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On November 04 2024 00:45 SEB2610 wrote: Will this one be too big to rig or not?
Who’s rigging it? You’re talking a borderline 50/50 in many locales.
In areas that are rather dominated by one party and maybe structurally you could rig it, it’s essentially pointless. To have the capacity to actually rig it, you have to already be a dominant political force in that area, and if you are you don’t need to rig it anyway
Personally I think the whole idea is complete and utter nonsense. Others are free to disagree
On November 04 2024 00:45 SEB2610 wrote: Will this one be too big to rig or not?
Who’s rigging it? You’re talking a borderline 50/50 in many locales.
In areas that are rather dominated by one party and maybe structurally you could rig it, it’s essentially pointless. To have the capacity to actually rig it, you have to already be a dominant political force in that area, and if you are you don’t need to rig it anyway
Personally I think the whole idea is complete and utter nonsense. Others are free to disagree
the closer to 50/50, the fewer illegitimate votes would it hypothetically take to alter the result
(this was mostly a joke poking fun at the insanity that is the american voting process)
On November 04 2024 01:03 WombaT wrote: To clarify, or introduce some specificity Trump never tried to rig an election. He just claimed it was rigged and we saw where that went.
That’s problematic, 100%. My posting history will attest to that
I don’t think either party has the ability to actually rig an election and not get caught doing so.
I’m very much not a fan of Trump, equally if he wins I think it’s a purely legitimate win, based on the rules of the game.
So calling the heads of state election bodies and telling them to “find” votes and selecting fake electors doesn’t count as trying to rig an election?
I think you’re saying the rigging of casting and counting votes isn’t really possible, which I agree with. There are plenty of other ways to rig an election though.
On November 04 2024 01:03 WombaT wrote: To clarify, or introduce some specificity Trump never tried to rig an election. He just claimed it was rigged and we saw where that went.
That’s problematic, 100%. My posting history will attest to that
I don’t think either party has the ability to actually rig an election and not get caught doing so.
I’m very much not a fan of Trump, equally if he wins I think it’s a purely legitimate win, based on the rules of the game.
There is some worry about I think Florida and one other state saying federal election monitors are not welcome.
On November 04 2024 01:03 WombaT wrote: To clarify, or introduce some specificity Trump never tried to rig an election. He just claimed it was rigged and we saw where that went.
That’s problematic, 100%. My posting history will attest to that
I don’t think either party has the ability to actually rig an election and not get caught doing so.
I’m very much not a fan of Trump, equally if he wins I think it’s a purely legitimate win, based on the rules of the game.
So calling the heads of state election bodies and telling them to “find” votes and selecting fake electors doesn’t count as trying to rig an election?
I think you’re saying the rigging of casting and counting votes isn’t really possible, which I agree with. There are plenty of other ways to rig an election though.
Trying and succeeding are rather different things.
If Trump wins, it’ll be because he wins legitimately and it won’t be because of some fuckery.
I’d rather that not be the case. I think he’s suitably not matched for the job, I think if he died we’d overall be better off for it, I think he’s a repugnant human being appealing to other repugnant humans. There’s basically zero Id add to the positive column
But, if he does win I don’t think it’ll be because of any electoral fuckery, if it happens it’ll be a legit win. And if so, well an indication that the US is fucked politically
On November 04 2024 01:03 WombaT wrote: To clarify, or introduce some specificity Trump never tried to rig an election. He just claimed it was rigged and we saw where that went.
That’s problematic, 100%. My posting history will attest to that
I don’t think either party has the ability to actually rig an election and not get caught doing so.
I’m very much not a fan of Trump, equally if he wins I think it’s a purely legitimate win, based on the rules of the game.
So calling the heads of state election bodies and telling them to “find” votes and selecting fake electors doesn’t count as trying to rig an election?
I think you’re saying the rigging of casting and counting votes isn’t really possible, which I agree with. There are plenty of other ways to rig an election though.
Trying and succeeding are rather different things.
If Trump wins, it’ll be because he wins legitimately and it won’t be because of some fuckery.
