely win. Clearly there is no way that this could be correct and the law cannot mean what you think it means.
Hi @Alex, here’s the link to the article . It looks pretty clear but maybe I have misinterpreted
Hi Mr Ed - article seems to say exactly what i said. The discrepancies wouldn't/couldn't have been resolved by a recount, so there would be no recount (of those particular ballots). The numbers wouldn't have been excluded. They just wouldn't have changed. Clinton thought that something had gone wrong with the machines. She thought that if a recount had happened (and was able to happen) then huge numbers of errors (in her favour) would possibly have been discovered (not because of "fraud" but just because the technology was so old and outdated). But there was absolutely no point if a recount of the affected ballots simply wasn't possible.
There has been lots of criticism of electronic voting and counting machines in the US because of the lack of audit trails to link the results to underlying paper ballots. I've read that what happened in 2016 was the final straw, and US states have finally begun investing in new technology to avoid this happening in the future. The machines used in 2020 were on the whole far newer, modern and the problems that happened in 2016 could not be repeated. Or at least if problems did occur, they could be linked to paper ballots and corrected and rectified in the vote counts.
Morning all. Thank you David for the tip. I think 50/1 is good enough for Pete but I wouldn't go much shorter than this. I think there is no way KH would allow herself to be pushed out of the way for the Presidency and, if Joe B steps down before, she is automatically in the driving seat.
Now for the hand grenade. Apologies if this was posted before and some of you may now this already. Anyway re the counts.
One misnomer about US elections is that voters get to choose which electors are sent to the Electoral College. Actually they don't. It the state legislatures in each state. The Supreme Court has been specific on this and it has also been specific that the authority lies with the state legislatures, not the Supreme Courts of each state or the Governor or the Secretary of State.
The US Supreme Court has ruled explicitly post-2016 that electors cannot be faithless and must abide by the rulings of the state legislature.
Normally, this wouldn't matter as it is a case of procedure. This year it could come very much into play. The state legislatures of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia are all Republican led.
There is one scenario where the state legislatures in each state simply refuse to accept the results, claiming that there has been electoral fraud and appoints its own electors under mandate. This is why the fact that the RNC and the Republican Establishment have lined up behind Trump is important. It suggests the Republican machinery is set to fight.
Would this be catastrophic? Yes Undemocratic? Yes (but there are legitimate questions over the way elections have been run in the cities) Is it possible? Also yes.
Which is why the narrative (in Republican politicians and media) is still key to what happens next. Not the counting.
From the Politico article. Mark Levin, a right-wing radio host with a penchant for hysteria, urged Republican-controlled state legislatures to ignore the results of their state elections and send electors who will vote for Trump in the Electoral College. His missive was retweeted by the Republican Party’s top spokesperson.
Interesting question: If Republican-controlled state legislatures ignored the results of their state elections and sent electors to vote for Trump in the Electoral College, which nations would recognise Trump as President? Obviously Russia would. But France, Germany, Canada, UK?
EDIT: PS It's not going to happen.
Of course it isn't, as it would take the US to near civil war, it is only a few hotheads even suggesting it
You mean, like folk suggesting invading Scotland or Spain?
No I do not mean that, defence of British territory in Gibraltar from a Spanish invasion would not be a civil war for starters and Scotland is less than a 10th of the UK population, the last US civil war split the entire southern US against the northern US in a similar way to this election has largely split the southern and border and plains state Trump voting US from the Northern and Western US
So Northern Ireland wasn't a civil war?
Within Northern Ireland arguably yes not within the wider UK
You might want to talk to folk in London. Or Manchester. Or Warrington. Or Shrewsbury. Or Yorkshire. Or St Albans. Or Birmingham. Or Glasgow.
Of those killed in the Troubles only 125 were in England but 1541 were killed in Belfast, 477 in Armagh and 340 in Tyrone and 243 in Down and 227 in Derry and 209 in Antrim.
Yet England has a population over 20 times that of Northern Ireland, as I said it was a civil war arguably within Northern Ireland, not within mainland GB, apart from the odd terrorist attack here but not launched by GB residents
Rather more than a few of those killed in NI were from England, Wales, and Scotland.
Did they get there from Iran via the Cape of Good Hope?
Morning all. Thank you David for the tip. I think 50/1 is good enough for Pete but I wouldn't go much shorter than this. I think there is no way KH would allow herself to be pushed out of the way for the Presidency and, if Joe B steps down before, she is automatically in the driving seat.
Now for the hand grenade. Apologies if this was posted before and some of you may now this already. Anyway re the counts.
One misnomer about US elections is that voters get to choose which electors are sent to the Electoral College. Actually they don't. It the state legislatures in each state. The Supreme Court has been specific on this and it has also been specific that the authority lies with the state legislatures, not the Supreme Courts of each state or the Governor or the Secretary of State.
The US Supreme Court has ruled explicitly post-2016 that electors cannot be faithless and must abide by the rulings of the state legislature.
Normally, this wouldn't matter as it is a case of procedure. This year it could come very much into play. The state legislatures of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia are all Republican led.
There is one scenario where the state legislatures in each state simply refuse to accept the results, claiming that there has been electoral fraud and appoints its own electors under mandate. This is why the fact that the RNC and the Republican Establishment have lined up behind Trump is important. It suggests the Republican machinery is set to fight.
Would this be catastrophic? Yes Undemocratic? Yes (but there are legitimate questions over the way elections have been run in the cities) Is it possible? Also yes.
Which is why the narrative (in Republican politicians and media) is still key to what happens next. Not the counting.
From the Politico article. Mark Levin, a right-wing radio host with a penchant for hysteria, urged Republican-controlled state legislatures to ignore the results of their state elections and send electors who will vote for Trump in the Electoral College. His missive was retweeted by the Republican Party’s top spokesperson.
Interesting question: If Republican-controlled state legislatures ignored the results of their state elections and sent electors to vote for Trump in the Electoral College, which nations would recognise Trump as President? Obviously Russia would. But France, Germany, Canada, UK?
EDIT: PS It's not going to happen.
Of course it isn't, as it would take the US to near civil war, it is only a few hotheads even suggesting it
You mean, like folk suggesting invading Scotland or Spain?
No I do not mean that, defence of British territory in Gibraltar from a Spanish invasion would not be a civil war for starters and Scotland is less than a 10th of the UK population, the last US civil war split the entire southern US against the northern US in a similar way to this election has largely split the southern and border and plains state Trump voting US from the Northern and Western US
So Northern Ireland wasn't a civil war?
Within Northern Ireland arguably yes not within the wider UK
You might want to talk to folk in London. Or Manchester. Or Warrington. Or Shrewsbury. Or Yorkshire. Or St Albans. Or Birmingham. Or Glasgow.
Of those killed in the Troubles only 125 were in England but 1541 were killed in Belfast, 477 in Armagh and 340 in Tyrone and 243 in Down and 227 in Derry and 209 in Antrim.
Yet England has a population over 20 times that of Northern Ireland, as I said it was a civil war arguably within Northern Ireland, not within mainland GB, apart from the odd terrorist attack here but not launched by GB residents
Rather more than a few of those killed in NI were from England, Wales, and Scotland.
Did they get there from Iran via the Cape of Good Hope?
Thank you as always for the Saturday offering, @david_herdson, and as it's not about UK politics, there's plenty with which I agree.
The 2024 election is beset by even more imponderables than usual. I agree Biden wouldn't serve a second term and Harris looks poor value to be the Democrat nominee. I'm not convinced about Buttegieg either.
My "two against the field" for want of a better expression are both Governors - Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan and Michelle Lujan Grisham in New Mexico. Both end their terms in early 2023 and could then develop Presidential campaigns. I think the former, representing a still-marginal state, is the more interesting option.
I'm still concerned there is a strong streak of misogyny in America and white men, in particular, won't vote for a woman though we'll likely have a woman as VP next year so it's a start. However. both Whitmer and Grisham have a lot of other advantages and could be viable contenders.
If you want a ludicrous long-shot (probably not even in the betting), I'd offer Senator Kyrsten Sinema from Arizona. Why? She has a track record of supporting some Republican initiatives and would be much harder for a Republican to run against. That said, the Democrats would have to show more political maturity than has been the case recently to recognise Sinema might be the only chance they have to reach across into the GOP core and pick up votes in places like Iowa, Texas and Ohio.
The truth is the Democrats have a big in-built advantage within the EC and, as 2020 has shown, don't need Texas or Florida to win but if they can secure one or both of those along with Ohio, the Republicans are effectively shut out.
On the Republican side, the question is simply whether the ghost of Trump will pervade the primary campaign. IF it looks winnable, Pence is the obvious candidate but if it looks difficult, as Nixon did in 1964, he'll stand aside and let someone else lose.
I'd offer Rubio or Cotton as possible 2024 GOP contenders.
Morning all. Thank you David for the tip. I think 50/1 is good enough for Pete but I wouldn't go much shorter than this. I think there is no way KH would allow herself to be pushed out of the way for the Presidency and, if Joe B steps down before, she is automatically in the driving seat.
Now for the hand grenade. Apologies if this was posted before and some of you may now this already. Anyway re the counts.
One misnomer about US elections is that voters get to choose which electors are sent to the Electoral College. Actually they don't. It the state legislatures in each state. The Supreme Court has been specific on this and it has also been specific that the authority lies with the state legislatures, not the Supreme Courts of each state or the Governor or the Secretary of State.
The US Supreme Court has ruled explicitly post-2016 that electors cannot be faithless and must abide by the rulings of the state legislature.
Normally, this wouldn't matter as it is a case of procedure. This year it could come very much into play. The state legislatures of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia are all Republican led.
There is one scenario where the state legislatures in each state simply refuse to accept the results, claiming that there has been electoral fraud and appoints its own electors under mandate. This is why the fact that the RNC and the Republican Establishment have lined up behind Trump is important. It suggests the Republican machinery is set to fight.
Would this be catastrophic? Yes Undemocratic? Yes (but there are legitimate questions over the way elections have been run in the cities) Is it possible? Also yes.
Which is why the narrative (in Republican politicians and media) is still key to what happens next. Not the counting.
From the Politico article. Mark Levin, a right-wing radio host with a penchant for hysteria, urged Republican-controlled state legislatures to ignore the results of their state elections and send electors who will vote for Trump in the Electoral College. His missive was retweeted by the Republican Party’s top spokesperson.
Interesting question: If Republican-controlled state legislatures ignored the results of their state elections and sent electors to vote for Trump in the Electoral College, which nations would recognise Trump as President? Obviously Russia would. But France, Germany, Canada, UK?
EDIT: PS It's not going to happen.
Of course it isn't, as it would take the US to near civil war, it is only a few hotheads even suggesting it
You mean, like folk suggesting invading Scotland or Spain?
No I do not mean that, defence of British territory in Gibraltar from a Spanish invasion would not be a civil war for starters and Scotland is less than a 10th of the UK population, the last US civil war split the entire southern US against the northern US in a similar way to this election has largely split the southern and border and plains state Trump voting US from the Northern and Western US
So Northern Ireland wasn't a civil war?
Within Northern Ireland arguably yes not within the wider UK
You might want to talk to folk in London. Or Manchester. Or Warrington. Or Shrewsbury. Or Yorkshire. Or St Albans. Or Birmingham. Or Glasgow.
Of those killed in the Troubles only 125 were in England but 1541 were killed in Belfast, 477 in Armagh and 340 in Tyrone and 243 in Down and 227 in Derry and 209 in Antrim.
Yet England has a population over 20 times that of Northern Ireland, as I said it was a civil war arguably within Northern Ireland, not within mainland GB, apart from the odd terrorist attack here but not launched by GB residents
Rather more than a few of those killed in NI were from England, Wales, and Scotland.
Did they get there from Iran via the Cape of Good Hope?
Sorry, not with you?
The neew sea route I presume
That'd be via Vladivostok (or a river and canal transit to Murmansk). But I'm still puzzled ...
If he ends up winning Arizona then Fox News will probably bear the brunt of the conspiracy theorising for calling it the way they did to halt the momentum for Trump.
