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@barbarian Good question. I am pretty sure the local/county governments supervise the counting of ballots under their governance then provide results to the state. They are suppose to have representation by both parties present but is seems often this does not happen. It is suppose to be transparent but when you see windows covered up it begs the question. Also this year they extended acceptance of ballots after Nov 3 although these ballots were suppose to be set outside per the Supreme Court. The problem is that it has been suggested they were opened and mixed in with the rest so no one knows which ones came in the day after. The Supreme Court should not have allowed this extension but could rule on the validity of these ballots soon although the horse has bolted the barn now. The state legislature sets the rules but the secretary of state (Democrat) created her own rules in this instance allowing ballots to be accepted a couple days after the election. This will be the point argued by the republicans. It is a mess. Contrast PA to Republican lead Florida where the result was known that night. They never should have done this. There was no reason the accept ballots after the fact. People could vote early. Really no excuse for the chaos it has created.
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@broughie a nice post that will be met by either: that's enough irregularities to prompt some sort of investigation, especially that bit about votes after an election
Or
Poor Broughie, might be in the States, but he doesn't know as much as me about the whole situation so still no need for an investigation.
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@broughie said in US Politics:
@barbarian Good question. I am pretty sure the local/county governments supervise the counting of ballots under their governance then provide results to the state. They are suppose to have representation by both parties present but is seems often this does not happen. It is suppose to be transparent but when you see windows covered up it begs the question. Also this year they extended acceptance of ballots after Nov 3 although these ballots were suppose to be set outside per the Supreme Court. The problem is that it has been suggested they were opened and mixed in with the rest so no one knows which ones came in the day after. The Supreme Court should not have allowed this extension but could rule on the validity of these ballots soon although the horse has bolted the barn now. The state legislature sets the rules but the secretary of state (Democrat) created her own rules in this instance allowing ballots to be accepted a couple days after the election. This will be the point argued by the republicans. It is a mess. Contrast PA to Republican lead Florida where the result was known that night. They never should have done this. There was no reason the accept ballots after the fact. People could vote early. Really no excuse for the chaos it has created.
Genuine question, did you actually see the voting centres with windows boarded up? I only ask because I tried really hard to find some footage earlier today on google, but failed!
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@voodoo This is what I could find. CNN refers to it as right wing media but they have a left bias. These days trying to get truth is difficult and even google could be considered favorable to left wing thinking in promoting stories.
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Just clarifying, we’re observers from both parties in the room? Or are they the ones outside being blocked
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@Kiwiwomble said in US Politics:
Just clarifying, we’re observers from both parties in the room? Or are they the ones outside being blocked
I saw that on TV the other night. The people you can see are members of the public who walked into the lobby area and started yelling at the staff counting. Madness
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@canefan said in US Politics:
There seems like a shit load of people standing around in the room looking. I assume some of those people are observers? Lots of cameras too, seems a pretty difficult place to run a scam
It does make you wonder when you hear that it is not necessarily observers not being allowed in but the numbers. How many do they need? I heard the number 90 quoted at one count. 90!
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I did hear from admittedly probably left leaning presenter on a reasonably central podcast that one of the counter arguments to observers not being allowed in were that they may have been “extra” or un vetted, more than the agreed upon number or just republicans rocking up saying they wanted to observe
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@Kirwan said in US Politics:
@dogmeat said in US Politics:
I desewrve a medal. I have just waded through all the posts in this thread since I last visited Friday afternoon.
To save anyone else having to do so - here's a quick precis
Joe Biden has been declared the winner of the 2020 US Presidential election by almost everyone except President Trump and diehard supporters.
Most of the pro Trump posters on this forum seem to have deserted the topic
@Winger hasn't .....
Consensus seems to be there has undoubtedly been small scale voter fraud as there is in every election everywhere but insignificant in the overall picture and not going to impact the election result.
Logic attests to the above
(ex) President Trump and Winger disagree.
Not that I'm pro-Trump, more pro-Republican, but I've been avoiding this topic pretty much as there isn't much to say.
If there is evidence of fraud, it'll be presented through the courts. That evidence will be worth discussing. I ignore pretty much anything Trump has to say as he's a blow hard, and isn't doing the process any favours with his statements.
