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

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

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

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

Field east wrote: »

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

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

Field east wrote: »

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

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

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

Field east wrote: »

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

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

dogbert27 wrote: »

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

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

Manic Moran wrote: »

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MJohnston wrote: »

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

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

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

pixelburp wrote: »

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

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

prawnsambo wrote: »

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

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

Quin_Dub wrote: »

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

paul71 wrote: »

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

Kushner has no chance.

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

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

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

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

jmayo wrote: »

I think old Donald would like No. 1 offspring Ivanka to be the anointed one to take over the political reins, one of course he finally hangs up his hat.

Ivanka is in a bit of bother though. She got paid a goodly chunk of a million bucks for supposed consulting from her dear dad and it only came to light when they were background checking her for her nepotistic WH job. The irony there is something else. Anyhoo, that's a NY state investigation, so no pardons available.

I tried to express this a few posts back, but it seems that Ed Norton has done a better job of it. Very well worth a read.

continued... you can click through for the rest of the thread.

prawnsambo wrote: »

Ivanka is in a bit of bother though. She got paid a goodly chunk of a million bucks for supposed consulting from her dear dad and it only came to light when they were background checking her for her nepotistic WH job. The irony there is something else. Anyhoo, that's a NY state investigation, so no pardons available.

She's feeling the pressure;

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/20/ivanka-trump-new-york-fraud-inquiries-donald-trump-organization



“This is harassment pure and simple,” Ivanka Trump said on Twitter, linking to the report in the New York Times. “This ‘inquiry’ by NYC democrats is 100% motivated by politics, publicity and rage. They know very well that there’s nothing here and that there was no tax benefit whatsoever. These politicians are simply ruthless.”

prawnsambo wrote: »

Georgia has now certified. I have to say fair play to Georgia. They hand recounted all the ballots after the count and had a miniscule error rate in the hundredths of a percentage point. And reported and certified before a lot of states.

I have to say that my previous (very negative) views of GOP Government in GA have changed somewhat after the GA election. I had expected GA to be a den of electoral thieves, but I was wrong! Certainly, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has shown me that its not all corrupt, and despite other issues around voter suppression that Stacy Abrams has been working to cure, Raffensperger has acquitted himself honourably since Nov 3, and I admire him for having the liathroidi to stand up to GOP pressure.

So, The Moon Over Georgia shines brightly tonight. Fair play, well done, and on to a free and fair double run-off in January.

Following on from my earlier comment re. GA, this statement from MI GOP leaders following their White House meeting helps me breathe a sigh of relief:

https://twitter.com/SenMikeShirkey/status/1329925843053899780?s=09