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

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: DMcG
Date: 10 Nov 20 - 06:45 AM

Re the run off for the two Senate seats in Georgia. This was because no one got 50% or above.

What happens if after the rerun on 5rh January they still don't? Does who get most win, or does the Senate run two seats short? If so, Biden effectively controls the Senate and can get his appointments through, at least until those two seats are filled.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: DMcG
Date: 10 Nov 20 - 06:54 AM

(I realise of course if the run off is strictly limited to the two candidates- no write-ins etc - a draw is almost impossible, but I don't know is the run off is that restricted)

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: Donuel
Date: 10 Nov 20 - 07:23 AM

Thats a good question, I can only guess it would go to the state legislature.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: Mrrzy
Date: 10 Nov 20 - 08:25 AM

Why after is because before is different.

Punkfolkrocker, I would love to play you at Poetry for Neanderthals, where all clues must be words of one syllable or the other team gets to whack you with an inflatable No stick. I mean, a stick you blow up.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 10 Nov 20 - 08:49 AM

What...????????

me sorry me write too big brainy English words..

Me must learn to write little word English for American readers..

..like "ass" and "guns"....

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: Donuel
Date: 10 Nov 20 - 09:09 AM

Mike Pense is standing back but he is not standing by.
HE WENT ON VACATION.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: Jeri
Date: 10 Nov 20 - 09:20 AM

Punky, the size didn't matter, it was the alliteration, methinks. (I HOPE, anyway.)

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 10 Nov 20 - 09:20 AM

In the old days,
a gentleman in trump's position
would retire to his office with a brandy, a cigar,
and a revolver loaded with a single bullet...

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 10 Nov 20 - 09:29 AM

Jeri - Blame it on my 1960s/70s free high quality state education.

Since then, British tory governments have realized the error
of properly educating working class children..

Hence Brexit and the rise of right wing populism...

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: Donuel
Date: 10 Nov 20 - 09:31 AM

Thats English Hari Kari? Trump is too cowardly. Who knows, he may not end up in prison. He should at the bare minimum be forced to walk the 'ramp'.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: Donuel
Date: 10 Nov 20 - 03:00 PM

I fully expect a smooth transition from Republican President to inmate.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 10 Nov 20 - 05:03 PM

A British perspective

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: Donuel
Date: 10 Nov 20 - 06:13 PM

Sugar in the gas tank, sand in the gears
gum up all the works, for years and years
The brat wants sweet revenge, for losing face.
Its not his fault, should he lose one race.
All his 2 faced friends, agree he won.
Pretending that he's right, is kinda fun.
He's the kid who steals, the trophy fees.
He eats choc'late cake, an' drinks kofefe.
he grabs the puss, an' likes his pee pee.
I know for you and me, he's really creepy.
The US like the Vatican, has 2 Popes.
One to get things done, the other's just a dope.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: Helen
Date: 10 Nov 20 - 07:04 PM

Probably similar to the Oz perspective, too.

Clever and funny and true, pfr! :-D

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Nov 20 - 07:26 AM

What I don't understand is why in the USA they don't just count the votes and then announce the result when that's done, instead of leaking the numbers bit by bit. That's the way it's done in most countries, so far as I'm aware. Estimates of how an election is going may get made by the media in the meantime, but they only have the status of predictions.

And why mess around with an extended Lame Duck period (which with Donald is going to be more of a Mad Duck period). It'd be perfectly possible for most of the transitional handover to be done on a provisional basis in advance of the election, and to have an immediate handover when the result of the election is declared.

"The King is Dead. Long Live the King." That's a pretty tried and tested way of managing these things.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: Donuel
Date: 11 Nov 20 - 07:52 AM

Many of the rules were made when people and information moved at the speed of horseback.
In the case of absentee votes, some are still being counted.
Mail in ballots placed new pressures in this time of pandemic.
Every state has its own process and rules.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 11 Nov 20 - 07:56 AM

Sounds like the US needs to get its Electoral-Process act together. It’s a dysfunctional dog’s breakfast in the eyes of the rest of the world.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Nov 20 - 08:42 AM

There's no logical reason why it should take significantly longer to count the votes in a big election than in a small one. There are a lot more people voting, true enough, but there are a lot more people counting the votes. Adding up the separate counts could be a matter of minutes.

As for absentee votes there is no reason that should delay things more than a few days. If the votes come in later than the deadline, tough luck, they've missed the bus.

