2020 Election Commentary

[Tubesock Army]

Evidently higher than Team Trump can reach. Beyond that, you'd have to ask a lawyer. You don't need a law degree to see that a bipartisan judicial system has found nothing of substance in Trump's claims.

As you do not have a law degree you can easily explain how the judge can find nothing of substance to Trumps claim if they refuse to hear the substance of the claim?

Pretty simple, there's not even enough to convince the judge that there's a "there" there. It's really not hard to understand. And if you believe that there's a vast bipartisan conspiracy to perpetrate or at least cover up the greatest election fraud ever perpetrated in our nation's history, it doesn't matter what I, or anyone else, say, you simply won't be convinced.

I'm not here to reach people or change minds, I'm here to point and laugh.

So you cant explain, you can just point and laugh.

Sounds about right.

I did explain. There isn't enough to convince any court to pursue the matter any further than it has been. Again, it's not difficult.

[HappyDaze]

Evidently higher than Team Trump can reach. Beyond that, you'd have to ask a lawyer. You don't need a law degree to see that a bipartisan judicial system has found nothing of substance in Trump's claims.

As you do not have a law degree you can easily explain how the judge can find nothing of substance to Trumps claim if they refuse to hear the substance of the claim?

Pretty simple, there's not even enough to convince the judge that there's a "there" there. It's really not hard to understand. And if you believe that there's a vast bipartisan conspiracy to perpetrate or at least cover up the greatest election fraud ever perpetrated in our nation's history, it doesn't matter what I, or anyone else, say, you simply won't be convinced.

I'm not here to reach people or change minds, I'm here to point and laugh.

So you cant explain, you can just point and laugh.

Sounds about right.

I did explain. There isn't enough to convince any court to pursue the matter any further than it has been. Again, it's not difficult.

Good luck getting these fools to admit to themselves that their manchild emperor has no clothes, er...claims.

[EOTB]

I've never used a dominion voting machine so this is an honest question, perhaps someone here would know it's answer.

"But the hand recount shows the paper ballots match and there was no fraud".  I've heard this several times.  I'm trying to understand how this works in the minds of those saying it.

My assumption is the voter votes.  The machine prints out a receipt or something saying you voted X for president, Y for governor, Z for city council - whatever people/offices you voted for.  This way you, the voter, know your vote was received as you input it. 

Do you then turn this receipt in somewhere before you leave the polling place?  Or do you take it home with you?

If they order a hand recount are voters coming back in with the receipt they received at the time?  Or does the machine generate a new copy of the receipt that is counted without ever being verified by the voter?

[Pat]

I've never used a dominion voting machine so this is an honest question, perhaps someone here would know it's answer.

"But the hand recount shows the paper ballots match and there was no fraud".  I've heard this several times.  I'm trying to understand how this works in the minds of those saying it.

My assumption is the voter votes.  The machine prints out a receipt or something saying you voted X for president, Y for governor, Z for city council - whatever people/offices you voted for.  This way you, the voter, know your vote was received as you input it. 

Do you then turn this receipt in somewhere before you leave the polling place?  Or do you take it home with you?

If they order a hand recount are voters coming back in with the receipt they received at the time?  Or does the machine generate a new copy of the receipt that is counted without ever being verified by the voter?

I don't know if they were Dominion brand, but the voting machines I'm familiar with never gave a receipt. They gave me a printed ballot, and sent me to a booth where I filled in all the rights ovals on a paper ballot. When I was done, they pointed me to the machine, where I inserted the ballot. I didn't do it this year, so I forget if it beeped or displayed a message or whatever, but basically it confirmed that the ballot was received and read. There was no receipt, no way to verify that the machine read the ovals correctly, nothing. Always left me a bit uneasy.

[Spike]

It would be very hard for say, financial fraud, to be asserted in court if no one but the suspect had access to the books.

What legal route remains for Trump to be sworn in as President at this point?

Ah, I shall explain the process to you then. On January Sixth the President of the Senate (The Vice President, Mike Pence), unseals the submitted electoral reports from each state and counts them. Duplicate electoral results (such as found in EVERY contested state thus far except MI, where they were barred from entering the State Capital Building by the police (at the Governor's Orders) can be submitted and counted (as they have been).  There are any number of irregularities that can apply, and precedents for all of them.

At its most absurd, the VP could simply refuse to open any Electoral counts that he knows are for Biden and refuse to count them. I think at least that that particular absurdity has never been tried, but it remains within the realm of possibility.

If the VPs count is disputed then it goes to a vote in the House.. though the process for establishing a proper dispute is... unclear (Actually the entire act governing this is famously poorly written and is in all probability unconstitutional... but never mind that)... 

The issue I've seen here, however, is that this is not a 'vote of the House' in the traditional manner, but rather the House votes by State... that is EACH STATE ONLY GETS ONE VOTE. Why the House using this rule? Unclear, but the House is traditionally the People's representative, with the Senate being the more State reps, I'd guess?