I’d rather that not be the case. I think he’s suitably not matched for the job, I think if he died we’d overall be better off for it, I think he’s a repugnant human being appealing to other repugnant humans. There’s basically zero Id add to the positive column
But, if he does win I don’t think it’ll be because of any electoral fuckery, if it happens it’ll be a legit win. And if so, well an indication that the US is fucked politically
So what if Trump becomes president after he successfully disputes the election results and succeeds in having the House vote him in?
To be clear, I think Harris is gonna cleanly win and Trump will fail in challenging the results, but the point here is that fuckery can occur at different stages of an election and 2020 shows what that can look like.
That may be true, but you did say "Trump never tried to rig an election" and when farvacola questions that, you said "trying and succeeding are rather different things."
Any bets on what Trump's 'little secret' is that we will all find out after the election? Just bluster, or something like a whole bunch of MAGA loyalists have got themselves onto the precinct boards to jam up the gears of electoral process if it doesn't go their way or something else?
Trump also tried to steal the election multiple times. Not just when he was calling up Raffensperger or local precinct officials to influence the count, which he has absolutely no business doing, constitutional or otherwise. But everyone knew ahead of time that mail-in ballot would favour the Democrats. Bernie Sanders was on national television talking about how Trump might look like he was at the beginning but we know mail ins will favour the Democrats. Steve Bannon also knew and was actively telling people that when Trump is in the lead, he's going to call the election early. He won't have won, but he will declare victory anyways. What do you know. On election night, Trump does exactly that although Pence (being a constitutional patriot) awkwardly tried toning it down.) But there was Trump, declaring victory early and demanding that all vote counting cease!
Keep that man out of any position of political influence forever! The double-edged sword swings both ways; Republicans would never accept equivalent actions from Democrats. They would call bloody murder, that the tyrannical Democrats have finally shown their true colours! Down with King George!
But instead he tried to steal it again by strong arming his Vice President to break his vows to the constitution. Yet it's the constitution loving VP who is the pariah and the many times over attempted thief who hates the constitution who runs the party. Conservatives need to take back their party by ousting Trump at the ballot. Vote down ballot for Republicans and vote out Trump because that guy is the antithesis to constitutional Republicanism.
On November 04 2024 01:54 Falling wrote: Any bets on what Trump's 'little secret' is that we will all find out after the election? Just bluster, or something like a whole bunch of MAGA supporters have got themselves onto the precinct boards to jam up the gears of electoral process if it doesn't go their way or something else?
My gut tells me they’re gonna keep sowing doubt about the results and try for the “alternate elector” strat in the House, which will either be narrowly set aside by SCOTUS or defeated by a splinter group of House Reps who refuse to play along.
On November 04 2024 01:45 micronesia wrote: @WombaT
That may be true, but you did say "Trump never tried to rig an election" and when farvacola questions that, you said "trying and succeeding are rather different things."
I think they are different things
Ok let’s say I observe Protoss suck in top level SC2, I may accurately observe that
Can I do anything about it? Well not really
Trump can complain about results as much as he wants, he can’t actually change those results
He can complain as much as he wants, he can direct forces to question electoral legitimacy. Which to me is just, awful let’s not beat around the bush
Again, I think this is actively shit. I just don’t think he can rig an election
On November 03 2024 23:37 WombaT wrote: I wonder if we have somewhat developed a skepticism for pollsters based on a few bad calls, they’re generally pretty on the money.
For a while now pollsters have had some pretty weak performances because they're consistently trying to weigh for the previous cycle's errors. Its kinda the same problem UK's pollsters have where they don't want to be wrong again so they try and fix their weights, only to find that the electorate has shifted from under them so they keep having medicore results.
Bad education weights was the reason for 2016, so they did that. Most have no idea what went wrong in 2020 so they're just fixing this by oversampling Trump support and increasing the weights for older, no college education voters.
We've got a horrible picture of 2024 because the lack of funding from news outlets and academic institutions means we're getting fewer and fewer polls and less differences in methodology. I swear half the polls this cycle have been done by Atlas. And a lot of these other polls are obviously herding, just shitting out coin flip result after coin flip result, and some not even bothering to provide a Likely Voter result - they're basically taking a knee. These polls could get close to the election day result and they'd still be bad because current polling should still be showing some variation.