So they blocked out the windows to stop people seeing what was going on, but the GOP observers inside the building (at a distance of 25ft) didn't see anything!
He's just reading things on twitter and regurgitating it without having any clue of electoral processes or what was ACTUALLY happening on the ground. No wonder he can't get any serious lawyers to stand up in court and argue on his behalf! They're all being laughed out of court.
He's probably asking his campaign staff why they can't send some people into the Republican dominated counting centres and add a few hundred thousand votes.
Morning all. Thank you David for the tip. I think 50/1 is good enough for Pete but I wouldn't go much shorter than this. I think there is no way KH would allow herself to be pushed out of the way for the Presidency and, if Joe B steps down before, she is automatically in the driving seat.
Now for the hand grenade. Apologies if this was posted before and some of you may now this already. Anyway re the counts.
One misnomer about US elections is that voters get to choose which electors are sent to the Electoral College. Actually they don't. It the state legislatures in each state. The Supreme Court has been specific on this and it has also been specific that the authority lies with the state legislatures, not the Supreme Courts of each state or the Governor or the Secretary of State.
The US Supreme Court has ruled explicitly post-2016 that electors cannot be faithless and must abide by the rulings of the state legislature.
Normally, this wouldn't matter as it is a case of procedure. This year it could come very much into play. The state legislatures of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia are all Republican led.
There is one scenario where the state legislatures in each state simply refuse to accept the results, claiming that there has been electoral fraud and appoints its own electors under mandate. This is why the fact that the RNC and the Republican Establishment have lined up behind Trump is important. It suggests the Republican machinery is set to fight.
Would this be catastrophic? Yes Undemocratic? Yes (but there are legitimate questions over the way elections have been run in the cities) Is it possible? Also yes.
Which is why the narrative (in Republican politicians and media) is still key to what happens next. Not the counting.
From the Politico article. Mark Levin, a right-wing radio host with a penchant for hysteria, urged Republican-controlled state legislatures to ignore the results of their state elections and send electors who will vote for Trump in the Electoral College. His missive was retweeted by the Republican Party’s top spokesperson.
Interesting question: If Republican-controlled state legislatures ignored the results of their state elections and sent electors to vote for Trump in the Electoral College, which nations would recognise Trump as President? Obviously Russia would. But France, Germany, Canada, UK?
EDIT: PS It's not going to happen.
Of course it isn't, as it would take the US to near civil war, it is only a few hotheads even suggesting it
You mean, like folk suggesting invading Scotland or Spain?
No I do not mean that, defence of British territory in Gibraltar from a Spanish invasion would not be a civil war for starters and Scotland is less than a 10th of the UK population, the last US civil war split the entire southern US against the northern US in a similar way to this election has largely split the southern and border and plains state Trump voting US from the Northern and Western US
So Northern Ireland wasn't a civil war?
Within Northern Ireland arguably yes not within the wider UK
You might want to talk to folk in London. Or Manchester. Or Warrington. Or Shrewsbury. Or Yorkshire. Or St Albans. Or Birmingham. Or Glasgow.
Of those killed in the Troubles only 125 were in England but 1541 were killed in Belfast, 477 in Armagh and 340 in Tyrone and 243 in Down and 227 in Derry and 209 in Antrim.
Yet England has a population over 20 times that of Northern Ireland, as I said it was a civil war arguably within Northern Ireland, not within mainland GB, apart from the odd terrorist attack here but not launched by GB residents
Rather more than a few of those killed in NI were from England, Wales, and Scotland.
Did they get there from Iran via the Cape of Good Hope?
Sorry, not with you?
It was a reference to the famous time HYUFD muddled his geography and suggested tankers prevented from accessing the Strait of Hormuz should sail round Africa instead.
If he ends up winning Arizona then Fox News will probably bear the brunt of the conspiracy theorising for calling it the way they did to halt the momentum for Trump.
As far as that theory goes, i think it is now irrelevant where he actually wins in Arizona.
Morning all. Thank you David for the tip. I think 50/1 is good enough for Pete but I wouldn't go much shorter than this. I think there is no way KH would allow herself to be pushed out of the way for the Presidency and, if Joe B steps down before, she is automatically in the driving seat.
Now for the hand grenade. Apologies if this was posted before and some of you may now this already. Anyway re the counts.
One misnomer about US elections is that voters get to choose which electors are sent to the Electoral College. Actually they don't. It the state legislatures in each state. The Supreme Court has been specific on this and it has also been specific that the authority lies with the state legislatures, not the Supreme Courts of each state or the Governor or the Secretary of State.
The US Supreme Court has ruled explicitly post-2016 that electors cannot be faithless and must abide by the rulings of the state legislature.
Normally, this wouldn't matter as it is a case of procedure. This year it could come very much into play. The state legislatures of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia are all Republican led.
There is one scenario where the state legislatures in each state simply refuse to accept the results, claiming that there has been electoral fraud and appoints its own electors under mandate. This is why the fact that the RNC and the Republican Establishment have lined up behind Trump is important. It suggests the Republican machinery is set to fight.
Would this be catastrophic? Yes Undemocratic? Yes (but there are legitimate questions over the way elections have been run in the cities) Is it possible? Also yes.
"Legitimate questions" my arse.
The only legitimate questions I see are around the outrageous voter suppression by Republicans.
Plus I suspect republican majority state legislatures are quite happy to be in power, and Trump no longer to be president. I realise the republican party are basically a criminal organisation - and I'm glad you seem to be admitting this now, but I don't think it's a realistic option, just a fantasy in Trump's head.
I posted on here yesterday the key reason why HRC didn’t do a recount in Michigan in 2016 even though she was a few thousand behind was that a large number of precincts in Detroit had posted voter numbers that were in excess of their registered voters, and Michigan state law doesn’t allow precincts to be included in a recount where that happens. The explanation given was that a number of the ballot machines failed on the day and the feeders they fed the votes into erroneously duplicated a number of ballots.
Nothing was investigated further becauSe it didn’t matter to the final results but there were a number of obvious questions around that not least why election feeding machines, which should have been tested rigorously by the manufacturer before the distributors to cope with high volumes and election style processing, started to malfunction on the day.
There is a reason why so many American shows feature corrupt local politicians and why so many local politicians in the States have gone to jail for fraud etc
This doesn't make sense - re: no recount in 2016. It's not that certain votes would be excluded from the recount, and her vote would therefore go down (obviously - otherwise had she won by a few thousand then Trump could have had a recount and won the race!). It's just that the numbers for those counties wouldn't change. So a recount wouldn't have disadvantaged her if it had happened (which i think is what you are implying - apologies if wrong).
Hi Alex, the issue is that the whole precinct’s votes are excluded from a recount if this occurs so her overall numbers would have fallen given these were heavily Democrat wards. So it’s very unlikely she would have won while raising questions over what had happened.
Hi Mr Ed - I think you must be wrong - you are misunderstanding what "excluded from the recount" means. It means "won't be counted again" ie. "won't be changed". It doesn't mean "the count will be redone, as if those votes didn't exist". This is obvious if you think about it for a brief moment.
Any other interpretation (ie. yours) would mean that there would be no way that a recount could give the same result as a count. If a recount isn't expected to give the same result, then the original results couldn't be certified as accurate. You are suggesting that Hillary's vote would have gone down (because of where the votes with the issue were located ie. Hillary voting counties). But supposing she had WON the state! The implication would be that Trump could have demanded a recount knowing that her vote would go down and therefore he would likely win. Clearly there is no way that this could be correct and the law cannot mean what you think it means.
Hi @Alex, here’s the link to the article . It looks pretty clear but maybe I have misinterpreted
Hi Mr Ed - article seems to say exactly what i said. The discrepancies wouldn't/couldn't have been resolved by a recount, so there would be no recount (of those particular ballots). The numbers wouldn't have been excluded. They just wouldn't have changed. Clinton thought that something had gone wrong with the machines. She thought that if a recount had happened (and was able to happen) then huge numbers of errors (in her favour) would possibly have been discovered (not because of "fraud" but just because the technology was so old and outdated). But there was absolutely no point if a recount of the affected ballots simply wasn't possible.
There has been lots of criticism of electronic voting and counting machines in the US because of the lack of audit trails to link the results to underlying paper ballots. I've read that what happened in 2016 was the final straw, and US states have finally begun investing in new technology to avoid this happening in the future. The machines used in 2020 were on the whole far newer, modern and the problems that happened in 2016 could not be repeated. Or at least if problems did occur, they could be linked to paper ballots and corrected and rectified in the vote counts.
Can confirm that the article doesn't seem to remotely reflect what MrEd seems to be alleging. In fact it makes the possibility that Clinton should have won Michigan more likely.
Think MrEd is showing his true colours now with all this disinformation. A pity really.
If he ends up winning Arizona then Fox News will probably bear the brunt of the conspiracy theorising for calling it the way they did to halt the momentum for Trump.
As far as that theory goes, i think it is now irrelevant where he actually wins in Arizona.
The theory will be that they were buying time so that the Democrats could deploy their tractors in the other states.
Morning all. Thank you David for the tip. I think 50/1 is good enough for Pete but I wouldn't go much shorter than this. I think there is no way KH would allow herself to be pushed out of the way for the Presidency and, if Joe B steps down before, she is automatically in the driving seat.
Now for the hand grenade. Apologies if this was posted before and some of you may now this already. Anyway re the counts.
One misnomer about US elections is that voters get to choose which electors are sent to the Electoral College. Actually they don't. It the state legislatures in each state. The Supreme Court has been specific on this and it has also been specific that the authority lies with the state legislatures, not the Supreme Courts of each state or the Governor or the Secretary of State.
The US Supreme Court has ruled explicitly post-2016 that electors cannot be faithless and must abide by the rulings of the state legislature.
Normally, this wouldn't matter as it is a case of procedure. This year it could come very much into play. The state legislatures of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia are all Republican led.
There is one scenario where the state legislatures in each state simply refuse to accept the results, claiming that there has been electoral fraud and appoints its own electors under mandate. This is why the fact that the RNC and the Republican Establishment have lined up behind Trump is important. It suggests the Republican machinery is set to fight.
Would this be catastrophic? Yes Undemocratic? Yes (but there are legitimate questions over the way elections have been run in the cities) Is it possible? Also yes.
Which is why the narrative (in Republican politicians and media) is still key to what happens next. Not the counting.
From the Politico article. Mark Levin, a right-wing radio host with a penchant for hysteria, urged Republican-controlled state legislatures to ignore the results of their state elections and send electors who will vote for Trump in the Electoral College. His missive was retweeted by the Republican Party’s top spokesperson.
Interesting question: If Republican-controlled state legislatures ignored the results of their state elections and sent electors to vote for Trump in the Electoral College, which nations would recognise Trump as President? Obviously Russia would. But France, Germany, Canada, UK?
EDIT: PS It's not going to happen.
Of course it isn't, as it would take the US to near civil war, it is only a few hotheads even suggesting it
You mean, like folk suggesting invading Scotland or Spain?
No I do not mean that, defence of British territory in Gibraltar from a Spanish invasion would not be a civil war for starters and Scotland is less than a 10th of the UK population, the last US civil war split the entire southern US against the northern US in a similar way to this election has largely split the southern and border and plains state Trump voting US from the Northern and Western US
So Northern Ireland wasn't a civil war?
Within Northern Ireland arguably yes not within the wider UK
You might want to talk to folk in London. Or Manchester. Or Warrington. Or Shrewsbury. Or Yorkshire. Or St Albans. Or Birmingham. Or Glasgow.
Of those killed in the Troubles only 125 were in England but 1541 were killed in Belfast, 477 in Armagh and 340 in Tyrone and 243 in Down and 227 in Derry and 209 in Antrim.
Yet England has a population over 20 times that of Northern Ireland, as I said it was a civil war arguably within Northern Ireland, not within mainland GB, apart from the odd terrorist attack here but not launched by GB residents
Rather more than a few of those killed in NI were from England, Wales, and Scotland.
