Vote.

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Alkarii
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Re: Vote.

Post by Alkarii »

Good thing the military surplus store my brother and I just checked out carries body armor. We'd still meed the ceramic plates, of course...
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jwhouk
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Re: Vote.

Post by jwhouk »

In a word, no.
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lake_wrangler
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Re: Vote.

Post by lake_wrangler »

Interesting stuff, right here... I hope it's not too late for those discovered discrepancies to stop the fraudulent election process until they can be ascertained.

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jwhouk
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Re: Vote.

Post by jwhouk »

Judge Stephanos Bibas (Trump Judicial Appointee) wrote:“Free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy. Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here.”
3rd court throws out Trump campaign appeal in fraud case

In short, saying that people didn’t vote for your candidate doesn’t make it unfair.
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Atomic
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Re: Vote.

Post by Atomic »

A professional pollster is curious.

For example:
Pollster wrote:9. "We are told that Biden won more votes nationally than any presidential candidate in history. But he won a record low of 17 percent of counties; he only won 524 counties, as opposed to the 873 counties Obama won in 2008. Yet, Biden somehow outdid Obama in total votes."
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TazManiac
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Re: Vote.

Post by TazManiac »

That's easy to understand if the Total Number of Voters this time around was a higher number....

I'm sorry to say that Mr. Trump was never going to be more than a one term train-wreck; he came, he laid waste, he's going to leave.

The damage is done, _someone_(s) have benefited. Yes; I am very cynical, but also realistic.
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Dave
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Re: Vote.

Post by Dave »

TazManiac wrote: Sun Nov 29, 2020 1:13 pm That's easy to understand if the Total Number of Voters this time around was a higher number....
Yup... that, and the fact that counties vary widely in their size and population. Losing a few percent of voters in a few small counties would have much less impact on the total vote, than an equivalent-percent increase in one or two much larger counties.

Occam's Razor suggests that a really effective "get out the vote" effort on the part of those opposed to Donald Trump, centered in certain counties with large populations, is the likely explanation. Some voter-registration drives, some community organizing to encourage all registered voters to actually vote, some convincing and well-funded pro-Biden ads targeted towards high-population markets in the state... that sort of thing.

I think they call it "democracy in action" (democracy with a little "d", that is).
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lake_wrangler
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Re: Vote.

Post by lake_wrangler »

At this point, with all the evidence showing up, I'd say it's no longer just a question of how much of a margin may have been obtained in one direction or the other, as much as the fact that the election has been so tainted, that we can't really tell how bad it really was and this election cannot really be trusted.

Is there any way to get a do-over?


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Dave
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Re: Vote.

Post by Dave »

lake_wrangler wrote: Sun Nov 29, 2020 11:39 pm At this point, with all the evidence showing up, I'd say it's no longer just a question of how much of a margin may have been obtained in one direction or the other, as much as the fact that the election has been so tainted, that we can't really tell how bad it really was and this election cannot really be trusted.

Is there any way to get a do-over?
Not under US law and the Constitution. There is no provision for discarding the results of the vote, and re-voting. The next "do-over" will be the 2024 election.

To authorize any such procedure for the 2020 election would require a Constitutional amendment, passed by Congress and then ratified by most of the States. That's very unlikely to happen, and certainly not before 20 January 2021... on which date the current President ceases to be President.

Under US law, any and all state votes which are formally certified by the respective states by December 8 are legally binding. Congress must accept the Electors from those states, and their Electoral votes... it has no choice.

The only way to challenge or invalidate the election, is in the various state and Federal courts. That's what various Republicans have been trying... almost entirely without success.

In order to succeed, the Republicans will have to file lawsuits which actually allege specific incidents of fraud or discrimination, and provide evidence which actually supports those allegations (e.g. first-hand affidavits or testimony by competent witnesses). Rumors and conspiracy theories won't cut it in court.

To date, they haven't come close to doing these things. For example, in the big noisy lawsuit involving Pennsylvania, where they tried to get all absentee ballots thrown out and/or invalidate all of the vote in the state and send the election to the legislature, they did not allege that any fraud occurred or that any illegal vote took place or that any votes were switched, or that vote or poll-watchers were treated worse because they were Republican. Both the judge at the trial, and the 3rd Circuit Appeals court, were quite scathing about the shoddy quality of the lawsuit (and, by the way, all four of the judge were appointed by Republican presidents... one or two by Trump himself).

The same is true for most all of the other Republican lawsuits. They aren't claiming fraud or vote manipulation, just challenging small numbers of ballots over technical issues.

So... if there so much evidence of actual wrongdoing, why haven't the Republican lawsuits actually identified the particulars and claimed the specifics? Without doing so, they cannot win in court... and most of their lawyers know that quite well since it's a basic principle of U.S. law (I say "most" because I'm not sure about Guiliani).

And, if they don't present a workable case in the trial court, they can't really hope for anything better on appeal or at the Supreme Court level. The appeals courts aren't a place where you can introduce new evidence or claims... they exist to review whether a lower court made an error in law or discretion. Even Trump seems to be admitting that the Republicans may not have any cases capable of reaching the Supreme Court for a hearing.