To bring up Selzer again, she isn't going through any of these problems because she doesn't care about voter recall or weights, she just keeps things simple. Its theoretically unsophisticated but her simple argument is that past performance is not indicative of future results. So when she sees high school graduates breaking hard for Trump in 2016, she just tells us that they're breaking hard for him and doesn't try to weigh them down because they're typically low propensity voters.
If Selzer is right again, the polling industry needs to stop using weights like they're doing right now. I can convince myself that other pollsters just aren't capturing the current mood of the electorate - the insane Iowa result is mostly due to women breaking for Harris much more than men are breaking for Trump. Iowa is pretty unique in that the state implemented some pretty restrictive aboriton laws so there's a local reason for Iowan women to vote Harris...but there's similar indications of Trump softness in places like Kansas and Ohio where there's potentially less pressure on pollsters since they're not swing states.
On November 04 2024 01:03 WombaT wrote: To clarify, or introduce some specificity Trump never tried to rig an election. He just claimed it was rigged and we saw where that went.
What do you mean?
He tried to rig the 2016 election by asking for foreign interference and through his hush money felonies.
He tried to rig the 2020 election by demanding Georgia change their results, sending in slates of fake electors to declare him the winner, insisting that Mike Pence overrule the election results, fabricating dozens of bullshit lawsuits to try and flip swing states, and preventing the peaceful transfer of power with the January 6th riot.
He's trying to rig the 2024 election now too, by preemptively telling his supporters to intimidate voters in blue areas and interfere with election security, and god knows what else we'll see. I'd put money on the fact that we'll see more violence motivated by Trump's lies and rhetoric, either on Election Day or before Harris's inauguration (if she wins). If he loses, you can bet he'll continue to try to rig and steal the election over the next two months.
The only way "Trump never tried to rig an election" is true is if "an election" means "just one election". He's tried to cheat in all three elections he's been in, whether he ultimately won or lost. (His 2016 win wasn't *because* he rigged it, but he still tried to rig it.)
Edit: Based on your follow-up posts, I think you meant to say that Trump has never successfully flipped an election loss into a win through cheating. That's correct.
On November 03 2024 21:48 Taelshin wrote: After Trump and Vance both did Rogan John fetterman just did it - haven't finished listening to it yet but I gotta say the dude is pretty personable.
edit: Also to say I've had several close family members including my dad suffer devastating and or fatal strokes so I give this guy a lot of credit for where he's at after what he's been through.
Saw this as well, he remains personally amiable and generally a reasonable centrist with bouts of moral and other clarity.
And this is a further indictment of Harris's so-called campaign - the stroke victim can talk for 2 hours, and she can fly to NY for equal time breaking illegal NBC promotion, but not to Texas to have a human conversation.
But mostly vindication of my original judgments about Fetterman. Remember this is his "recovered" state. Due respect to keeping his intellect, but he wasn't a giant to begin with, and he's extremely hampered by the input/output. Even with captions. He constantly misses stuff or goes in the complete wrong direction. Elected office is not a position you can afford, nor the people can afford, for you to be anything but sharp and able to communicate. Would hate to imagine his unrecovered state.
I mean maybe it's an excuse, dodge a question you don't want to answer by going "stroke victim, didn't hear" but especially on immigration he doesn't have any view or principle. Just an aw-shucks senator going "Whatever compromise comes out on an issue has to be the best answer." Complete middle ground nonsense worldview. Doesn't take a stand or have a view on anything except Israel as far as I can tell. I don't know if there's such a thing as a lame duck senator but he's the spitting image.
On November 03 2024 21:48 Taelshin wrote: After Trump and Vance both did Rogan John fetterman just did it - haven't finished listening to it yet but I gotta say the dude is pretty personable.
edit: Also to say I've had several close family members including my dad suffer devastating and or fatal strokes so I give this guy a lot of credit for where he's at after what he's been through.
Saw this as well, he remains personally amiable and generally a reasonable centrist with bouts of moral and other clarity.
And this is a further indictment of Harris's so-called campaign - the stroke victim can talk for 2 hours, and she can fly to NY for equal time breaking illegal NBC promotion, but not to Texas to have a human conversation.