Did they get there from Iran via the Cape of Good Hope?
Sorry, not with you?
It was a reference to the famous time HYUFD muddled his geography and suggested tankers prevented from accessing the Strait of Hormuz should sail round Africa instead.
Thank you! All is now clear. I must have been taking a sabbatical from cybernat duty at the time.
Morning all. Thank you David for the tip. I think 50/1 is good enough for Pete but I wouldn't go much shorter than this. I think there is no way KH would allow herself to be pushed out of the way for the Presidency and, if Joe B steps down before, she is automatically in the driving seat.
Now for the hand grenade. Apologies if this was posted before and some of you may now this already. Anyway re the counts.
One misnomer about US elections is that voters get to choose which electors are sent to the Electoral College. Actually they don't. It the state legislatures in each state. The Supreme Court has been specific on this and it has also been specific that the authority lies with the state legislatures, not the Supreme Courts of each state or the Governor or the Secretary of State.
The US Supreme Court has ruled explicitly post-2016 that electors cannot be faithless and must abide by the rulings of the state legislature.
Normally, this wouldn't matter as it is a case of procedure. This year it could come very much into play. The state legislatures of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia are all Republican led.
There is one scenario where the state legislatures in each state simply refuse to accept the results, claiming that there has been electoral fraud and appoints its own electors under mandate. This is why the fact that the RNC and the Republican Establishment have lined up behind Trump is important. It suggests the Republican machinery is set to fight.
Would this be catastrophic? Yes Undemocratic? Yes (but there are legitimate questions over the way elections have been run in the cities) Is it possible? Also yes.
Which is why the narrative (in Republican politicians and media) is still key to what happens next. Not the counting.
From the Politico article. Mark Levin, a right-wing radio host with a penchant for hysteria, urged Republican-controlled state legislatures to ignore the results of their state elections and send electors who will vote for Trump in the Electoral College. His missive was retweeted by the Republican Party’s top spokesperson.
Interesting question: If Republican-controlled state legislatures ignored the results of their state elections and sent electors to vote for Trump in the Electoral College, which nations would recognise Trump as President? Obviously Russia would. But France, Germany, Canada, UK?
EDIT: PS It's not going to happen.
Of course it isn't, as it would take the US to near civil war, it is only a few hotheads even suggesting it
You mean, like folk suggesting invading Scotland or Spain?
No I do not mean that, defence of British territory in Gibraltar from a Spanish invasion would not be a civil war for starters and Scotland is less than a 10th of the UK population, the last US civil war split the entire southern US against the northern US in a similar way to this election has largely split the southern and border and plains state Trump voting US from the Northern and Western US
So Northern Ireland wasn't a civil war?
Within Northern Ireland arguably yes not within the wider UK
You might want to talk to folk in London. Or Manchester. Or Warrington. Or Shrewsbury. Or Yorkshire. Or St Albans. Or Birmingham. Or Glasgow.
Of those killed in the Troubles only 125 were in England but 1541 were killed in Belfast, 477 in Armagh and 340 in Tyrone and 243 in Down and 227 in Derry and 209 in Antrim.
Yet England has a population over 20 times that of Northern Ireland, as I said it was a civil war arguably within Northern Ireland, not within mainland GB, apart from the odd terrorist attack here but not launched by GB residents
Rather more than a few of those killed in NI were from England, Wales, and Scotland.
Did they get there from Iran via the Cape of Good Hope?
Sorry, not with you?
It was a reference to the famous time HYUFD muddled his geography and suggested tankers prevented from accessing the Strait of Hormuz should sail round Africa instead.
I think portage over the Rub' al Khali was also suggested.
If he ends up winning Arizona then Fox News will probably bear the brunt of the conspiracy theorising for calling it the way they did to halt the momentum for Trump.
As far as that theory goes, i think it is now irrelevant where he actually wins in Arizona.
The theory will be that they were buying time so that the Democrats could deploy their tractors in the other states.
Morning all. Thank you David for the tip. I think 50/1 is good enough for Pete but I wouldn't go much shorter than this. I think there is no way KH would allow herself to be pushed out of the way for the Presidency and, if Joe B steps down before, she is automatically in the driving seat.
Now for the hand grenade. Apologies if this was posted before and some of you may now this already. Anyway re the counts.
One misnomer about US elections is that voters get to choose which electors are sent to the Electoral College. Actually they don't. It the state legislatures in each state. The Supreme Court has been specific on this and it has also been specific that the authority lies with the state legislatures, not the Supreme Courts of each state or the Governor or the Secretary of State.
The US Supreme Court has ruled explicitly post-2016 that electors cannot be faithless and must abide by the rulings of the state legislature.
Normally, this wouldn't matter as it is a case of procedure. This year it could come very much into play. The state legislatures of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia are all Republican led.
There is one scenario where the state legislatures in each state simply refuse to accept the results, claiming that there has been electoral fraud and appoints its own electors under mandate. This is why the fact that the RNC and the Republican Establishment have lined up behind Trump is important. It suggests the Republican machinery is set to fight.
Would this be catastrophic? Yes Undemocratic? Yes (but there are legitimate questions over the way elections have been run in the cities) Is it possible? Also yes.
Which is why the narrative (in Republican politicians and media) is still key to what happens next. Not the counting.
From the Politico article. Mark Levin, a right-wing radio host with a penchant for hysteria, urged Republican-controlled state legislatures to ignore the results of their state elections and send electors who will vote for Trump in the Electoral College. His missive was retweeted by the Republican Party’s top spokesperson.
Interesting question: If Republican-controlled state legislatures ignored the results of their state elections and sent electors to vote for Trump in the Electoral College, which nations would recognise Trump as President? Obviously Russia would. But France, Germany, Canada, UK?
EDIT: PS It's not going to happen.
Of course it isn't, as it would take the US to near civil war, it is only a few hotheads even suggesting it
You mean, like folk suggesting invading Scotland or Spain?
No I do not mean that, defence of British territory in Gibraltar from a Spanish invasion would not be a civil war for starters and Scotland is less than a 10th of the UK population, the last US civil war split the entire southern US against the northern US in a similar way to this election has largely split the southern and border and plains state Trump voting US from the Northern and Western US
So Northern Ireland wasn't a civil war?
Within Northern Ireland arguably yes not within the wider UK
You might want to talk to folk in London. Or Manchester. Or Warrington. Or Shrewsbury. Or Yorkshire. Or St Albans. Or Birmingham. Or Glasgow.
Of those killed in the Troubles only 125 were in England but 1541 were killed in Belfast, 477 in Armagh and 340 in Tyrone and 243 in Down and 227 in Derry and 209 in Antrim.
Yet England has a population over 20 times that of Northern Ireland, as I said it was a civil war arguably within Northern Ireland, not within mainland GB, apart from the odd terrorist attack here but not launched by GB residents
Rather more than a few of those killed in NI were from England, Wales, and Scotland.
Did they get there from Iran via the Cape of Good Hope?
Sorry, not with you?
It was a reference to the famous time HYUFD muddled his geography and suggested tankers prevented from accessing the Strait of Hormuz should sail round Africa instead.
Thank you! All is now clear. I must have been taking a sabbatical from cybernat duty at the time.
Morning all. Thank you David for the tip. I think 50/1 is good enough for Pete but I wouldn't go much shorter than this. I think there is no way KH would allow herself to be pushed out of the way for the Presidency and, if Joe B steps down before, she is automatically in the driving seat.
Now for the hand grenade. Apologies if this was posted before and some of you may now this already. Anyway re the counts.
One misnomer about US elections is that voters get to choose which electors are sent to the Electoral College. Actually they don't. It the state legislatures in each state. The Supreme Court has been specific on this and it has also been specific that the authority lies with the state legislatures, not the Supreme Courts of each state or the Governor or the Secretary of State.
The US Supreme Court has ruled explicitly post-2016 that electors cannot be faithless and must abide by the rulings of the state legislature.
Normally, this wouldn't matter as it is a case of procedure. This year it could come very much into play. The state legislatures of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia are all Republican led.
There is one scenario where the state legislatures in each state simply refuse to accept the results, claiming that there has been electoral fraud and appoints its own electors under mandate. This is why the fact that the RNC and the Republican Establishment have lined up behind Trump is important. It suggests the Republican machinery is set to fight.
Would this be catastrophic? Yes Undemocratic? Yes (but there are legitimate questions over the way elections have been run in the cities) Is it possible? Also yes.
Which is why the narrative (in Republican politicians and media) is still key to what happens next. Not the counting.
From the Politico article. Mark Levin, a right-wing radio host with a penchant for hysteria, urged Republican-controlled state legislatures to ignore the results of their state elections and send electors who will vote for Trump in the Electoral College. His missive was retweeted by the Republican Party’s top spokesperson.
Interesting question: If Republican-controlled state legislatures ignored the results of their state elections and sent electors to vote for Trump in the Electoral College, which nations would recognise Trump as President? Obviously Russia would. But France, Germany, Canada, UK?
EDIT: PS It's not going to happen.
Of course it isn't, as it would take the US to near civil war, it is only a few hotheads even suggesting it
You mean, like folk suggesting invading Scotland or Spain?
No I do not mean that, defence of British territory in Gibraltar from a Spanish invasion would not be a civil war for starters and Scotland is less than a 10th of the UK population, the last US civil war split the entire southern US against the northern US in a similar way to this election has largely split the southern and border and plains state Trump voting US from the Northern and Western US
So Northern Ireland wasn't a civil war?
Within Northern Ireland arguably yes not within the wider UK
You might want to talk to folk in London. Or Manchester. Or Warrington. Or Shrewsbury. Or Yorkshire. Or St Albans. Or Birmingham. Or Glasgow.
Of those killed in the Troubles only 125 were in England but 1541 were killed in Belfast, 477 in Armagh and 340 in Tyrone and 243 in Down and 227 in Derry and 209 in Antrim.
Yet England has a population over 20 times that of Northern Ireland, as I said it was a civil war arguably within Northern Ireland, not within mainland GB, apart from the odd terrorist attack here but not launched by GB residents
Rather more than a few of those killed in NI were from England, Wales, and Scotland.
Did they get there from Iran via the Cape of Good Hope?
Sorry, not with you?
It was a reference to the famous time HYUFD muddled his geography and suggested tankers prevented from accessing the Strait of Hormuz should sail round Africa instead.
I think portage over the Rub' al Khali was also suggested.
Oh @Roger you are so funny. Have you taken time out from slagging people off for suggesting Obama might not be such a nice person?
That's why I posted that site. It might give you an objective view of how your fellow religionists look. There's something mesmerising about the sheer bonkersness of them. 'Is Obama born in this country' 'Hell No!!' 'What would it take to convince you he was?' 'Someone would have to have been at the birth'. 'What about his Mom?'. 'She's gonna lie' 'What about Trump. Was he born here?' 'Of course he was. He's an American'.......
Morning all. Thank you David for the tip. I think 50/1 is good enough for Pete but I wouldn't go much shorter than this. I think there is no way KH would allow herself to be pushed out of the way for the Presidency and, if Joe B steps down before, she is automatically in the driving seat.
Now for the hand grenade. Apologies if this was posted before and some of you may now this already. Anyway re the counts.
One misnomer about US elections is that voters get to choose which electors are sent to the Electoral College. Actually they don't. It the state legislatures in each state. The Supreme Court has been specific on this and it has also been specific that the authority lies with the state legislatures, not the Supreme Courts of each state or the Governor or the Secretary of State.
The US Supreme Court has ruled explicitly post-2016 that electors cannot be faithless and must abide by the rulings of the state legislature.
Normally, this wouldn't matter as it is a case of procedure. This year it could come very much into play. The state legislatures of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia are all Republican led.
There is one scenario where the state legislatures in each state simply refuse to accept the results, claiming that there has been electoral fraud and appoints its own electors under mandate. This is why the fact that the RNC and the Republican Establishment have lined up behind Trump is important. It suggests the Republican machinery is set to fight.
Would this be catastrophic? Yes Undemocratic? Yes (but there are legitimate questions over the way elections have been run in the cities) Is it possible? Also yes.
