BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: Jeri
Date: 01 Oct 20 - 03:27 PM

Charmion, one additional weirdity is that states' ways of voting differ. In NH, we get a paper ballot, mark choices with a pen, and shove it into a locked box. The boxes are then transferred to Concord (state capitol) and counted. Other states have machines (NY, where my mother voted does), and possibly different ways of counting paper ballots.
Personally, the reason for the electoral college is toast, and it adds a layer in the process that only serves to complicate things.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: gillymor
Date: 01 Oct 20 - 02:11 PM

This is going to be a fight, probably the most important one of most people's lifetimes. Depending on your state it might be better to vote in person. I dropped off my mail-in ballot because Florida counts ballots when received but some states don't even open mail-ins until election day or evening. The GOP has an army of lawyers to contend mail-in ballots in swing states and we've got to get some in place to counter that. Barton Gellman, interviewed here, describes a nightmarish scenario of what might happen.The Election that Could Break America (he wrote an article with the same title that appeared in The Atlantic). I implore all Americans who are able to contact their local party and find out what you can do to help ensure a fair election. We obviously can't depend on the GOP to act in the interest of democracy, they sure haven't so far.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: Charmion
Date: 01 Oct 20 - 02:02 PM

I have a lot of sympathy for Americans at election time. They have to vote for a hell of a lot of things all at once, while we lucky ducks of the Westminster tradition vote for one thing at a time.

A Canadian or British ballot in a national election is a piece of paper about six inches square, with four to six (or so, depending on how many crank parties are active) candidates’ names on it, family name first in alphabetical order, each with a clearly marked spot into which to put one’s X. Nothing else, and no write-ins. In case one is unclear on the concept of marking the ballot, there’s a handy-dandy graphic on the inside of the screen to show how it’s done.

An American ballot can be enormous, with candidates running for offices ranging from president to dog-catcher, many of them jobs that are done by civil servants in Canada or the UK. If that weren’t confusing enough, the ballot may also include referendum questions that the voter must parse on the spot. In our tradition, referenda and plebiscites are held separately.

And then there’s the whole voting machine thing. In Canada, the closest thing to a voting machine is a pencil on a string.

So, weird as it is, the Electoral College isn’t the wonkiest thing in US politics.

It’s worth noting that the British political system — and, with it, those of the Empire — was substantially over-hauled at least three times between the Great Reform Act of 1832 and the Statute of Westminster of 1931. The American system was based on a much clunkier European model, and has had less revision.

So be kind.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: Jeri
Date: 01 Oct 20 - 01:08 PM

Let's try to focus on the subject, please.

---

Trolling/deliberately provoking an emotional reaction will be deleted. Play nice.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 01 Oct 20 - 11:52 AM

I confess that I find this ‘Electoral College’ thing very confusing. What, exactly, is its purpose? I know its effect (for instance, in 2016, overturning the result produced by the ‘popular vote’), but what is its actual purpose? Why not just go with the Popular Vote result?

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 01 Oct 20 - 11:22 AM

Just google "US polling queues," guys, and, if you don't already know about this (as all responsible yanks should), you'll be gobsmacked. And your electoral college: Florida has 29 electoral seats, the Republicans win in Florida by the skin of their teeth but the whole bloody lot go to Trump. Democracy in inaction and you accuse us Brits of sitting on our hands over brexit. Perhaps you should glance back over the many thousands of brexit posts and the bitter arguments here since 2015. Then reflect on the fact that the two massive threats to democracy in your country I've highlighted in this post hardly get discussed here. Perhaps you think there's nothing you can do about it. So you sit on your hands...?