But mostly vindication of my original judgments about Fetterman. Remember this is his "recovered" state. Due respect to keeping his intellect, but he wasn't a giant to begin with, and he's extremely hampered by the input/output. Even with captions. He constantly misses stuff or goes in the complete wrong direction. Elected office is not a position you can afford, nor the people can afford, for you to be anything but sharp and able to communicate. Would hate to imagine his unrecovered state.
I mean maybe it's an excuse, dodge a question you don't want to answer by going "stroke victim, didn't hear" but especially on immigration he doesn't have any view or principle. Just an aw-shucks senator going "Whatever compromise comes out on an issue has to be the best answer." Complete middle ground nonsense worldview. Doesn't take a stand or have a view on anything except Israel as far as I can tell. I don't know if there's such a thing as a lame duck senator but he's the spitting image.
So he's both a guy you would call a "reasonable centrist with bouts of moral and other clarity" and also a guy who has a "middle ground nonsense worldview" and "constantly misses stuff or goes in the complete wrong direction"?
On November 04 2024 01:45 micronesia wrote: @WombaT
That may be true, but you did say "Trump never tried to rig an election" and when farvacola questions that, you said "trying and succeeding are rather different things."
I think they are different things
Ok let’s say I observe Protoss suck in top level SC2, I may accurately observe that
Can I do anything about it? Well not really
Trump can complain about results as much as he wants, he can’t actually change those results
He can complain as much as he wants, he can direct forces to question electoral legitimacy. Which to me is just, awful let’s not beat around the bush
Again, I think this is actively shit. I just don’t think he can rig an election
I think the general fear here is that Trump can manufacture enough of a case that it ends up before the Supreme Court, HIS Supreme Court.
He's mostly throwing paint at a wall trying to see what sticks, but you have to ask yourself that if January 6th had worked and Pence had not certified the election results or if the Georgia Secretary of State hadn't certified Georgia. If he had thrown enough gunk in the gears of the electoral process if it would have come down to the Supreme Court to decide the outcome of the election like what happened in 2000 between Bush and Gore, that his handpicked and VERY partisan Supreme Court justices would hand him the election.
That's a lot of ifs and it requires the cooperation of a lot of other people. But the scary thing is, we've seen just how far the Republican party is willing to go to back up this crazy shit, it wouldn't take THAT much more for Trump to get his way.
On November 04 2024 01:54 Falling wrote: Any bets on what Trump's 'little secret' is that we will all find out after the election? Just bluster, or something like a whole bunch of MAGA supporters have got themselves onto the precinct boards to jam up the gears of electoral process if it doesn't go their way or something else?
My gut tells me they’re gonna keep sowing doubt about the results and try for the “alternate elector” strat in the House, which will either be narrowly set aside by SCOTUS or defeated by a splinter group of House Reps who refuse to play along.
My guess is related to what happens if neither Trump nor Harris obtains at least 270 electoral votes. Normally, we'd only see such a thing in a perfect tie at 269 vs. 269 votes (out of 538 total), which is super unlikely. However, there's another scenario that Trump and Republicans can try (and will try again, given that they tried it last time when they filed all those lawsuits in an attempt to steal the 2020 election from Biden*).
Suppose Harris actually gets more than 270 votes, which means Trump has fewer than 270 votes. Trump doesn't necessarily need to steal those votes from Harris and add them to his own total; all he needs to do is get some of Harris's electoral votes thrown out, so that she's underneath the 270 minimum alongside Trump.
If this happens, then we have neither candidate reaching the required 270 count; this is called a "contingent election". If this happens, then apparently the presidency is decided by the 50 state delegations, where the House of Representatives would count a total of 50 votes - one per state, regardless of each state's size or population - and there are generally more red states (Republican-controlled delegations) than blue states (Democrat-controlled delegations). Wyoming and California, for example, would each get one vote for Harris vs. Trump (kind of like how the Senate works, except each state gets 1 vote for 50 total, instead of 2 people for 100 senators total).