(You might find it interesting to review Pablo's Twitter feed. He clearly has strong opinions concerning the flood of FUD that Trump and the right-wing press have been dishing out. Rather than risk misquoting him here I'll just urge you to read what he says for yourself).
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jwhouk
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Re: Vote.

Post by jwhouk »

Right now the TC's last resort is to bully state legislatures into doing the impossible: override the will of the people and choose their own (Trump-favoring) electors.

The problem is twofold: 1. There's this thing called "ex post facto" that doesn't work once all the votes are counted (IOW anything they decide won't affect this election), and 2. they have the real-life equivalent of the lawfirm of Dewey Cheatham and Howe as their lead lawyers.
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jwhouk
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Re: Vote.

Post by jwhouk »

Did I mention that I've already seen the TRUMP 2024 flags already?
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AnotherFairportfan
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Re: Vote.

Post by AnotherFairportfan »

Challenger007 wrote: Tue Dec 01, 2020 5:13 am
jwhouk wrote: Mon Nov 30, 2020 8:34 pm Did I mention that I've already seen the TRUMP 2024 flags already?
This is a joke? Or is he really going to run again? I will not say that he was the worst president. But he is very scandalous and very harsh in his statements, which repels many people from him.
Well, he's definitely gonna collect contributions like he's gokng to run - in the month since Election Day the Trump campaign has raised more money than it did the whole previous quarter.
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Warrl
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Re: Vote.

Post by Warrl »

lake_wrangler wrote: Sun Nov 29, 2020 11:39 pm At this point, with all the evidence showing up, I'd say it's no longer just a question of how much of a margin may have been obtained in one direction or the other, as much as the fact that the election has been so tainted, that we can't really tell how bad it really was and this election cannot really be trusted.

Is there any way to get a do-over?
In the Presidential election, no way for a do-over. The closest that can happen is that vote counts be thrown out as corrupted beyond resolution, and the job of choosing electors in the affected states reverts to the state legislatures. The throwing-out can be done by either courts or the affected state legislatures.

Senate seats, there can be special elections. House seats, normally no (there is no provision in the Constitution for replacing a deceased or resigned member of the House, as is provided for regarding the Senate) but I suspect that if the regular election is thrown out and a replacement election held quickly enough that the seating of the elected Representative is not delayed, there would be minimal fuss.

State and local offices, initiatives and referenda and the like... purely a matter of state law.
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jwhouk
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Re: Vote.

Post by jwhouk »

Except state legislatures can’t decide ex post facto to throw out how they do electoral votes for this election. Something about an Article 1, Section 10 of some little thing called a Constitution.
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Dave
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Re: Vote.

Post by Dave »

jwhouk wrote: Tue Dec 01, 2020 10:01 pm Except state legislatures can’t decide ex post facto to throw out how they do electoral votes for this election. Something about an Article 1, Section 10 of some little thing called a Constitution.
Yup. Changing the rules "after the fact" (or trying to) is something that the courts don't look on at all kindly.

That's why the pro-Trump groups have been so desperate to try to block certification, by any legal arguments they can think up. If they can stall certification until a certain date (varies by the state) then the existing law would call it an "undecided election" and allow for a different means of resolving the issue. The state Legislature would appoint the electors, or the Senate gets to decide which of two groups of electors it will consider valid, or the whole election gets thrown to the House of Representatives for a one-vote-per-state contest. All of these "fallback" mechanisms would be likely to favor the smaller states and those with Republican-controlled legislature, hence favoring Trump.

Most of the suits that are trying to accomplish this, are trying to challenge the vote-collecting and vote-counting procedures... trying to get votes thrown out on what amount to technicalities. With few exceptions these suits aren't claiming fraud or illegal voting... rather, they are trying to get good-faith votes by qualified voters excluded from the count.

It isn't working, though. The courts aren't buying it, and the elected and appointed state officials seem to be carrying out their duties with the diligence that the law requires.

When William Barr sits down for an interview, and says right out that the Department of Justice has been investigating claims of vote-wrongdoing, and has seen no evidence of fraud or error which would affect the results of the election... well, that says a lot.
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lake_wrangler
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Re: Vote.

Post by lake_wrangler »

Dave wrote: Wed Dec 02, 2020 1:22 amWhen William Barr sits down for an interview, and says right out that the Department of Justice has been investigating claims of vote-wrongdoing, and has seen no evidence of fraud or error which would affect the results of the election... well, that says a lot.
From what I hear, he didn't say there was no evidence of fraud, just not any evidence of massive enough fraud to ultimately affect the outcome.

All those affidavits from all those people, claiming irregularities are still there, those irregularities still did occur.

My personal thought is that while irregularities (and possible fraud) did occur, they occurred in such a way that it would be very difficult to prove how it would have affected the result. Short of a more closely watched do-over, which, as has been pointed out already, is apparently not really an option, there isn't be much that can be done. But I can see that if, indeed, the point of an "undecided election" could be reached, I can't blame President Trump for trying to reach that point.
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Dave
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Re: Vote.