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 01 Oct 20 - 09:26 AM

I did not sit on my hands during the brexit campaign, thanks. And I would certainly take Biden over Johnson any day. In other words, I'd even take an insipid, hesitant old man over a fat blond disreputable clown. Your electoral college system is farcically undemocratic, as the last election showed. Clinton won the election easily but you gave us Trump via that system. And almost half of your electorate don't vote. Make the poor queue for hours to vote and they won't even leave home to go to the poll. Low turnouts always favour the party of the rich. You are almost not a democracy at all.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: Jeri
Date: 01 Oct 20 - 09:09 AM

I decided I'm going to vote in person. The numbers of people with Covid are low here, and the longest I ever waited was for Obama's first election, because a lot of people were just registering. I think it was about 15 minutes. The benefits of living in a small town.
I watched parts of the debate, the turned it off and waited for the re-caps. I wanted to get some sleep that night.

I hope there are plans for what happens AFTER the election.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: gillymor
Date: 01 Oct 20 - 09:05 AM

Trump's been hard at it trying to instill fear in American voters and preemptively delegitamize the outcome of an election that he knows he can't win by fair means. It's given me a lot of anxiety and I've dealt with it by volunteering for the local dems, signing on as a pollwatcher and making more donations to the cause than I can afford. It's gut check time for America, we have to decide if we want to continue as a country or just cravenly submit to becoming a trump-brand property.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: Mrrzy
Date: 01 Oct 20 - 08:48 AM

I fear for us. I fear particularly for January. And Charlottesville is a symbolic target for the new Nazis so I fear for us locally, nationally, and globally.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: gillymor
Date: 01 Oct 20 - 08:30 AM

You're quite right, BW. Our system for national elections is a dog's breakfast. There are different systems in every state which gives plenty of leeway for partisan interference. We need standardised laws and a stronger enforcement agency than the FEC as it's currently constituted but the guys who make the laws just don't want to give up their edge.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 01 Oct 20 - 08:10 AM

Looking in from the outside, I have to say that your voting system seems a convoluted, disjointed mess.

Here in the U.K., we have two ways to vote - we either go to a polling station on polling day and vote in person using the voting slip handed to us by the supervisor(s), or we elect to have a postal vote whereby we receive a voting slip and two envelopes, which we put in any post-box in time to arrive with the polling authority by the closing date.

Very simple, very effective.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: gillymor
Date: 01 Oct 20 - 07:48 AM

On a more positive note, I dropped off my ballot at the county elector's office yesterday, the morning after the "debate" and had to wait to find a parking space and then stood in line for 5 minutes to get it certified, this more than a month before the election. The chatter was very much anti-trump which is unusual for this very conservative area. We're setting records for early voting in various parts of the country and Biden set a record after the debate, raising more than 10 million. I think we're moving into landslide country but we're going to have to fight to get our votes counted as the asshole has made it clear that he's not going to go quietly.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: gillymor
Date: 01 Oct 20 - 07:26 AM

I think you can come up with a few more exceptions than that, Dave. My previous post was in response to Steve. I wanted to point out that his high horse is just an anemic little pony. I've been following Joe Biden since he was my Senator in Delaware back in the '80's and I have the utmost respect for him as a politician and a human being.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 01 Oct 20 - 07:15 AM

...well, apart from Cummings and Farage but theu were never elected

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 01 Oct 20 - 07:14 AM

Sorry gillymor but if you can accuse me of assisting in the Brexit debacle then I think it is fair game to blame you for electing the Turnip. I did say earlier that our lot are not much better but at least they can pretend to act with decorum!

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 01 Oct 20 - 07:12 AM

”You people have a lot to be proud of over there, you sat on your hands while a bunch of racist moneygrubbers took you out of the EU and wrecked your kid's economic futures. I'll take Joe Biden over BoJo any day.”

A substantial number of us didn’t ‘sit on our hands’ though, Gilly - we supported the Remain Campaign and spoke against that bunch of racist money grabbers’ lies, slogans, and sound-bites. But a very small majority were taken in by the Leave propaganda, and we lost. That’s democracy - very much the same way Agent Orange’s ‘MAGA’ nonsense persuaded the US to elect him.