While the House may have more Dems than Repubs in its current seated members (dunno... didn't look), there are more R states than D states by decent margin. 27 to 23 I believe?

So there are TWO legal paths right here, all resolved starting in January.  One: The VP counts the Electors he choses and comes up with a legal total of 270 for Trump (regarding that: recall that most contested states have now submitted two sets of electors, and yes: There is precedent for this with, as I recall, Rutherford B. Hayes...).

Second: After contesting the VPs count, the States vote in the House, where the R states outnumber the D states (again: Each state gets one vote, despite being,  you know, the House...).



EDIT: A link for futher reading, including many examples of times the rules simply didn't count.  As I have said repeated in this thread: Nothing about this is new.  Only our limited view of History makes it seem so.

https://macris.substack.com/p/if-chaos-is-a-ladder-americas-election

[HappyDaze]

It would be very hard for say, financial fraud, to be asserted in court if no one but the suspect had access to the books.

What legal route remains for Trump to be sworn in as President at this point?

Ah, I shall explain the process to you then. On January Sixth the President of the Senate (The Vice President, Mike Pence), unseals the submitted electoral reports from each state and counts them. Duplicate electoral results (such as found in EVERY contested state thus far except MI, where they were barred from entering the State Capital Building by the police (at the Governor's Orders) can be submitted and counted (as they have been).  There are any number of irregularities that can apply, and precedents for all of them.

At its most absurd, the VP could simply refuse to open any Electoral counts that he knows are for Biden and refuse to count them. I think at least that that particular absurdity has never been tried, but it remains within the realm of possibility.

If the VPs count is disputed then it goes to a vote in the House.. though the process for establishing a proper dispute is... unclear (Actually the entire act governing this is famously poorly written and is in all probability unconstitutional... but never mind that)... 

The issue I've seen here, however, is that this is not a 'vote of the House' in the traditional manner, but rather the House votes by State... that is EACH STATE ONLY GETS ONE VOTE. Why the House using this rule? Unclear, but the House is traditionally the People's representative, with the Senate being the more State reps, I'd guess?

While the House may have more Dems than Repubs in its current seated members (dunno... didn't look), there are more R states than D states by decent margin. 27 to 23 I believe?

So there are TWO legal paths right here, all resolved starting in January.  One: The VP counts the Electors he choses and comes up with a legal total of 270 for Trump (regarding that: recall that most contested states have now submitted two sets of electors, and yes: There is precedent for this with, as I recall, Rutherford B. Hayes...).

Second: After contesting the VPs count, the States vote in the House, where the R states outnumber the D states (again: Each state gets one vote, despite being,  you know, the House...).



EDIT: A link for futher reading, including many examples of times the rules simply didn't count.  As I have said repeated in this thread: Nothing about this is new.  Only our limited view of History makes it seem so.

https://macris.substack.com/p/if-chaos-is-a-ladder-americas-election

How many of the R states have already acknowledged Biden as the president-elect and might not go along with such shenanigans?

[EOTB]

Man, that would be some great clarity for R voters in those states, wouldn't it?

[Spike]

How many of the R states have already acknowledged Biden as the president-elect and might not go along with such shenanigans?

Well, we'll all have to wait until my birthday, won't we?   I like history, I don't pretend to predict the future, you simply asked how, and I offered two legally possible answers.

If I recall correctly at any point in this process someone (the House, I think?) can simply decide to elect Me for President, though I didn't run, was not on any ballot, and would inagurate my reign with bloodshed on a nigh unimaginable scale, seeing how much I hate humanity... and it would be completely legal....


....


... excuse me, I've got some little birdies to whisper into the ears of. I'll be right back.

[Jaeger]

Good thing to know that with all the craziness that will be going on between now and the 20th that we can rely on the mainstream media to deliver objective and unbiased reporting...

[jhkim]

I've never used a dominion voting machine so this is an honest question, perhaps someone here would know it's answer.

"But the hand recount shows the paper ballots match and there was no fraud".  I've heard this several times.  I'm trying to understand how this works in the minds of those saying it.

My assumption is the voter votes.  The machine prints out a receipt or something saying you voted X for president, Y for governor, Z for city council - whatever people/offices you voted for.  This way you, the voter, know your vote was received as you input it. 

Do you then turn this receipt in somewhere before you leave the polling place?  Or do you take it home with you?

If they order a hand recount are voters coming back in with the receipt they received at the time?  Or does the machine generate a new copy of the receipt that is counted without ever being verified by the voter?

Dominion produces a number of different models of voting machines, which are used in different states and sometimes in different precincts of the states. Different models work differently. However, a receipt is *always* kept only in the polling place. The whole intent of secret voting is that once you vote, no one can associate the ballot with you. If you could take the receipt home, then someone could bribe you or threaten you to vote a certain way, and demand the receipt as proof. No one - not even the election officials - should be able to know how an individual voted, and the individual cannot prove how they voted.