Which is why the narrative (in Republican politicians and media) is still key to what happens next. Not the counting.
From the Politico article. Mark Levin, a right-wing radio host with a penchant for hysteria, urged Republican-controlled state legislatures to ignore the results of their state elections and send electors who will vote for Trump in the Electoral College. His missive was retweeted by the Republican Party’s top spokesperson.
Interesting question: If Republican-controlled state legislatures ignored the results of their state elections and sent electors to vote for Trump in the Electoral College, which nations would recognise Trump as President? Obviously Russia would. But France, Germany, Canada, UK?
EDIT: PS It's not going to happen.
Of course it isn't, as it would take the US to near civil war, it is only a few hotheads even suggesting it
You mean, like folk suggesting invading Scotland or Spain?
No I do not mean that, defence of British territory in Gibraltar from a Spanish invasion would not be a civil war for starters and Scotland is less than a 10th of the UK population, the last US civil war split the entire southern US against the northern US in a similar way to this election has largely split the southern and border and plains state Trump voting US from the Northern and Western US
So Northern Ireland wasn't a civil war?
Within Northern Ireland arguably yes not within the wider UK
You might want to talk to folk in London. Or Manchester. Or Warrington. Or Shrewsbury. Or Yorkshire. Or St Albans. Or Birmingham. Or Glasgow.
Of those killed in the Troubles only 125 were in England but 1541 were killed in Belfast, 477 in Armagh and 340 in Tyrone and 243 in Down and 227 in Derry and 209 in Antrim.
Yet England has a population over 20 times that of Northern Ireland, as I said it was a civil war arguably within Northern Ireland, not within mainland GB, apart from the odd terrorist attack here but not launched by GB residents
Rather more than a few of those killed in NI were from England, Wales, and Scotland.
Did they get there from Iran via the Cape of Good Hope?
Sorry, not with you?
It was a reference to the famous time HYUFD muddled his geography and suggested tankers prevented from accessing the Strait of Hormuz should sail round Africa instead.
I think portage over the Rub' al Khali was also suggested.
Morning all. Thank you David for the tip. I think 50/1 is good enough for Pete but I wouldn't go much shorter than this. I think there is no way KH would allow herself to be pushed out of the way for the Presidency and, if Joe B steps down before, she is automatically in the driving seat.
Now for the hand grenade. Apologies if this was posted before and some of you may now this already. Anyway re the counts.
One misnomer about US elections is that voters get to choose which electors are sent to the Electoral College. Actually they don't. It the state legislatures in each state. The Supreme Court has been specific on this and it has also been specific that the authority lies with the state legislatures, not the Supreme Courts of each state or the Governor or the Secretary of State.
The US Supreme Court has ruled explicitly post-2016 that electors cannot be faithless and must abide by the rulings of the state legislature.
Normally, this wouldn't matter as it is a case of procedure. This year it could come very much into play. The state legislatures of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia are all Republican led.
There is one scenario where the state legislatures in each state simply refuse to accept the results, claiming that there has been electoral fraud and appoints its own electors under mandate. This is why the fact that the RNC and the Republican Establishment have lined up behind Trump is important. It suggests the Republican machinery is set to fight.
Would this be catastrophic? Yes Undemocratic? Yes (but there are legitimate questions over the way elections have been run in the cities) Is it possible? Also yes.
"Legitimate questions" my arse.
The only legitimate questions I see are around the outrageous voter suppression by Republicans.
Plus I suspect republican majority state legislatures are quite happy to be in power, and Trump no longer to be president. I realise the republican party are basically a criminal organisation - and I'm glad you seem to be admitting this now, but I don't think it's a realistic option, just a fantasy in Trump's head.
I posted on here yesterday the key reason why HRC didn’t do a recount in Michigan in 2016 even though she was a few thousand behind was that a large number of precincts in Detroit had posted voter numbers that were in excess of their registered voters, and Michigan state law doesn’t allow precincts to be included in a recount where that happens. The explanation given was that a number of the ballot machines failed on the day and the feeders they fed the votes into erroneously duplicated a number of ballots.
Nothing was investigated further becauSe it didn’t matter to the final results but there were a number of obvious questions around that not least why election feeding machines, which should have been tested rigorously by the manufacturer before the distributors to cope with high volumes and election style processing, started to malfunction on the day.
There is a reason why so many American shows feature corrupt local politicians and why so many local politicians in the States have gone to jail for fraud etc
This doesn't make sense - re: no recount in 2016. It's not that certain votes would be excluded from the recount, and her vote would therefore go down (obviously - otherwise had she won by a few thousand then Trump could have had a recount and won the race!). It's just that the numbers for those counties wouldn't change. So a recount wouldn't have disadvantaged her if it had happened (which i think is what you are implying - apologies if wrong).
Hi Alex, the issue is that the whole precinct’s votes are excluded from a recount if this occurs so her overall numbers would have fallen given these were heavily Democrat wards. So it’s very unlikely she would have won while raising questions over what had happened.
Hi Mr Ed - I think you must be wrong - you are misunderstanding what "excluded from the recount" means. It means "won't be counted again" ie. "won't be changed". It doesn't mean "the count will be redone, as if those votes didn't exist". This is obvious if you think about it for a brief moment.
Any other interpretation (ie. yours) would mean that there would be no way that a recount could give the same result as a count. If a recount isn't expected to give the same result, then the original results couldn't be certified as accurate. You are suggesting that Hillary's vote would have gone down (because of where the votes with the issue were located ie. Hillary voting counties). But supposing she had WON the state! The implication would be that Trump could have demanded a recount knowing that her vote would go down and therefore he would likely win. Clearly there is no way that this could be correct and the law cannot mean what you think it means.
Hi @Alex, here’s the link to the article . It looks pretty clear but maybe I have misinterpreted
Hi Mr Ed - article seems to say exactly what i said. The discrepancies wouldn't/couldn't have been resolved by a recount, so there would be no recount (of those particular ballots). The numbers wouldn't have been excluded. They just wouldn't have changed. Clinton thought that something had gone wrong with the machines. She thought that if a recount had happened (and was able to happen) then huge numbers of errors (in her favour) would possibly have been discovered (not because of "fraud" but just because the technology was so old and outdated). But there was absolutely no point if a recount of the affected ballots simply wasn't possible.
There has been lots of criticism of electronic voting and counting machines in the US because of the lack of audit trails to link the results to underlying paper ballots. I've read that what happened in 2016 was the final straw, and US states have finally begun investing in new technology to avoid this happening in the future. The machines used in 2020 were on the whole far newer, modern and the problems that happened in 2016 could not be repeated. Or at least if problems did occur, they could be linked to paper ballots and corrected and rectified in the vote counts.
Can confirm that the article doesn't seem to remotely reflect what MrEd seems to be alleging. In fact it makes the possibility that Clinton should have won Michigan more likely.
Think MrEd is showing his true colours now with all this disinformation. A pity really.
Yep. Saying explicitly that he condemns something only to go on to immediately contradict that implicitly by subsequent disinformation and false parallels.
People have not had much good to say about Trump in recent times, well ever actually, but his generous contributions to the legal profession really shouldn't be overlooked.
Is there a scenario where Trump finally accepts that it's over and simply walks? Not suggesting that he voluntarily stops being President - he'll be that for life - but why stick around in the White House when you own a beachfront resort in Florida?
I suspect his worry is that as soon as he leaves the White House the historic court cases and even more recent ones will come back..
Morning all. Thank you David for the tip. I think 50/1 is good enough for Pete but I wouldn't go much shorter than this. I think there is no way KH would allow herself to be pushed out of the way for the Presidency and, if Joe B steps down before, she is automatically in the driving seat.
Now for the hand grenade. Apologies if this was posted before and some of you may now this already. Anyway re the counts.
One misnomer about US elections is that voters get to choose which electors are sent to the Electoral College. Actually they don't. It the state legislatures in each state. The Supreme Court has been specific on this and it has also been specific that the authority lies with the state legislatures, not the Supreme Courts of each state or the Governor or the Secretary of State.
The US Supreme Court has ruled explicitly post-2016 that electors cannot be faithless and must abide by the rulings of the state legislature.
Normally, this wouldn't matter as it is a case of procedure. This year it could come very much into play. The state legislatures of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia are all Republican led.
There is one scenario where the state legislatures in each state simply refuse to accept the results, claiming that there has been electoral fraud and appoints its own electors under mandate. This is why the fact that the RNC and the Republican Establishment have lined up behind Trump is important. It suggests the Republican machinery is set to fight.
Would this be catastrophic? Yes Undemocratic? Yes (but there are legitimate questions over the way elections have been run in the cities) Is it possible? Also yes.
"Legitimate questions" my arse.
The only legitimate questions I see are around the outrageous voter suppression by Republicans.
Plus I suspect republican majority state legislatures are quite happy to be in power, and Trump no longer to be president. I realise the republican party are basically a criminal organisation - and I'm glad you seem to be admitting this now, but I don't think it's a realistic option, just a fantasy in Trump's head.
I posted on here yesterday the key reason why HRC didn’t do a recount in Michigan in 2016 even though she was a few thousand behind was that a large number of precincts in Detroit had posted voter numbers that were in excess of their registered voters, and Michigan state law doesn’t allow precincts to be included in a recount where that happens. The explanation given was that a number of the ballot machines failed on the day and the feeders they fed the votes into erroneously duplicated a number of ballots.
Nothing was investigated further becauSe it didn’t matter to the final results but there were a number of obvious questions around that not least why election feeding machines, which should have been tested rigorously by the manufacturer before the distributors to cope with high volumes and election style processing, started to malfunction on the day.
There is a reason why so many American shows feature corrupt local politicians and why so many local politicians in the States have gone to jail for fraud etc
This doesn't make sense - re: no recount in 2016. It's not that certain votes would be excluded from the recount, and her vote would therefore go down (obviously - otherwise had she won by a few thousand then Trump could have had a recount and won the race!). It's just that the numbers for those counties wouldn't change. So a recount wouldn't have disadvantaged her if it had happened (which i think is what you are implying - apologies if wrong).
Hi Alex, the issue is that the whole precinct’s votes are excluded from a recount if this occurs so her overall numbers would have fallen given these were heavily Democrat wards. So it’s very unlikely she would have won while raising questions over what had happened.
Hi Mr Ed - I think you must be wrong - you are misunderstanding what "excluded from the recount" means. It means "won't be counted again" ie. "won't be changed". It doesn't mean "the count will be redone, as if those votes didn't exist". This is obvious if you think about it for a brief moment.
Any other interpretation (ie. yours) would mean that there would be no way that a recount could give the same result as a count. If a recount isn't expected to give the same result, then the original results couldn't be certified as accurate. You are suggesting that Hillary's vote would have gone down (because of where the votes with the issue were located ie. Hillary voting counties). But supposing she had WON the state! The implication would be that Trump could have demanded a recount knowing that her vote would go down and therefore he would likely win. Clearly there is no way that this could be correct and the law cannot mean what you think it means.
Hi @Alex, here’s the link to the article . It looks pretty clear but maybe I have misinterpreted
Hi Mr Ed - article seems to say exactly what i said. The discrepancies wouldn't/couldn't have been resolved by a recount, so there would be no recount (of those particular ballots). The numbers wouldn't have been excluded. They just wouldn't have changed. Clinton thought that something had gone wrong with the machines. She thought that if a recount had happened (and was able to happen) then huge numbers of errors (in her favour) would possibly have been discovered (not because of "fraud" but just because the technology was so old and outdated). But there was absolutely no point if a recount of the affected ballots simply wasn't possible.
There has been lots of criticism of electronic voting and counting machines in the US because of the lack of audit trails to link the results to underlying paper ballots. I've read that what happened in 2016 was the final straw, and US states have finally begun investing in new technology to avoid this happening in the future. The machines used in 2020 were on the whole far newer, modern and the problems that happened in 2016 could not be repeated. Or at least if problems did occur, they could be linked to paper ballots and corrected and rectified in the vote counts.