If Trump were to successfully convince some courts (which he may or may not have stacked or threatened or bribed already) to throw out Harris's state electoral votes due to "widespread voter fraud" or whatever other lies that Trump comes up with, then this "contingent election" is a possibility. That's why he and Republicans are already muddying the waters about election integrity (and have been for years) - mass chaos and confusion could lead impressionable judges to move things into a "contingent election". If Harris wins by just 1 or 2 states, for example, all Trump would need would be 1 or 2 judges in the right places that have the same immoral character as Trump's Aileen Cannon.
I think that's Republicans' back-up plan / "Trump's little secret" that he recently bragged about, which could give Trump the win even if he never gets 270 electoral votes.
*This didn't work in 2020 because Biden's electoral votes were never thrown out by the courts in the first place - because there was no widespread voter fraud and Trump couldn't trick/persuade the judges at the time - which means the 2020 election never entered into a "contingent election"... thankfully. He'll definitely try again though, if he loses the 2024 election.
On November 04 2024 01:54 Falling wrote: Any bets on what Trump's 'little secret' is that we will all find out after the election? Just bluster, or something like a whole bunch of MAGA supporters have got themselves onto the precinct boards to jam up the gears of electoral process if it doesn't go their way or something else?
My gut tells me they’re gonna keep sowing doubt about the results and try for the “alternate elector” strat in the House, which will either be narrowly set aside by SCOTUS or defeated by a splinter group of House Reps who refuse to play along.
My guess is related to what happens if neither Trump nor Harris obtains at least 270 electoral votes. Normally, we'd only see such a thing in a perfect tie at 269 vs. 269 votes (out of 538 total), which is super unlikely. However, there's another scenario that Trump and Republicans can try (and will try again, given that they tried it last time when they filed all those lawsuits in an attempt to steal the 2020 election from Biden*).
Suppose Harris actually gets more than 270 votes, which means Trump has fewer than 270 votes. Trump doesn't necessarily need to steal those votes from Harris and add them to his own total; all he needs to do is get some of Harris's electoral votes thrown out, so that she's underneath the 270 minimum alongside Trump.
If this happens, then we have neither candidate reaching the required 270 count; this is called a "contingent election". If this happens, then apparently the presidency is decided by the 50 state delegations, where the House of Representatives would count a total of 50 votes - one per state, regardless of each state's size or population - and there are generally more red states (Republican-controlled delegations) than blue states (Democrat-controlled delegations). Wyoming and California, for example, would each get one vote for Harris vs. Trump (kind of like how the Senate works, except each state gets 1 vote for 50 total, instead of 2 people for 100 senators total).
If Trump were to successfully convince some courts (which he may or may not have stacked or threatened or bribed already) to throw out Harris's state electoral votes due to "widespread voter fraud" or whatever other lies that Trump comes up with, then this "contingent election" is a possibility. That's why he and Republicans are already muddying the waters about election integrity (and have been for years) - mass chaos and confusion could lead impressionable judges to move things into a "contingent election". If Harris wins by just 1 or 2 states, for example, all Trump would need would be 1 or 2 judges in the right places that have the same immoral character as Trump's Aileen Cannon.
I think that's Republicans' back-up plan / "Trump's little secret" that he recently bragged about, which could give Trump the win even if he never gets 270 electoral votes.
*This didn't work in 2020 because Biden's electoral votes were never thrown out by the courts in the first place - because there was no widespread voter fraud and Trump couldn't trick/persuade the judges at the time - which means the 2020 election never entered into a "contingent election"... thankfully. He'll definitely try again though, if he loses the 2024 election.
Something like that is basically impossible when the other party controls the executive. Sure you can start a bunch of lawsuits. Say you control all the courts and judges as well.
Problem is the media announced a Harris win on election day. So you need your courts to do their dirty work quickly and covertly because you can't have proof of election fraud if there isn't any. But you also need to announce that there was widespread fraud.
All Biden has to do is to sound like he takes it very seriously and promise a completely transparent investigation. Suddenly the court in *wherever* gets told by men with guns that no, they can't have a closed hearing at this date. In the interest of national security it's going to be open, with press, legal experts and a *very* close scrutiny of the evidence. And the next case is going to be scheduled *after* that so the nation can pay attention.
Also there may be an FBI team on standby ready to investigate the judge for sedition or some other serious charge if they try to rule on something completely without merit.
I mean, haven't the executive branch even told the supreme court to fuck off at times?
EPT