Post by Dave »

lake_wrangler wrote: Wed Dec 02, 2020 12:10 pm All those affidavits from all those people, claiming irregularities are still there, those irregularities still did occur.
Irregularities have occurred in every big election ever held, anywhere. No human process is perfect. There will always be some votes which are miscounted by error, rejected improperly, or accepted improperly. There will always be some votes by people who (for one reason or another) weren't eligible to vote. There will always be some legitimate votors whose attempt to vote will be blocked or suppressed unfairly (poll taxes, polling places moved or shut down, new Votor ID requirements that are impossible for some people to meet, etc.)

Ultimately, the question is whether any of these things happened enough to change the outcome of the election. Barr says that the DOJ has not seen evidence of this. None of the court cases that have been heard so far, have presented credible evidence that this occurred.

What the Republican lawsuits (the more outrageous ones at least) have tried to do, is use claims of minor irregularities to invalidate vastly larger numbers of votes. So far, the courts have rejected such attempts.
My personal thought is that while irregularities (and possible fraud) did occur, they occurred in such a way that it would be very difficult to prove how it would have affected the result. Short of a more closely watched do-over, which, as has been pointed out already, is apparently not really an option, there isn't be much that can be done. But I can see that if, indeed, the point of an "undecided election" could be reached, I can't blame President Trump for trying to reach that point.
Thanks in part to the fact that Trump et al had been ranting about "rigged elections" for years (since well before his 2016 victory) this election process seems to have received more careful preparation and scrutiny than prior elections did.

https://www.cisa.gov/news/2020/11/12/jo ... l-election

(Trump shortly thereafter turned around and fired the head of CISA, claiming without evidence that Krebs was completely wrong)

A bunch of the more far-out claims made by Trump and some of his supporters are versions of what I call the Great Conspiratorial Thesis. It amounts to something along the lines of "There was a massive conspiracy. It's obvious it happened. But, it was done, and covered up with such skill and subtlety that there's no actual evidence of it. The very lack of evidence proves that a conspiracy existed. Anyone who argues that there wasn't a conspiracy is a tool of the conspiracy."

You can "prove" any sort of wild claims with this kind of argument. You can use this argument to try to excuse any defeat.

The courts require credible evidence.

The political system in the US has long favored an approach in which the losing candidates concede gracefully, even if the margin is small. The loser supports the democratic system, for the good of the country. Trump is not doing that. He has said that he will never concede.
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lake_wrangler
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Re: Vote.

Post by lake_wrangler »

Dave wrote: Wed Dec 02, 2020 1:06 pmA bunch of the more far-out claims made by Trump and some of his supporters are versions of what I call the Great Conspiratorial Thesis. It amounts to something along the lines of "There was a massive conspiracy. It's obvious it happened. But, it was done, and covered up with such skill and subtlety that there's no actual evidence of it. The very lack of evidence proves that a conspiracy existed. Anyone who argues that there wasn't a conspiracy is a tool of the conspiracy."

You can "prove" any sort of wild claims with this kind of argument. You can use this argument to try to excuse any defeat.
Thanks for the laugh. I had not heard of that concept. Reading about it made me actually laugh out loud (as opposed to people who claim "LOL", but don't actually laugh...)


Dave wrote: Wed Dec 02, 2020 1:06 pmThe courts require credible evidence.
Yes. And I fear that may be difficult, if not impossible, to get. It's disappointing, but they may never be able to prove it without a shadow of a doubt...


Dave wrote: Wed Dec 02, 2020 1:06 pmThe political system in the US has long favored an approach in which the losing candidates concede gracefully, even if the margin is small. The loser supports the democratic system, for the good of the country. Trump is not doing that. He has said that he will never concede.
Well, Hillary Clinton did tell Joe Biden never to concede... What's good for the goose is good for the gander, no?
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Atomic
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Re: Vote.

Post by Atomic »

Ballots in suitcases, counted after observers were told to leave.

Video from Georgia polling place.

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AnotherFairportfan
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Re: Vote.

Post by AnotherFairportfan »

lake_wrangler wrote: Thu Dec 03, 2020 12:10 pm
Dave wrote: Wed Dec 02, 2020 1:06 pmA bunch of the more far-out claims made by Trump and some of his supporters are versions of what I call the Great Conspiratorial Thesis. It amounts to something along the lines of "There was a massive conspiracy. It's obvious it happened. But, it was done, and covered up with such skill and subtlety that there's no actual evidence of it. The very lack of evidence proves that a conspiracy existed. Anyone who argues that there wasn't a conspiracy is a tool of the conspiracy."

You can "prove" any sort of wild claims with this kind of argument. You can use this argument to try to excuse any defeat.
Thanks for the laugh. I had not heard of that concept. Reading about it made me actually laugh out loud (as opposed to people who claim "LOL", but don't actually laugh...)
It was very popular with Bill Clinton's detractors...
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