Can confirm that the article doesn't seem to remotely reflect what MrEd seems to be alleging. In fact it makes the possibility that Clinton should have won Michigan more likely.
Think MrEd is showing his true colours now with all this disinformation. A pity really.
Err no @Kamski and I was just about to write back to Alex so @Alex for you as well.
@Alex, the polling director states in there that votes were recounted erroneously by the electronic machines when they were re-fed into the piece. But you are right when I said that the entire precinct would be rejected out of the recount, it was just that the existing figures would be used.
@kamski you are being misleading in implying there was no poll discrepancy in Detroit. The article makes very clear that these precincts had more votes counted than people who signed the polling register which is why they were ineligible. Detroit’s polling director admits in that articles that votes were counted twice. So stop trying to mislead people that there was not a polling miscount in Detroit.
Morning all. Thank you David for the tip. I think 50/1 is good enough for Pete but I wouldn't go much shorter than this. I think there is no way KH would allow herself to be pushed out of the way for the Presidency and, if Joe B steps down before, she is automatically in the driving seat.
Now for the hand grenade. Apologies if this was posted before and some of you may now this already. Anyway re the counts.
One misnomer about US elections is that voters get to choose which electors are sent to the Electoral College. Actually they don't. It the state legislatures in each state. The Supreme Court has been specific on this and it has also been specific that the authority lies with the state legislatures, not the Supreme Courts of each state or the Governor or the Secretary of State.
The US Supreme Court has ruled explicitly post-2016 that electors cannot be faithless and must abide by the rulings of the state legislature.
Normally, this wouldn't matter as it is a case of procedure. This year it could come very much into play. The state legislatures of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia are all Republican led.
There is one scenario where the state legislatures in each state simply refuse to accept the results, claiming that there has been electoral fraud and appoints its own electors under mandate. This is why the fact that the RNC and the Republican Establishment have lined up behind Trump is important. It suggests the Republican machinery is set to fight.
Would this be catastrophic? Yes Undemocratic? Yes (but there are legitimate questions over the way elections have been run in the cities) Is it possible? Also yes.
Which is why the narrative (in Republican politicians and media) is still key to what happens next. Not the counting.
From the Politico article. Mark Levin, a right-wing radio host with a penchant for hysteria, urged Republican-controlled state legislatures to ignore the results of their state elections and send electors who will vote for Trump in the Electoral College. His missive was retweeted by the Republican Party’s top spokesperson.
Interesting question: If Republican-controlled state legislatures ignored the results of their state elections and sent electors to vote for Trump in the Electoral College, which nations would recognise Trump as President? Obviously Russia would. But France, Germany, Canada, UK?
EDIT: PS It's not going to happen.
Of course it isn't, as it would take the US to near civil war, it is only a few hotheads even suggesting it
You mean, like folk suggesting invading Scotland or Spain?
No I do not mean that, defence of British territory in Gibraltar from a Spanish invasion would not be a civil war for starters and Scotland is less than a 10th of the UK population, the last US civil war split the entire southern US against the northern US in a similar way to this election has largely split the southern and border and plains state Trump voting US from the Northern and Western US
So Northern Ireland wasn't a civil war?
Within Northern Ireland arguably yes not within the wider UK
You might want to talk to folk in London. Or Manchester. Or Warrington. Or Shrewsbury. Or Yorkshire. Or St Albans. Or Birmingham. Or Glasgow.
Of those killed in the Troubles only 125 were in England but 1541 were killed in Belfast, 477 in Armagh and 340 in Tyrone and 243 in Down and 227 in Derry and 209 in Antrim.
Yet England has a population over 20 times that of Northern Ireland, as I said it was a civil war arguably within Northern Ireland, not within mainland GB, apart from the odd terrorist attack here but not launched by GB residents
Rather more than a few of those killed in NI were from England, Wales, and Scotland.
The vast majority of those killed in NI lived permanently in NI, the fact some of their ancestors may have migrated there from Scotland in the 17th century does not change that and British troops killed in Northern Ireland were on service during the civil war in Northern Ireland they were not with a few exceptions killed in mainland GB.
"UK" troops, you mean.
Well, where did most of them come from?
That's a bit like saying that the Americans didn't take part in WW2 because EDIT (a few Japanese bombs from balloons apart, IIRC, or was that Canada?) nobody was killed by enemy action on the US mainland .
Correct me if I'm wrong but was there a time around 3:00am GMT on Wednesday when people were seriously wondering if Biden would hold VA?
I think it was just before I went to bed 'knowing' that Trump had somehow won again.
IIRC Mr Ed was behind ramping that theory as well.
I must confess I was stunned when I first looked at the numbers on Wednesday morning and saw Trump was leading PA by 14 points but as soon as I remembered the mail-in ballots hadn't been counted there and elsewhere, I was much more relaxed.
Somebody put up a tweet on Monday claiming Trump would need at least a 16-point cushion to offset the mail-in ballots.
On an aside, I was just skimming the State results to find the biggest swing - step forward New York which Clinton won by 22 but Biden has only won by 13 which would be a 4.5% swing to the current POTUS. Oddly enough, that's not because of a big increase in the Trump vote numbers which, at about 2.85 million are about the same as 2016 but nearly 800,000 fewer votes for Biden than Clinton obtained. She got 4.5 million he's still under 3.7 million.
I've not looked at other states in details yet but I put that one into the pot.
A final aside - the strongest pro-Trump state was Wyoming, the strongest pro-Biden state (apart from DC) was Vermont and only 14 states were won or lost by margins of less than 10 points.
Some potentially very good news on the COVID (and SARS & MERS???) front.
The S2 sub-unit of the spike protein (S1 helps with viral attachment to the human cell, S2 with cell entry of the virion) of the common cold human coronaviruses varies very little with that of the COVID-causing virus, SARS-CoV-2. In adults, a few have antibody cross-reactivity between antibodies to those coronavirus common colds and SARS-CoV-2, but this is markedly increased (as high as 50%) in children ages 1-16. The thought is that this may stop neither infection nor infectivity in these children, but does help explain why they are highly unlikely to progress to severe forms of the disease.
This has two implications: - those with this cross-reactivity are potentially protected against the disease, if not the infection; and - vaccines targeting the S2 sub-unit rather than the S1 sub-unit, might have broader benefit than just against COVID.
That's before mutant minky covid....
No, I think the implication is that the S2 sub-unit is way more stable, and hence vaccines targeted against it would have broader impact against more coronavirus strain, including those far more remote from the current COVID strain than the new mink strains.
It's increasingly blatant the purpose of many (though not all) of these cases is not to win. I mean, no lawyer could think this would win:
Paragraph 2 of the complaint alleges that plaintiff Ostegren was “excluded from the counting board during the absent voter ballot review process.” The complaint does not specify when, where, or by whom plaintiff was excluded. Nor does the complaint provide any details about why the alleged exclusion occurred.
Or not realise this:
Moreover, even if the requested relief could issue against the Secretary of State, the Court notes that the complaint and emergency motion were not filed until approximately 4:00 p.m. on November 4, 2020—despite being announced to various media outlets much earlier in the day. By the time this action was filed, the votes had largely been counted, and the counting is now complete. Accordingly, and even assuming the requested relief were available against the Secretary of State—and overlooking the problems with the factual and evidentiary record noted above—the matter is now moot, as it is impossible to issue the requested relief.
I'm no lawyer, especially an american one, but as issues of logic and fact it doesn't seem anyone filing such a case could think it would succeed.
Amidst all the talk of pensioners for Biden in the end it reverted to type with Trump winning over 65s 51% to 48% for Biden while under 30s voted 62% Biden and 35% Trump.
Biden also won 52% of 30 to 44s and 50% of 45 to 64s.
So once again as in most of the West the most consistent votes for the conservative candidate came from the elderly
Morning all. Thank you David for the tip. I think 50/1 is good enough for Pete but I wouldn't go much shorter than this. I think there is no way KH would allow herself to be pushed out of the way for the Presidency and, if Joe B steps down before, she is automatically in the driving seat.
Now for the hand grenade. Apologies if this was posted before and some of you may now this already. Anyway re the counts.
One misnomer about US elections is that voters get to choose which electors are sent to the Electoral College. Actually they don't. It the state legislatures in each state. The Supreme Court has been specific on this and it has also been specific that the authority lies with the state legislatures, not the Supreme Courts of each state or the Governor or the Secretary of State.
The US Supreme Court has ruled explicitly post-2016 that electors cannot be faithless and must abide by the rulings of the state legislature.
Normally, this wouldn't matter as it is a case of procedure. This year it could come very much into play. The state legislatures of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia are all Republican led.
There is one scenario where the state legislatures in each state simply refuse to accept the results, claiming that there has been electoral fraud and appoints its own electors under mandate. This is why the fact that the RNC and the Republican Establishment have lined up behind Trump is important. It suggests the Republican machinery is set to fight.
Would this be catastrophic? Yes Undemocratic? Yes (but there are legitimate questions over the way elections have been run in the cities) Is it possible? Also yes.
"Legitimate questions" my arse.
The only legitimate questions I see are around the outrageous voter suppression by Republicans.
Plus I suspect republican majority state legislatures are quite happy to be in power, and Trump no longer to be president. I realise the republican party are basically a criminal organisation - and I'm glad you seem to be admitting this now, but I don't think it's a realistic option, just a fantasy in Trump's head.
I posted on here yesterday the key reason why HRC didn’t do a recount in Michigan in 2016 even though she was a few thousand behind was that a large number of precincts in Detroit had posted voter numbers that were in excess of their registered voters, and Michigan state law doesn’t allow precincts to be included in a recount where that happens. The explanation given was that a number of the ballot machines failed on the day and the feeders they fed the votes into erroneously duplicated a number of ballots.
Nothing was investigated further becauSe it didn’t matter to the final results but there were a number of obvious questions around that not least why election feeding machines, which should have been tested rigorously by the manufacturer before the distributors to cope with high volumes and election style processing, started to malfunction on the day.
There is a reason why so many American shows feature corrupt local politicians and why so many local politicians in the States have gone to jail for fraud etc
This doesn't make sense - re: no recount in 2016. It's not that certain votes would be excluded from the recount, and her vote would therefore go down (obviously - otherwise had she won by a few thousand then Trump could have had a recount and won the race!). It's just that the numbers for those counties wouldn't change. So a recount wouldn't have disadvantaged her if it had happened (which i think is what you are implying - apologies if wrong).
Hi Alex, the issue is that the whole precinct’s votes are excluded from a recount if this occurs so her overall numbers would have fallen given these were heavily Democrat wards. So it’s very unlikely she would have won while raising questions over what had happened.
Hi Mr Ed - I think you must be wrong - you are misunderstanding what "excluded from the recount" means. It means "won't be counted again" ie. "won't be changed". It doesn't mean "the count will be redone, as if those votes didn't exist". This is obvious if you think about it for a brief moment.
Any other interpretation (ie. yours) would mean that there would be no way that a recount could give the same result as a count. If a recount isn't expected to give the same result, then the original results couldn't be certified as accurate. You are suggesting that Hillary's vote would have gone down (because of where the votes with the issue were located ie. Hillary voting counties). But supposing she had WON the state! The implication would be that Trump could have demanded a recount knowing that her vote would go down and therefore he would likely win. Clearly there is no way that this could be correct and the law cannot mean what you think it means.
Hi @Alex, here’s the link to the article . It looks pretty clear but maybe I have misinterpreted
Hi Mr Ed - article seems to say exactly what i said. The discrepancies wouldn't/couldn't have been resolved by a recount, so there would be no recount (of those particular ballots). The numbers wouldn't have been excluded. They just wouldn't have changed. Clinton thought that something had gone wrong with the machines. She thought that if a recount had happened (and was able to happen) then huge numbers of errors (in her favour) would possibly have been discovered (not because of "fraud" but just because the technology was so old and outdated). But there was absolutely no point if a recount of the affected ballots simply wasn't possible.