There's also the fact that US elections involve a lot more things than just the President, and they have these massive voting forms to confuse people but there's no reason to count all these at the same time. The vote for the dogcatcher and the rest of the list can wait.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 11 Nov 20 - 11:21 AM

Bit of GOP corruption that I expect will go uninvestigated by the Turnip's team.

In summary -

A Pennsylvania postal worker has admitted he made up claims of electoral fraud in the battleground state, according to reports.

The case had been cited by Republicans as evidence of widespread ballot tampering and GOP donors had even given $136,000 to the whistleblower

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: Mrrzy
Date: 11 Nov 20 - 01:34 PM

Eschew obfuscation! No, I liked your post, but it sure was a flourish of jargon, pfr!

I am heartened by the so-far lack of response by anyone with actual power to overturn the election results... The Supreme Court is not overturning Obamacare, other courts are tossing baseless Republican lawsuits, and so on.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 11 Nov 20 - 01:56 PM

jargon...!!!???

I'm a lifelong supporter of the aims of The Plain English Campaign...

The only dodgy possibly pretentious elitist word I used was "plethora"...???

That word might be to bigly for your president,
but I do give my yank mudcat mates more credit for brainlyness...

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 11 Nov 20 - 02:00 PM

btw. to ad to al my problems, my keyboard is increasingly refusing to type double leters..

eg. "to"...

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 Nov 20 - 04:06 PM

If you have an hour it would be well-spent listening to Heather Cox Richardson discuss this issue.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: Thompson
Date: 11 Nov 20 - 04:40 PM

Next interesting poll will be the Senate vote in Georgia, which could tip the balance and stymie the Democrats' plans for healthcare, coronavirus, housing the homeless, jobs, etc.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Nov 20 - 04:48 PM

McGrath... it is hard for those in smaller countries to understand what having 50 states.. and territories.. with rules almost amounting to separate countries.... can mean. It is very similar to gun laws or abortion restrictions. they just don't all do it the same way.
   It's called **states rights** and it's written into the Constitution.

It seemed to make sense in 1789, but it hit a snag in the mid 1860s when slavery became a major issue...Now, because it takes both houses of Congress to pass a change and 3/4 of all states to ratify it,it is VERY hard to get enough conservative states to agree. So, it is something of a stalemate. We are trapped by our own regulations.

Add to that the problem of writing vote counting procedures that work the same in Idaho and New York with very different demographics and populations... and 'modern' technology that is VERY hard to make secure... and you have a dilemma. Count paper ballots by hand? Weeks & weeks and many, many hands. Online machines that the Russians.. and some Republicans.. are licking their lips over?
Florida allows counting (however they do it) as votes come in. Nevada does not. Rules about majorities differ, which is why Georgia is having both a recount and a runoff.
   Add to all that a pandemic AND a wannabe autocrat whose party is trying write laws (remember States Rights?) that suppress some voters and you have chaos. Oh... and our stupid "Electoral college" that is also in the Constitution, and it's a wonder we manage at all.

Makes you wonder how it would work if King George had been a nicer guy and England still ruled....

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Nov 20 - 05:36 PM

If every state does it differently, all that means is there'd be 52 numbers (allowing for Washington DC and Puerto Rico). A few minutes work with a pocket calculator. Not much longer with a pencil and paper. No reason they'd all have to do the count the same way.

And there' s no valid reason that a vote in each of the state needs to take longer than a couple of days, even where their population may be comparable to nations. As for counting votes by hand taking ¿weeks and weeks" - that's the way they do it in the UK, and the results are mostly done by the next morning, and every one in a coupe of days.

As I said, no need to count all the separate votes down the ballot, they could do the top one for President, and set the the ballots aside for the rest to be counted later.

It's not a matter of being limited by an antique Constitution or by the size of the country, it's about lack of the will to do it sensibly. Which I suppose is not surprising in a country where almost half the people voted for someone like Trump.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: Donuel
Date: 11 Nov 20 - 06:31 PM

silence 5 days now except for tweets.

Rap had a minor stroke effecting his left arm. Repair ts scheduled for the 16th

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Nov 20 - 06:41 PM

I have to disagree with that.
" all that means is there'd be 52 numbers" but that simply doesn't address how all those numbers are obtained. Describing how it OUGHT to work is interesting speculation, but when different states don't WANT it to work the same way, it's irrelevant.

"they could do the top one for President, and set the the ballots aside for the rest to be counted later."... umm.. set aside what? Paper ballots? Handle each ballot at least twice..maybe several times? Set aside where? Guarded by whom?