But I completely agree with your point about Biden v. Johnson - FWIW, I’d take my dog over Johnson.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: gillymor
Date: 01 Oct 20 - 06:31 AM

You people have a lot to be proud of over there, you sat on your hands while a bunch of racist moneygrubbers took you out of the EU and wrecked your kid's economic futures. I'll take Joe Biden over BoJo any day.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 30 Sep 20 - 06:42 PM

Your election is coming up very soon. From 18 September, for nine days, there were no posts to this thread.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 30 Sep 20 - 06:15 PM

You have 350 million people and all you can present for election is these two utter incompetents. We can all hope that you can somehow deliver Joe for the safety and sanity of the world. But he allowed Trump to drag him into the swamp within minutes and he never recovered. That augurs very badly for us all even if Joe wins, which he almost certainly won't. Your politics is infantile, anti-democratic and is a threat to the planet. Otherwise, all ok. God help us.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: gillymor
Date: 30 Sep 20 - 02:34 PM

Yeah, it was all that because a certain ignorant, incompetent, racist, charlatan of a president wanted it to be all that. He had nothing to add of substance and his record is indefensible so rhetorical bomb throwing was his only option. Biden acquitted himself very well given the circumstances.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: Mrrzy
Date: 30 Sep 20 - 02:09 PM

Ayup.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: Neil D
Date: 30 Sep 20 - 11:28 AM

When the debate began I was actually watching the Cleveland Indians in the playoffs. When they went down 7-2 to the Damn
Yankees, I switched over to the debate. After 20 minutes of watching a rabid bully ignore all the rules of debate, of civility, of decorum, I went back to the game. But the score was now 12-2 and I said screw it, I'm going to Youtube.
The best comment on the debate came from Jake Tapper of CNN who called it a "hot mess, inside a dumpster fire, inside a trainwreck".

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 30 Sep 20 - 08:10 AM

Shambolic.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 30 Sep 20 - 03:36 AM

How did you guys think the debate went? From over here in the UK it seems your politics have sunk to the level of Staged "Entertainment"

Not that our lot are much better. But at least they can pretend to act with decorum!

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: Mrrzy
Date: 29 Sep 20 - 09:26 PM

Anybody watching this debate?!?

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 29 Sep 20 - 01:30 AM

My mail-in ballot arrived today.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: Mrrzy
Date: 29 Sep 20 - 01:21 AM

Anybody want to play debate Bingo tonight?

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: Mrrzy
Date: 27 Sep 20 - 07:37 PM

We got the tax returns!

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/27/us/donald-trump-taxes.html

Lemme know if there's a paywall

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Sep 20 - 07:37 PM

Ruth Bader Ginsberg dies at 87.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: Mrrzy
Date: 18 Sep 20 - 12:29 PM

I have voted. Yay. Took about an hour including the line, not bad.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Sep 20 - 10:06 PM

For the faithful it is all a witch hunt hoax, don't believe your eyes and everything except my tweets are the enemy of the people.
However the quote "I love to play it down, I'm still playing it down" is repeated often on TV.

In DC town the armory has stockpiled body armor piercing ammo, Gas explosion bass loud speaker crowd control weapons (they nauseate crowds) and microwave cannons, they call it a heat ray today.

I was exposed to the microwave cannon years ago and it immediately disabled me falling flat. Don't ask why.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: Mrrzy
Date: 16 Sep 20 - 08:38 AM

McGrath of Harlow, you reminded me of an old practical joke from the days before intercontinental phone calls, where you'd send a cable saying Ignore previous telegram all fine don't panic, which would of course panic the poor recipients.

One. More. Day.

I squint a lot.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: Mr Red
Date: 16 Sep 20 - 08:31 AM

does anyone feel will Bob Woodward's book on Trump have any effect on the election?

As is said in an article about the book - "there are many books on Trump, this is just another". And Captain Catstrophe allowed interviews because he thought he could sweet-talk a man of integrity.