There has been lots of criticism of electronic voting and counting machines in the US because of the lack of audit trails to link the results to underlying paper ballots. I've read that what happened in 2016 was the final straw, and US states have finally begun investing in new technology to avoid this happening in the future. The machines used in 2020 were on the whole far newer, modern and the problems that happened in 2016 could not be repeated. Or at least if problems did occur, they could be linked to paper ballots and corrected and rectified in the vote counts.
Can confirm that the article doesn't seem to remotely reflect what MrEd seems to be alleging. In fact it makes the possibility that Clinton should have won Michigan more likely.
Think MrEd is showing his true colours now with all this disinformation. A pity really.
It is the Ted Cruz/Hannity deep end of the GOP sadly
People have not had much good to say about Trump in recent times, well ever actually, but his generous contributions to the legal profession really shouldn't be overlooked.
He really has been a boost for the legal profession over there. Maybe he should come to this country
Morning all. Thank you David for the tip. I think 50/1 is good enough for Pete but I wouldn't go much shorter than this. I think there is no way KH would allow herself to be pushed out of the way for the Presidency and, if Joe B steps down before, she is automatically in the driving seat.
Now for the hand grenade. Apologies if this was posted before and some of you may now this already. Anyway re the counts.
One misnomer about US elections is that voters get to choose which electors are sent to the Electoral College. Actually they don't. It the state legislatures in each state. The Supreme Court has been specific on this and it has also been specific that the authority lies with the state legislatures, not the Supreme Courts of each state or the Governor or the Secretary of State.
The US Supreme Court has ruled explicitly post-2016 that electors cannot be faithless and must abide by the rulings of the state legislature.
Normally, this wouldn't matter as it is a case of procedure. This year it could come very much into play. The state legislatures of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia are all Republican led.
There is one scenario where the state legislatures in each state simply refuse to accept the results, claiming that there has been electoral fraud and appoints its own electors under mandate. This is why the fact that the RNC and the Republican Establishment have lined up behind Trump is important. It suggests the Republican machinery is set to fight.
Would this be catastrophic? Yes Undemocratic? Yes (but there are legitimate questions over the way elections have been run in the cities) Is it possible? Also yes.
Which is why the narrative (in Republican politicians and media) is still key to what happens next. Not the counting.
From the Politico article. Mark Levin, a right-wing radio host with a penchant for hysteria, urged Republican-controlled state legislatures to ignore the results of their state elections and send electors who will vote for Trump in the Electoral College. His missive was retweeted by the Republican Party’s top spokesperson.
Interesting question: If Republican-controlled state legislatures ignored the results of their state elections and sent electors to vote for Trump in the Electoral College, which nations would recognise Trump as President? Obviously Russia would. But France, Germany, Canada, UK?
EDIT: PS It's not going to happen.
Of course it isn't, as it would take the US to near civil war, it is only a few hotheads even suggesting it
You mean, like folk suggesting invading Scotland or Spain?
No I do not mean that, defence of British territory in Gibraltar from a Spanish invasion would not be a civil war for starters and Scotland is less than a 10th of the UK population, the last US civil war split the entire southern US against the northern US in a similar way to this election has largely split the southern and border and plains state Trump voting US from the Northern and Western US
So Northern Ireland wasn't a civil war?
Within Northern Ireland arguably yes not within the wider UK
You might want to talk to folk in London. Or Manchester. Or Warrington. Or Shrewsbury. Or Yorkshire. Or St Albans. Or Birmingham. Or Glasgow.
Of those killed in the Troubles only 125 were in England but 1541 were killed in Belfast, 477 in Armagh and 340 in Tyrone and 243 in Down and 227 in Derry and 209 in Antrim.
Yet England has a population over 20 times that of Northern Ireland, as I said it was a civil war arguably within Northern Ireland, not within mainland GB, apart from the odd terrorist attack here but not launched by GB residents
Rather more than a few of those killed in NI were from England, Wales, and Scotland.
The vast majority of those killed in NI lived permanently in NI, the fact some of their ancestors may have migrated there from Scotland in the 17th century does not change that and British troops killed in Northern Ireland were on service during the civil war in Northern Ireland they were not with a few exceptions killed in mainland GB.
"UK" troops, you mean.
Well, where did most of them come from?
That's a bit like saying that the Americans didn't take part in WW2 because EDIT (a few Japanese bombs from balloons apart, IIRC, or was that Canada?) nobody was killed by enemy action on the US mainland .
The American people should never forgive the GOP for stoking this fraud meme. When the Democrats are in power they should push this home. Republicans aren't to be trusted.
But in a way it's a fantastic spectacle. Trump's extremists don't represent the majority even in the GOP. He underperformed his Senators. A liability. A loser. Now post-election the situation is getting 1000x worse for the party. He's driving away more and more mainstream Republicans.
He's also not doing any favours for the party in the Georgia runoffs.
Morning all. Thank you David for the tip. I think 50/1 is good enough for Pete but I wouldn't go much shorter than this. I think there is no way KH would allow herself to be pushed out of the way for the Presidency and, if Joe B steps down before, she is automatically in the driving seat.
Now for the hand grenade. Apologies if this was posted before and some of you may now this already. Anyway re the counts.
One misnomer about US elections is that voters get to choose which electors are sent to the Electoral College. Actually they don't. It the state legislatures in each state. The Supreme Court has been specific on this and it has also been specific that the authority lies with the state legislatures, not the Supreme Courts of each state or the Governor or the Secretary of State.
The US Supreme Court has ruled explicitly post-2016 that electors cannot be faithless and must abide by the rulings of the state legislature.
Normally, this wouldn't matter as it is a case of procedure. This year it could come very much into play. The state legislatures of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia are all Republican led.
There is one scenario where the state legislatures in each state simply refuse to accept the results, claiming that there has been electoral fraud and appoints its own electors under mandate. This is why the fact that the RNC and the Republican Establishment have lined up behind Trump is important. It suggests the Republican machinery is set to fight.
Would this be catastrophic? Yes Undemocratic? Yes (but there are legitimate questions over the way elections have been run in the cities) Is it possible? Also yes.
"Legitimate questions" my arse.
The only legitimate questions I see are around the outrageous voter suppression by Republicans.
Plus I suspect republican majority state legislatures are quite happy to be in power, and Trump no longer to be president. I realise the republican party are basically a criminal organisation - and I'm glad you seem to be admitting this now, but I don't think it's a realistic option, just a fantasy in Trump's head.
I posted on here yesterday the key reason why HRC didn’t do a recount in Michigan in 2016 even though she was a few thousand behind was that a large number of precincts in Detroit had posted voter numbers that were in excess of their registered voters, and Michigan state law doesn’t allow precincts to be included in a recount where that happens. The explanation given was that a number of the ballot machines failed on the day and the feeders they fed the votes into erroneously duplicated a number of ballots.
Nothing was investigated further becauSe it didn’t matter to the final results but there were a number of obvious questions around that not least why election feeding machines, which should have been tested rigorously by the manufacturer before the distributors to cope with high volumes and election style processing, started to malfunction on the day.
There is a reason why so many American shows feature corrupt local politicians and why so many local politicians in the States have gone to jail for fraud etc
This doesn't make sense - re: no recount in 2016. It's not that certain votes would be excluded from the recount, and her vote would therefore go down (obviously - otherwise had she won by a few thousand then Trump could have had a recount and won the race!). It's just that the numbers for those counties wouldn't change. So a recount wouldn't have disadvantaged her if it had happened (which i think is what you are implying - apologies if wrong).
Hi Alex, the issue is that the whole precinct’s votes are excluded from a recount if this occurs so her overall numbers would have fallen given these were heavily Democrat wards. So it’s very unlikely she would have won while raising questions over what had happened.
Hi Mr Ed - I think you must be wrong - you are misunderstanding what "excluded from the recount" means. It means "won't be counted again" ie. "won't be changed". It doesn't mean "the count will be redone, as if those votes didn't exist". This is obvious if you think about it for a brief moment.
Any other interpretation (ie. yours) would mean that there would be no way that a recount could give the same result as a count. If a recount isn't expected to give the same result, then the original results couldn't be certified as accurate. You are suggesting that Hillary's vote would have gone down (because of where the votes with the issue were located ie. Hillary voting counties). But supposing she had WON the state! The implication would be that Trump could have demanded a recount knowing that her vote would go down and therefore he would likely win. Clearly there is no way that this could be correct and the law cannot mean what you think it means.
Hi @Alex, here’s the link to the article . It looks pretty clear but maybe I have misinterpreted
Hi Mr Ed - article seems to say exactly what i said. The discrepancies wouldn't/couldn't have been resolved by a recount, so there would be no recount (of those particular ballots). The numbers wouldn't have been excluded. They just wouldn't have changed. Clinton thought that something had gone wrong with the machines. She thought that if a recount had happened (and was able to happen) then huge numbers of errors (in her favour) would possibly have been discovered (not because of "fraud" but just because the technology was so old and outdated). But there was absolutely no point if a recount of the affected ballots simply wasn't possible.
There has been lots of criticism of electronic voting and counting machines in the US because of the lack of audit trails to link the results to underlying paper ballots. I've read that what happened in 2016 was the final straw, and US states have finally begun investing in new technology to avoid this happening in the future. The machines used in 2020 were on the whole far newer, modern and the problems that happened in 2016 could not be repeated. Or at least if problems did occur, they could be linked to paper ballots and corrected and rectified in the vote counts.
Can confirm that the article doesn't seem to remotely reflect what MrEd seems to be alleging. In fact it makes the possibility that Clinton should have won Michigan more likely.
Think MrEd is showing his true colours now with all this disinformation. A pity really.
It is the Ted Cruz/Hannity deep end of the GOP sadly
Of course while Trump was the hard right candidate in the GOP primaries this year against the moderate William Weld, in 2016 Trump was actually the more moderate of the final two when compared to Cruz who makes Barry Goldwater look like a liberal
Correct me if I'm wrong but was there a time around 3:00am GMT on Wednesday when people were seriously wondering if Biden would hold VA?
I think it was just before I went to bed 'knowing' that Trump had somehow won again.
IIRC Mr Ed was behind ramping that theory as well.
I must confess I was stunned when I first looked at the numbers on Wednesday morning and saw Trump was leading PA by 14 points but as soon as I remembered the mail-in ballots hadn't been counted there and elsewhere, I was much more relaxed.
Somebody put up a tweet on Monday claiming Trump would need at least a 16-point cushion to offset the mail-in ballots.
On an aside, I was just skimming the State results to find the biggest swing - step forward New York which Clinton won by 22 but Biden has only won by 13 which would be a 4.5% swing to the current POTUS. Oddly enough, that's not because of a big increase in the Trump vote numbers which, at about 2.85 million are about the same as 2016 but nearly 800,000 fewer votes for Biden than Clinton obtained. She got 4.5 million he's still under 3.7 million.
I've not looked at other states in details yet but I put that one into the pot.
A final aside - the strongest pro-Trump state was Wyoming, the strongest pro-Biden state (apart from DC) was Vermont and only 14 states were won or lost by margins of less than 10 points.
I don't think you've ever mentioned it but it's the single most important reason why 47% of people voted for Trump, the oldies especially.
31% of Americans are in it. 50%+ own stocks and shares and Trump hammered it home in the final weeks. Vote me, you vote the stock market, you vote your pension. Vote 'socialist' Biden and you lose all that. You lose your 401(k).
Morning all. Thank you David for the tip. I think 50/1 is good enough for Pete but I wouldn't go much shorter than this. I think there is no way KH would allow herself to be pushed out of the way for the Presidency and, if Joe B steps down before, she is automatically in the driving seat.
Now for the hand grenade. Apologies if this was posted before and some of you may now this already. Anyway re the counts.
One misnomer about US elections is that voters get to choose which electors are sent to the Electoral College. Actually they don't. It the state legislatures in each state. The Supreme Court has been specific on this and it has also been specific that the authority lies with the state legislatures, not the Supreme Courts of each state or the Governor or the Secretary of State.
The US Supreme Court has ruled explicitly post-2016 that electors cannot be faithless and must abide by the rulings of the state legislature.