   Sorry, but it IS a matter of an antique constitution...and you simply can't refer to "lack of will" as a trait of a nation as a whole. There is lack of desire for many. The current system is an advantage to conservative states whose majorities fear 'sensible' procedures! I spent time in Mississippi in 1964 in protest of those resisting "sensible procedures" which would have allowed blacks to vote! Remember, the South tried to BE a separate country.
(You have many in England who would love to exclude recent immigrants ... and in Germany, it is even worse. It's just that there's nothing similar to 'states rights' to keep Essex & Kent from writing their own rules.
And as I type Biden's margin has gone up from 4.1 million to 5.2 million. It's one small step...

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: John P
Date: 11 Nov 20 - 07:43 PM

State legislatures appoint the electors that vote in the electoral college. In about 20 states, there is no law requiring them to appoint electors who will vote according to the wishes of their state's voters. There are more Republican legislatures that Democratic ones. Trump could, and probably is, ordering states legislatures to appoint electors who will vote for him.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Nov 20 - 09:33 PM

Trump could try to issue such an order, but he isn't legally able to tell states what to do. Any attempt to use that route to overturning the election results would result in a constitutional crisis that would be a disaster. In 30 states there ARE laws, and I doubt that any of the other 20 states would try it.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 Nov 20 - 10:37 PM

The New York Times call each of the states' election administrators and not a single one responded that there were any voting irregularities that occurred during the election. Barr's order to the various federal officials around the nation is apparently a farce and has been ignored, except that one of the Washington, D.C. justice department officials overseeing this resigned in protest, assuming a different job at a lower level.

Barr and McConnell are trying to keep the Trump base engaged until the Georgia elections, to try to snag another senator or two.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: Mr Red
Date: 12 Nov 20 - 03:58 AM

Is it safe to go back in the water yet?

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Nov 20 - 12:00 PM

Not yet. Trump is loading the Pentagon with his loyal followers who are totally unskilled for the jobs. Keep your head down.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 12 Nov 20 - 12:22 PM

Is trump preparing for a live streamed remake of The Alamo..

..or more appropriately, The Waco siege...???

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: Mrrzy
Date: 12 Nov 20 - 01:56 PM

Wait, what, rap had a stroke?

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Nov 20 - 03:37 PM

He wrote about it on a couple of other threads. He's going in for surgery next week on Monday.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: Donuel
Date: 12 Nov 20 - 09:08 PM

"When the people become able to believe in absurdities, the people become capable of commiting atrocities"
quote Voltaire

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: Rusty Dobro
Date: 13 Nov 20 - 04:06 AM

From ‘The New Yorker’, November 6, 2018:

In 1950, Woody Guthrie moved into an apartment at Beach Haven, a cluster of sixteen residential buildings in Gravesend, Brooklyn, just a few minutes from the creaky boardwalk and frankfurter stands at Coney Island Beach. The complex was owned and operated by Fred Trump, which means that, for the two years Guthrie lived and wrote there, Trump was his landlord. It remains unsettling to accept that their signatures co-exist on the same lease agreement.

In the nineteen-seventies, Fred Trump was accused by the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department of creating a “substantial impediment to the full enjoyment of equal opportunity” at Beach Haven; it appeared that he didn’t like to rent apartments to black people. (The case was eventually settled.)

Guthrie didn’t much like the place—he took to calling it “Bitch Havens” in his correspondence—and, in 1954, he wrote a delightfully scornful song about Trump’s discriminatory rental policies. Several handwritten drafts of the lyrics—sometimes titled “Beach Haven Race Hate,” “Beach Haven Ain’t My Home,” and “Old Man Trump”—are presently on display at the Woody Guthrie Center, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Will Kaufman, a professor of American literature and culture at the University of Central Lancashire, in Britain, was the first researcher to discover the lyrics in Guthrie’s considerable archive. (Guthrie never recorded or published the song.) Earlier this week, I went to see them in person. The first verse is explicit in its indictments:

I suppose
Old Man Trump knows
Just how much
Racial Hate
He stirred up
In the bloodpot of human hearts
When he drawed
That color line


In his best songs, Guthrie is equally seized by feelings of outrage and hope. Listening to his records is still my favorite way to remember that those feelings can productively and even beneficially co-exist—that the former doesn’t necessarily have to eradicate the latter.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: robomatic
Date: 13 Nov 20 - 02:49 PM

In his 1765 "Questions sur les Miracles
" Voltaire wrote:

"Those who can make you believe in miracles can make you commit atrocities."