Just another book? That people will sit up and take notice IMHO.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Sep 20 - 08:19 PM

So Trump and allies are talking violent take over.
Let him declare war on America and nobody comes to fight.
Its probably happened before in history but I wouldn't know.
How embarrassing for the two guys who actually show up in DC to defend a deposed Donald.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Sep 20 - 06:42 AM

Armed insurrection if Biden wins is Trumps own rhetoric.

For people who work at the NIH they have noticed that CDC data comes in the same day every month for the last 28 years but lately the data could be 2 or 3 weeks late.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Sep 20 - 09:42 PM

Here's an excerpt if blocked

Mr. Caputo charged that scientists “deep in the bowels of the C.D.C.” walked “around like they are monks” and “holy men” but engaged in “rotten science.”

He fiercely defended his scientific adviser, Dr. Paul Alexander, who was heavily involved in the effort to reshape the C.D.C.’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports. Mr. Caputo described Dr. Alexander, an assistant professor at McMaster University in Canada, as “a genius.”

“To allow people to die so that you can replace the president is a grievous venial sin, venial sin,” Mr. Caputo said. “And these people are all going to hell. The shooting will begin if Biden does not concede”

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Sep 20 - 09:28 PM

This is the man Trump put in charge of censoring the CDC
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/14/us/politics/caputo-virus.html

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Sep 20 - 09:41 AM

"Don't Panic" is probably the most frightening phrase in the English language.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: Mrrzy
Date: 14 Sep 20 - 09:06 AM

I got a Please vote in person or absentee thing from the post office that had no false info on it.
Today is the Monday of the week I can vote on Friday. So if you look at it one way and squint, there are only three more whole not-yet days left.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Sep 20 - 05:07 PM

It looks like out county mails the ballots to voters on September 19. I'll be watching to see if the post office mangles the delivery of them to our homes (I'm due to receive an absentee ballot, I filed a request to get one every time now that I am eligible as I have reached the age I have reached).

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: Donuel
Date: 10 Sep 20 - 04:06 PM

Its been said in the land of the free
(to demonstrate)
and the home of the brave
( who stay home)
downplaying a pandemic is the worst thing to do.

The only panic came from being 'legally' shot in the streets.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: Mrrzy
Date: 09 Sep 20 - 07:23 PM

9 more days till I can vote. I can hold on that long.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 07 Sep 20 - 05:14 AM

True enough - lots of side effects which did a little bit to set against the disastrous consequences. No traffic on the roads meant fewer road casualties, less pollution from planes. Nice quiet road behind my house which is normally deafening. Fewer hedgehogs flattened...

But overall a lot more people died. The UK government figures on August 20 had total extra deaths to date as 55,000, with 49,000 of those linked directly to Covid.
..............

Typical of Trump that when denying calling fallen soldiers "losers" and ¿suckers" he immediately moved on to talking about the money he claimed to have pushed in their direction. Thus confirming that he sees all these things in "transactional" terms. (And predictably enough, those claims were false.)

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: mg
Date: 06 Sep 20 - 01:10 AM

re excess deaths...how would you count, or would you, the people who did not die but probably would have. i think this is noted in australia, where flu deaths are way way down...

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: Mrrzy
Date: 05 Sep 20 - 05:44 PM

I saw that video where a guy who voted republican last time said this time, if the dems ran a can of tomatoes, he'd vote for the can.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: Donuel
Date: 05 Sep 20 - 04:08 PM

founding fathers sing

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Sep 20 - 08:28 PM

As in someone like Boris Johnson? Up against Trump clearly you'd choose him. It's a bit hard to think of too many you wouldn't.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: Mrrzy
Date: 04 Sep 20 - 03:51 PM

I would take lazy and incompetent over what we have any day, with gravy.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Sep 20 - 02:50 PM

The Trump faithful in their millions will believe him when he denies it. The leaders will pretend to believe him.