Normally, this wouldn't matter as it is a case of procedure. This year it could come very much into play. The state legislatures of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia are all Republican led.
There is one scenario where the state legislatures in each state simply refuse to accept the results, claiming that there has been electoral fraud and appoints its own electors under mandate. This is why the fact that the RNC and the Republican Establishment have lined up behind Trump is important. It suggests the Republican machinery is set to fight.
Would this be catastrophic? Yes Undemocratic? Yes (but there are legitimate questions over the way elections have been run in the cities) Is it possible? Also yes.
Which is why the narrative (in Republican politicians and media) is still key to what happens next. Not the counting.
From the Politico article. Mark Levin, a right-wing radio host with a penchant for hysteria, urged Republican-controlled state legislatures to ignore the results of their state elections and send electors who will vote for Trump in the Electoral College. His missive was retweeted by the Republican Party’s top spokesperson.
Interesting question: If Republican-controlled state legislatures ignored the results of their state elections and sent electors to vote for Trump in the Electoral College, which nations would recognise Trump as President? Obviously Russia would. But France, Germany, Canada, UK?
EDIT: PS It's not going to happen.
Of course it isn't, as it would take the US to near civil war, it is only a few hotheads even suggesting it
You mean, like folk suggesting invading Scotland or Spain?
No I do not mean that, defence of British territory in Gibraltar from a Spanish invasion would not be a civil war for starters and Scotland is less than a 10th of the UK population, the last US civil war split the entire southern US against the northern US in a similar way to this election has largely split the southern and border and plains state Trump voting US from the Northern and Western US
So Northern Ireland wasn't a civil war?
Within Northern Ireland arguably yes not within the wider UK
You might want to talk to folk in London. Or Manchester. Or Warrington. Or Shrewsbury. Or Yorkshire. Or St Albans. Or Birmingham. Or Glasgow.
Of those killed in the Troubles only 125 were in England but 1541 were killed in Belfast, 477 in Armagh and 340 in Tyrone and 243 in Down and 227 in Derry and 209 in Antrim.
Yet England has a population over 20 times that of Northern Ireland, as I said it was a civil war arguably within Northern Ireland, not within mainland GB, apart from the odd terrorist attack here but not launched by GB residents
Rather more than a few of those killed in NI were from England, Wales, and Scotland.
The vast majority of those killed in NI lived permanently in NI, the fact some of their ancestors may have migrated there from Scotland in the 17th century does not change that and British troops killed in Northern Ireland were on service during the civil war in Northern Ireland they were not with a few exceptions killed in mainland GB.
"UK" troops, you mean.
Well, where did most of them come from?
That's a bit like saying that the Americans didn't take part in WW2 because EDIT (a few Japanese bombs from balloons apart, IIRC, or was that Canada?) nobody was killed by enemy action on the US mainland .
WW2 was not a second US civil war either
No - but I was more concerned with the parallel to your argument that non-Irish UK subjects killed in NI don't count.
Richard Tice still pushing the 'we must be more like Sweden' line on Any Questions.
People will until the end of time, and there may be elements to be more like them, but 8 months in we still haven't gotten to the point of people talking about real Sweden vs fantasy Sweden yet.
I don't think you've ever mentioned it but it's the single most important reason why 47% of people voted for Trump, the oldies especially.
31% of Americans are in it. 50%+ own stocks and shares and Trump hammered it home in the final weeks. Vote me, you vote the stock market, you vote your pension. Vote 'socialist' Biden and you lose all that. You lose your 401(k).
Very difficult to vote against your own future.
Have a good afternoon y'all.
And then the US stockmarket rose 8% when Trump lost! So it was all BS anyway
Correct me if I'm wrong but was there a time around 3:00am GMT on Wednesday when people were seriously wondering if Biden would hold VA?
I think it was just before I went to bed 'knowing' that Trump had somehow won again.
IIRC Mr Ed was behind ramping that theory as well.
Virginia is really not a swing state anymore. On the other side of the aisle Ohio isn't looking particularly swingy either.
Significant demographic overspill from DC in the north of the state. Such that those who live in the more rural/hilly south talk about the north as if it were a different state
Amidst all the talk of pensioners for Biden in the end it reverted to type with Trump winning over 65s 51% to 48% for Biden while under 30s voted 62% Biden and 35% Trump.
Biden also won 52% of 30 to 44s and 50% of 45 to 64s.
So once again as in most of the West the most consistent votes for the conservative candidate came from the elderly
The American people should never forgive the GOP for stoking this fraud meme. When the Democrats are in power they should push this home. Republicans aren't to be trusted.
But in a way it's a fantastic spectacle. Trump's extremists don't represent the majority even in the GOP. He underperformed his Senators. A liability. A loser. Now post-election the situation is getting 1000x worse for the party. He's driving away more and more mainstream Republicans.
He's also not doing any favours for the party in the Georgia runoffs.
I’ve posted this up before to @Wulfrun_Phil and @kamski (and it should also be for @Pulpstar), it’s not just one side that pushes the election fraud issue or is happy to claim that elections were stolen or rigged:
Amidst all the talk of pensioners for Biden in the end it reverted to type with Trump winning over 65s 51% to 48% for Biden while under 30s voted 62% Biden and 35% Trump.
Biden also won 52% of 30 to 44s and 50% of 45 to 64s.
So once again as in most of the West the most consistent votes for the conservative candidate came from the elderly
Interestingly the "conservative" Trump wins only 51% of the over-65s while Johnson won 64% in the same demographic in the UK.
Hypothetically, the Conservatives winning only 51% of the over-65 votes would see them defeated as I imagine the post-65 cohort is a significant part of those who vote.
The American people should never forgive the GOP for stoking this fraud meme. When the Democrats are in power they should push this home. Republicans aren't to be trusted.
But in a way it's a fantastic spectacle. Trump's extremists don't represent the majority even in the GOP. He underperformed his Senators. A liability. A loser. Now post-election the situation is getting 1000x worse for the party. He's driving away more and more mainstream Republicans.
He's also not doing any favours for the party in the Georgia runoffs.
Absolutely, I never particularly liked Trump - thought him a crass, incompetent dullard etc. - but his behaviour in recent days has rammed home why the man is the frightening danger that many have been saying.
I don't think you've ever mentioned it but it's the single most important reason why 47% of people voted for Trump, the oldies especially.
31% of Americans are in it. 50%+ own stocks and shares and Trump hammered it home in the final weeks. Vote me, you vote the stock market, you vote your pension. Vote 'socialist' Biden and you lose all that. You lose your 401(k).
Very difficult to vote against your own future.
Have a good afternoon y'all.
And then the US stockmarket rose 8% when Trump lost! So it was all BS anyway
A lot of the US market is tech. If you look at ex-tech, it’s not really been that great a performer.
Funnily enough from a business perspective, the election result is probably a good positive - Trump out so China relations improve (and helps Tech) but the radical Democrat agenda clearly damaged
Correct me if I'm wrong but was there a time around 3:00am GMT on Wednesday when people were seriously wondering if Biden would hold VA?
I think it was just before I went to bed 'knowing' that Trump had somehow won again.
IIRC Mr Ed was behind ramping that theory as well.
I must confess I was stunned when I first looked at the numbers on Wednesday morning and saw Trump was leading PA by 14 points but as soon as I remembered the mail-in ballots hadn't been counted there and elsewhere, I was much more relaxed.
Somebody put up a tweet on Monday claiming Trump would need at least a 16-point cushion to offset the mail-in ballots.
On an aside, I was just skimming the State results to find the biggest swing - step forward New York which Clinton won by 22 but Biden has only won by 13 which would be a 4.5% swing to the current POTUS. Oddly enough, that's not because of a big increase in the Trump vote numbers which, at about 2.85 million are about the same as 2016 but nearly 800,000 fewer votes for Biden than Clinton obtained. She got 4.5 million he's still under 3.7 million.
I've not looked at other states in details yet but I put that one into the pot.
A final aside - the strongest pro-Trump state was Wyoming, the strongest pro-Biden state (apart from DC) was Vermont and only 14 states were won or lost by margins of less than 10 points.
On an aside, I was just skimming the State results to find the biggest swing - step forward New York which Clinton won by 22 but Biden has only won by 13 which would be a 4.5% swing to the current POTUS. Oddly enough, that's not because of a big increase in the Trump vote numbers which, at about 2.85 million are about the same as 2016 but nearly 800,000 fewer votes for Biden than Clinton obtained. She got 4.5 million he's still under 3.7 million.
It may be that as final ballots come in the Biden number will increase but for him to be down on what Clinton won in 2016 against a backdrop of a larger number of votes overall seems curious.
Correct me if I'm wrong but was there a time around 3:00am GMT on Wednesday when people were seriously wondering if Biden would hold VA?
I think it was just before I went to bed 'knowing' that Trump had somehow won again.
IIRC Mr Ed was behind ramping that theory as well.
I must confess I was stunned when I first looked at the numbers on Wednesday morning and saw Trump was leading PA by 14 points but as soon as I remembered the mail-in ballots hadn't been counted there and elsewhere, I was much more relaxed.
Somebody put up a tweet on Monday claiming Trump would need at least a 16-point cushion to offset the mail-in ballots.
On an aside, I was just skimming the State results to find the biggest swing - step forward New York which Clinton won by 22 but Biden has only won by 13 which would be a 4.5% swing to the current POTUS. Oddly enough, that's not because of a big increase in the Trump vote numbers which, at about 2.85 million are about the same as 2016 but nearly 800,000 fewer votes for Biden than Clinton obtained. She got 4.5 million he's still under 3.7 million.
I've not looked at other states in details yet but I put that one into the pot.
A final aside - the strongest pro-Trump state was Wyoming, the strongest pro-Biden state (apart from DC) was Vermont and only 14 states were won or lost by margins of less than 10 points.
I don't think you've ever mentioned it but it's the single most important reason why 47% of people voted for Trump, the oldies especially.
31% of Americans are in it. 50%+ own stocks and shares and Trump hammered it home in the final weeks. Vote me, you vote the stock market, you vote your pension. Vote 'socialist' Biden and you lose all that. You lose your 401(k).
Very difficult to vote against your own future.
Have a good afternoon y'all.
And then the US stockmarket rose 8% when Trump lost! So it was all BS anyway
A lot of the US market is tech. If you look at ex-tech, it’s not really been that great a performer.
Funnily enough from a business perspective, the election result is probably a good positive - Trump out so China relations improve (and helps Tech) but the radical Democrat agenda clearly damaged
Afternoon all ... The truth is the Democrats have a big in-built advantage within the EC and, as 2020 has shown, don't need Texas or Florida to win but if they can secure one or both of those along with Ohio, the Republicans are effectively shut out. ...
Can you explain what you mean by this?
As far as I can work out from my best guess of the results, the tipping point state will end up having a Biden lead of ~2pp, compared to a national vote lead of ~4pp.
That's a pretty large in-built advantage for the Republicans isn't it?
Amidst all the talk of pensioners for Biden in the end it reverted to type with Trump winning over 65s 51% to 48% for Biden while under 30s voted 62% Biden and 35% Trump.
Biden also won 52% of 30 to 44s and 50% of 45 to 64s.
So once again as in most of the West the most consistent votes for the conservative candidate came from the elderly
Interestingly the "conservative" Trump wins only 51% of the over-65s while Johnson won 64% in the same demographic in the UK.
Hypothetically, the Conservatives winning only 51% of the over-65 votes would see them defeated as I imagine the post-65 cohort is a significant part of those who vote.
The Tories also beat Labour 49% to 27% with 55 to 64s and 46% to 28% with 45 to 54s while Trump lost all age brackets to Biden under 65 (albeit only losing 45 to 64s to Biden by 49% to 50%).
"It’s a long time since any one-term US president declined to seek re-election – you have to go back into the 19th century (the precise instance is definitional) – but it has to be a realistic possibility. "
According to HYUFD'S definition of presidential term, LBJ was a first term President who did not fight the 1968 presidential election. His term as President from Nov 63 to Jan 65 was his zeroth term as he only took over (I know, not my definition!). OK you could claim that he did try to seek reelection, but dropped out at an early stage, but if so that waters down the definition of "seeking re-election" a lot. By that definition Carfly Fiorina seeked election for president in 2016.