While I appreciate Dontrumpuel's free thought inclusion of out-of-the-box ideas this one comes with his usual lack of precision.

This is why you're worth having around for a thread, but need to be backchecked on, well, apparently, everything.

It's sort of like that argument that a stopped clock is right twice a day, but that doesn't mean it isn't always wrong.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: Donuel
Date: 13 Nov 20 - 04:21 PM

Thank goodness I'm human.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: robomatic
Date: 13 Nov 20 - 06:06 PM

Not totally. You're pegged at 40% Russian botnet.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: Donuel
Date: 13 Nov 20 - 07:04 PM

I'm expecting the 'Reality Enabling' Executive order
that punishes disloyalists who are contrary to the Trump delusion/reality/conspiracy.
It may take four years before the Court finds the order unconstitutional. Especially the fines that are payable directly to Trump.
Thats the spirit robo. You can improve your satire with more depth, locations and possible outcomes. I don't see Joe dancing in the streets for the Biden win, but how about you? Or are you a precise red-state-omatic robot?

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: robomatic
Date: 14 Nov 20 - 03:50 PM

Dontrumpuel, just like your trump model you are only tuned in to what affects yourself. Hence your pickup on external reality is limited. That's okay, we have your measure.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: Helen
Date: 14 Nov 20 - 06:20 PM

Donuel, sometimes I don't "get" your humour, and sometimes I disagree with what you say, but mostly I find your posts clever and funny, although sometimes a bit obscure, sometimes even a LOT obscure. Lateral thinking and a creative mind with a wide scope of knowledge. Keep doing what you are doing. That's my opinion. :-)

Aaahh!! Neil D, The Specials. Thank you. One of my favourite bands.

You're right, you don't need to change a word of it.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Nov 20 - 06:28 PM

Neil D's song was moved over to the "Fall of Trump" songs thread. It'd be a shame to let it get separated from the rest.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Nov 20 - 04:41 PM

"It's sort of like that argument that a stopped clock is right twice a day, but that doesn't mean it isn't always wrong."

Of course it does. It,s just that it"s never a useful guide to time.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Nov 20 - 09:48 PM

As for the scandal of the electoral college bring victory to candidates with fewer votes, as in 2000 and 2016, there could be an effective reform on the way.

I refer to the national popular vote interstate compact

It's an agreement that the states concerned commit themselves to throwing all their electoral votes to whichever presidential candidate gets the majority of popular votes nationally - but that only comes into force once enough states have signed up to ensure 270 votes.   And at present enough states have signed up to bring that into reach (mostly states which tend to vote Democrat, but not all.)

If all the states that voted for Biden this time were signed up to the compact, they'd have reached that 270. It wouldn't make any difference what any states that hadn't signed up did, the person who won most votes would still be president every time.

Of course it would tend to make the TV coverage of election night a lot less entertaining, but also rather less painful.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Nov 20 - 12:49 AM

It would also mean that candidates could visit more than just the battleground states. There are lots of reasons to get rid of the electoral college - maybe the GOP will go along with the attempt this time (even though they lost both the electoral and the popular vote in the presidential race). It doesn't make a difference to down-ballot races.

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 18 Nov 20 - 07:37 AM

What's the general feeling over there? Will the turnip get away with it or will he be carted out of the white house in a straight jacket?

Subject: RE: BS: 2020 national election, USA - BIDEN wins Nov 7
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Nov 20 - 09:34 AM

I suspect that inertia will prevent electoral college reform, just as reform of the Commons here has long been sidelined. The electoral college seems to favour the Republican party, as we've seen several times, egregiously in 2016. The current system here of 650 MPs in uneven-sized constituencies tends to favour Labour, or at least has done in the past. Mutterings about changing it to something ostensibly fairer get muted whenever the Tories get in anyway, which is most of the time. A big deal this end would be constituency boundary changes. In my neck of the woods there has been much outrage generated in both Cornwall and England about the suggested formation of a constituency that would go across the county border in order to even up numbers of electors. Devonwall is a very dirty word in these parts!

Maybe it wouldn't be half so bad in the US if it wasn't winner-takes-all in each state. The last couple of times in Florida, for example, seats-to-votes would have been 15-14 to the Republicans both times. But, both times, they took the whole 29 instead. Of course, it could work the other way in other states. I'll leave you yanks to get your heads round the statistics of that.