Once secret voting happens, there is no way to associate which ballot is associated with which voter. So there's no way for a voter to come back in and confirm their ballot choices, because no one can point to which ballot is theirs. The only way to completely redo is to hold another election.

Hand recounts are conducted with the paper ballots. They are confirming that the paper ballots add up the way that the scans say they did, and that the totals across different precincts were done correctly. In the case of Georgia, they're using a Ballot-Marking Device (BMD). The voter enters their choices on a machine. The machine prints out a ballot, the voter checks it. The voter then puts the paper in the scanner, and it is only the scanned paper ballot that is counted. The scanned ballot is left there for later recount.

Here's an explanatory video for Georgia:

https://www.wabe.org/georgia-voting-machines/

[rawma]

So NYT is not left-leaning now. Well, I think you lost all credibility a long time ago anyway.

Couldn't back up your position, huh?

[rawma]

At its most absurd, the VP could simply refuse to open any Electoral counts that he knows are for Biden and refuse to count them. I think at least that that particular absurdity has never been tried, but it remains within the realm of possibility.

Since the law says the votes "shall be opened, presented, and acted upon in the alphabetical order of the States" I presume that at worst members of Congress could get a writ of mandamus from an appropriate court to compel this. I don't think Pence is so committed as to do anything absurd. And it seems unlikely that the Senate would approve of such antics, with only a slight Republican majority, some of whom long ago acknowledged Biden's victory.

If the VPs count is disputed then it goes to a vote in the House.. though the process for establishing a proper dispute is... unclear (Actually the entire act governing this is famously poorly written and is in all probability unconstitutional... but never mind that)... 

The issue I've seen here, however, is that this is not a 'vote of the House' in the traditional manner, but rather the House votes by State... that is EACH STATE ONLY GETS ONE VOTE. Why the House using this rule? Unclear, but the House is traditionally the People's representative, with the Senate being the more State reps, I'd guess?

This is incorrect; the one-vote-per-state-delegation rule from the Constitution only applies if nobody has a majority of the electoral votes. The 1877 law provides both the "safe harbor" which almost all states (a sufficient number for Biden to reach 270 votes) met, so that alternate electors will be rejected unless an objection is agreed upon by both House and Senate separately. That vote is the usual majority vote, and the House will presumably not approve an objection to Biden electors (difficult to imagine what evidence would persuade the Democratic House to vote for Trump electors from a state that Biden won). (The safe harbor is significant because the electors so protected can only be thrown out if both chambers vote for an objection to them; if there were competing slates not so protected, then it might require that both chambers agree on which to count.)

The constitutionality of the Electoral Count Act of 1887 would probably only be contested if one party blatantly overturned the election by spuriously objecting to electoral votes. Note that the safe harbor provision effectively decided the 2000 election, and the Democrats did not challenge its constitutionality then. Note also that Mitch McConnell has been pressing Republican Senators not to sign objections (which require one Representative and one Senator - objections to Florida in 2000 went nowhere because no Senator signed on), because they would lose the vote in the House anyway but they don't want to go on the record themselves (a Democratic Senator like Manchin from a very pro-Trump  could cause some mischief by signing onto objections, just to force the roll call, although it doesn't seem likely).

[rawma]

Hand recounts are conducted with the paper ballots. They are confirming that the paper ballots add up the way that the scans say they did, and that the totals across different precincts were done correctly. In the case of Georgia, they're using a Ballot-Marking Device (BMD). The voter enters their choices on a machine. The machine prints out a ballot, the voter checks it. The voter then puts the paper in the scanner, and it is only the scanned paper ballot that is counted. The scanned ballot is left there for later recount.

Here's an explanatory video for Georgia:

https://www.wabe.org/georgia-voting-machines/

Interesting video. In Georgia the voter enters their choices by touch screen, but it prints a ballot that they can review and which is then scanned. While the scanner is counting from the QR code, the printed ballot must have human readable information that the voter can review; I assume the hand recount used that, so any shenanigans with the QR code would presumably have been discovered. (But that's a fertile area for further conspiracy theories.)

Dominion's website specifically states that "Sharpie pens are safe and reliable to use on ballots. Election officials provide writing instruments approved for all in-person voters using hand-marked paper ballots. Dominion machines can read all these instruments, including Sharpies." So at least some states are using hand-marked paper ballots with Dominion machines, even if Georgia is not.

[rawma]

If I recall correctly at any point in this process someone (the House, I think?) can simply decide to elect Me for President, though I didn't run, was not on any ballot, and would inagurate my reign with bloodshed on a nigh unimaginable scale, seeing how much I hate humanity... and it would be completely legal....

The 12th Amendment has the House choosing the President and the Senate choosing the Vice-President, if nobody gets a majority of electoral votes in each case. But they can only choose among the top three for President and the top two for Vice-President, so you'd presumably need at least one electoral vote before you could implement your scheme.

[Mistwell]