It's actually kinda similar, except: There wasn't a president openly trying to commit a coup at the time. Hillary accepted the results. Were you saying at the time that they probably had a point?
On an aside, I was just skimming the State results to find the biggest swing - step forward New York which Clinton won by 22 but Biden has only won by 13 which would be a 4.5% swing to the current POTUS. Oddly enough, that's not because of a big increase in the Trump vote numbers which, at about 2.85 million are about the same as 2016 but nearly 800,000 fewer votes for Biden than Clinton obtained. She got 4.5 million he's still under 3.7 million.
It may be that as final ballots come in the Biden number will increase but for him to be down on what Clinton won in 2016 against a backdrop of a larger number of votes overall seems curious.
Too early to say. 16% still to count. If they split proportionally Bide will end up on 4.9m.
The American people should never forgive the GOP for stoking this fraud meme. When the Democrats are in power they should push this home. Republicans aren't to be trusted.
But in a way it's a fantastic spectacle. Trump's extremists don't represent the majority even in the GOP. He underperformed his Senators. A liability. A loser. Now post-election the situation is getting 1000x worse for the party. He's driving away more and more mainstream Republicans.
He's also not doing any favours for the party in the Georgia runoffs.
Absolutely, I never particularly liked Trump - thought him a crass, incompetent dullard etc. - but his behaviour in recent days has rammed home why the man is the frightening danger that many have been saying.
Trumpists who aim to bend the rules to defraud the electorate should henceforth be known as "banana republicans".
On an aside, I was just skimming the State results to find the biggest swing - step forward New York which Clinton won by 22 but Biden has only won by 13 which would be a 4.5% swing to the current POTUS. Oddly enough, that's not because of a big increase in the Trump vote numbers which, at about 2.85 million are about the same as 2016 but nearly 800,000 fewer votes for Biden than Clinton obtained. She got 4.5 million he's still under 3.7 million.
It may be that as final ballots come in the Biden number will increase but for him to be down on what Clinton won in 2016 against a backdrop of a larger number of votes overall seems curious.
Too early to say. 16% still to count. If they split proportionally Bide will end up on 4.9m.
Let's see how it looks by December.
They did have a lot of polling problems in NYC and, it’s possible the so-called flight out of Manhattan impacted voter counts. Odd though
It's actually kinda similar, except: There wasn't a president openly trying to commit a coup at the time. Hillary accepted the results. Were you saying at the time that they probably had a point?
I knew there would be a “it’s different” line...I’m saying that Hillary was looking for an excuse to recount and was actively looking at the fraud route in several states. She didn’t stamp her feet like Trump but it was clear she was also prepared to go down the legal route to overturn it if she could. She didn’t not because she was being magnanimous but because there was no route to her winning.
Comments
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/05/us-election-recount-michigan-donald-trump-hillary-clinton
Or present, in the case of @Dura_Ace .
You actually got me wandering around the VA map on DecisionDesk checking county by county. I think it was at that point I 'knew' the game was up for Biden.
Not your fault at all though: a combination of my tiredness, drunkeness and general lack of belief.
PS Please keep posting your 'alternative' views - it's what makes PB interesting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_Surprise_conspiracy_theory
There has been lots of criticism of electronic voting and counting machines in the US because of the lack of audit trails to link the results to underlying paper ballots. I've read that what happened in 2016 was the final straw, and US states have finally begun investing in new technology to avoid this happening in the future. The machines used in 2020 were on the whole far newer, modern and the problems that happened in 2016 could not be repeated. Or at least if problems did occur, they could be linked to paper ballots and corrected and rectified in the vote counts.
Or tractar as they say in the old country.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1325065549559291910?s=20
Thank you as always for the Saturday offering, @david_herdson, and as it's not about UK politics, there's plenty with which I agree.
The 2024 election is beset by even more imponderables than usual. I agree Biden wouldn't serve a second term and Harris looks poor value to be the Democrat nominee. I'm not convinced about Buttegieg either.
My "two against the field" for want of a better expression are both Governors - Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan and Michelle Lujan Grisham in New Mexico. Both end their terms in early 2023 and could then develop Presidential campaigns. I think the former, representing a still-marginal state, is the more interesting option.
I'm still concerned there is a strong streak of misogyny in America and white men, in particular, won't vote for a woman though we'll likely have a woman as VP next year so it's a start. However. both Whitmer and Grisham have a lot of other advantages and could be viable contenders.
If you want a ludicrous long-shot (probably not even in the betting), I'd offer Senator Kyrsten Sinema from Arizona. Why? She has a track record of supporting some Republican initiatives and would be much harder for a Republican to run against. That said, the Democrats would have to show more political maturity than has been the case recently to recognise Sinema might be the only chance they have to reach across into the GOP core and pick up votes in places like Iowa, Texas and Ohio.
The truth is the Democrats have a big in-built advantage within the EC and, as 2020 has shown, don't need Texas or Florida to win but if they can secure one or both of those along with Ohio, the Republicans are effectively shut out.
On the Republican side, the question is simply whether the ghost of Trump will pervade the primary campaign. IF it looks winnable, Pence is the obvious candidate but if it looks difficult, as Nixon did in 1964, he'll stand aside and let someone else lose.
I'd offer Rubio or Cotton as possible 2024 GOP contenders.
He's just reading things on twitter and regurgitating it without having any clue of electoral processes or what was ACTUALLY happening on the ground. No wonder he can't get any serious lawyers to stand up in court and argue on his behalf! They're all being laughed out of court.
He's probably asking his campaign staff why they can't send some people into the Republican dominated counting centres and add a few hundred thousand votes.
Maybe Trump will take notice... it is from Rasmussen after all
Think MrEd is showing his true colours now with all this disinformation. A pity really.
Well, he sucks, anyway.
'What about Trump. Was he born here?' 'Of course he was. He's an American'.......
It is well-known that it is the marxist loony fringe downtown Philly antifa activists who drive tractors.
https://twitter.com/ScottGottliebMD/status/1324789614222127105?s=19
@Alex, the polling director states in there that votes were recounted erroneously by the electronic machines when they were re-fed into the piece. But you are right when I said that the entire precinct would be rejected out of the recount, it was just that the existing figures would be used.
@kamski you are being misleading in implying there was no poll discrepancy in Detroit. The article makes very clear that these precincts had more votes counted than people who signed the polling register which is why they were ineligible. Detroit’s polling director admits in that articles that votes were counted twice. So stop trying to mislead people that there was not a polling miscount in Detroit.
Well, where did most of them come from?
That's a bit like saying that the Americans didn't take part in WW2 because EDIT (a few Japanese bombs from balloons apart, IIRC, or was that Canada?) nobody was killed by enemy action on the US mainland .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66AGQBZQHsE
Give him a lifetime ban before he ends the career of a fellow professional.
https://twitter.com/DillanMUFC/status/1325073964532723713
Somebody put up a tweet on Monday claiming Trump would need at least a 16-point cushion to offset the mail-in ballots.
On an aside, I was just skimming the State results to find the biggest swing - step forward New York which Clinton won by 22 but Biden has only won by 13 which would be a 4.5% swing to the current POTUS. Oddly enough, that's not because of a big increase in the Trump vote numbers which, at about 2.85 million are about the same as 2016 but nearly 800,000 fewer votes for Biden than Clinton obtained. She got 4.5 million he's still under 3.7 million.
I've not looked at other states in details yet but I put that one into the pot.
A final aside - the strongest pro-Trump state was Wyoming, the strongest pro-Biden state (apart from DC) was Vermont and only 14 states were won or lost by margins of less than 10 points.
https://twitter.com/shauntandon/status/1324891715468193794?s=19
Paragraph 2 of the complaint alleges that plaintiff Ostegren was “excluded from the counting board during the absent voter ballot review process.” The complaint does not specify when, where, or by whom plaintiff was excluded. Nor does the complaint provide any details about why the alleged exclusion occurred.
Or not realise this:
Moreover, even if the requested relief could issue against the Secretary of State, the Court notes that the complaint and emergency motion were not filed until approximately 4:00 p.m. on November 4, 2020—despite being announced to various media outlets much earlier in the day. By the time this action was filed, the votes had largely been counted, and the counting is now complete. Accordingly, and even assuming the requested relief were available against the Secretary of State—and overlooking the problems with the factual and evidentiary record noted above—the matter is now moot, as it is impossible to issue the requested relief.
I'm no lawyer, especially an american one, but as issues of logic and fact it doesn't seem anyone filing such a case could think it would succeed.
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/23/hillary-clinton-election-vote-recount-michigan-pennsylvania-wisconsin
I’m sure this was very different etc etc etc
I have one too, but I don't look dignified while wearing it.
Milwaukee 2016 414819
Wayne 2020 863382
Milwaukee 2020 458935
Biden also won 52% of 30 to 44s and 50% of 45 to 64s.
So once again as in most of the West the most consistent votes for the conservative candidate came from the elderly
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/exit-polls-president.html
(Just kidding)
But in a way it's a fantastic spectacle. Trump's extremists don't represent the majority even in the GOP. He underperformed his Senators. A liability. A loser. Now post-election the situation is getting 1000x worse for the party. He's driving away more and more mainstream Republicans.
He's also not doing any favours for the party in the Georgia runoffs.
https://www.google.com/search?q=new+york+election+results&rlz=1C1GCEB_enGB892GB892&oq=new+york+election+results&aqs=chrome..69i57j0i131i433j0l3j69i60l3.7806j1j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
but ABC has him at 4.23m
https://abcnews.go.com/Elections/2020-us-presidential-election-results-live-map
I don't think you've ever mentioned it but it's the single most important reason why 47% of people voted for Trump, the oldies especially.
31% of Americans are in it. 50%+ own stocks and shares and Trump hammered it home in the final weeks. Vote me, you vote the stock market, you vote your pension. Vote 'socialist' Biden and you lose all that. You lose your 401(k).
Very difficult to vote against your own future.
Have a good afternoon y'all.
https://twitter.com/kombiz/status/1325059234950770689?s=19
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/23/hillary-clinton-election-vote-recount-michigan-pennsylvania-wisconsin
Hypothetically, the Conservatives winning only 51% of the over-65 votes would see them defeated as I imagine the post-65 cohort is a significant part of those who vote.
https://twitter.com/davidcrookes/status/1325045778654572547
Funnily enough from a business perspective, the election result is probably a good positive - Trump out so China relations improve (and helps Tech) but the radical Democrat agenda clearly damaged
We need to wait until all the votes are counted before making comparisons to 2016.
Ditto for assessing the polls.
As far as I can work out from my best guess of the results, the tipping point state will end up having a Biden lead of ~2pp, compared to a national vote lead of ~4pp.
That's a pretty large in-built advantage for the Republicans isn't it?
The Tories also beat Labour 49% to 27% with 55 to 64s and 46% to 28% with 45 to 54s while Trump lost all age brackets to Biden under 65 (albeit only losing 45 to 64s to Biden by 49% to 50%).
https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/how-britain-voted-2019-election
According to HYUFD'S definition of presidential term, LBJ was a first term President who did not fight the 1968 presidential election. His term as President from Nov 63 to Jan 65 was his zeroth term as he only took over (I know, not my definition!). OK you could claim that he did try to seek reelection, but dropped out at an early stage, but if so that waters down the definition of "seeking re-election" a lot. By that definition Carfly Fiorina seeked election for president in 2016.
The big disappointment, for me, was the failure of yougovs mrp. I had high hopes for that.
There wasn't a president openly trying to commit a coup at the time.
Hillary accepted the results.
Were you saying at the time that they probably had a point?
Let's see how it looks by December.
The past tense in that last sentence is probably one of the reasons they are folding.
But of course that’s different.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2020/nov/06/us-election-joe-biden-donald-trump-result-latest-who-is-winning-live-2020-updates
... in a few minutes, but probably just for the golf course.