Until we see the evidence, neither side of this argument can say whether there has been widespread fraud or not. It certainly won't be presented in the media (not appropriate, and even Fox News despise Trump so unlikely to be enthusiatically reported)
To answer one question above about why the Senate/Congressional seats haven been effected, there have been reports of Presidential only ballots being found. Will it stand up in court? We will have to wait and see.
Also reports of dumped ballots in the rubbish, pre-selected ballots, all sorts of rumours. That's why haveing overseers is so important, to squash these sorts of things.
Likely result is Biden has won, IMO. But it's premature to say exactly what has happned until the election process is complete. And that includes the courts proceedings in what has been a very close election).
Gore was annouced the winner prematurely in the press in 2000, for example.
Very well put Kirwan, nails exactly where I am as well.
What I find unbelievably distasteful, is the media reporting of this election. I get sick of banging on about how bad MSM is, but the simple fact is, that they are a core part of the overarching problem.
The narrative is that "the whole world is rejoicing" - Tim's post above being typical. I have real fears of what this does to Trump's fan base. When everybody hates you, are you more likely to reconsider your position, or are you more likely to become further entrenched?
Trump's fan base is not a bunch of sister fucking rednecks. It's full of business leaders, huge wealth, and a significant bunch of people who felt left behind with Obama & his almost blinkered focus on foreign relations. Trump literally stood up in front of these guys and said I'm working for you. And he did. He did a lot of things that average American's wanted.
How do you think these guys are going to feeling right now, watching "the world rejoice". And to be fair to Biden I think he gets that, and his opening speech certainly suggested it. So perhaps I may be worrying unnecessarily. Time will tell.
An old friend of mine who, in my view, should know better as he's a CEO of a decent sized Asia employer, wrote a Facebook comment on the weekend about the mail fraud - this is it word for word, "Hard core Trumpers don't have access to literacy let alone stamps".
People need to really think as to why 70 million people voted for Trump.
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@MajorRage As you suggest, it is incorrect to profile all Trump voters the same way. They will worry but from what I have read about Biden, he is a longtime politician who is more incrementalist than firebrand. I expect he will lean on relationships with people on both sides when managing his presidency, which will hopefully settle their fears
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@MajorRage well not the whole world is rejoicing, I'm sure China would have loved him to stay on, and the Russians were clearly in favour too.
But the traditional US allies, yep, they'll all be pretty happy I would think. Having the US in world organisations is far better than outside, and having a leader who is at least somewhat reasonable and not a spoilt brat has to be easier to deal with. -
@reprobate said in US Politics:
@MajorRage well not the whole world is rejoicing, I'm sure China would have loved him to stay on, and the Russians were clearly in favour too.
But the traditional US allies, yep, they'll all be pretty happy I would think. Having the US in world organisations is far better than outside, and having a leader who is at least somewhat reasonable and not a spoilt brat has to be easier to deal with.Was Trump hard to deal with? Better the devil you know, in my view.
The US may be allies, but it's been a long time since the US President was really the defacto " leader of the free world"
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@canefan said in US Politics:
@MajorRage As you suggest, it is incorrect to profile all Trump voters the same way. They will worry but from what I have read about Biden, he is a longtime politician who is more incrementalist than firebrand. I expect he will lean on relationships with people on both sides when managing his presidency, which will hopefully settle their fears
In my view, that's Biden's second biggest failing (after being too old). Being a career politician.
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@MajorRage said in US Politics:
"the world rejoice
I think Trump supporters have already written off the mainstream media
Of more concern is that cheating has occurred. And it wont be properly investigated
Old articles like this won't help
Obama gave SCYTL company his blessing to provide their ‘secure’ voting services to the US Electoral process. It isn’t bad enough that a foreign company will count the votes, but that company was just bought by one of Obama’s puppet masters George Soros. -
@Kiwiwomble said in US Politics:
I did hear from admittedly probably left leaning presenter on a reasonably central podcast that one of the counter arguments to observers not being allowed in were that they may have been “extra” or un vetted, more than the agreed upon number or just republicans rocking up saying they wanted to observe
One of the observer who spoke at a Rudy event said they was properly vetted. and had all the required paperwork with them
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@Kirwan said in US Politics:
Likely result is Biden has won, IMO. But it's premature to say exactly what has happned until the election process is complete. And that includes the courts proceedings in what has been a very close election).
Gore was annouced the winner prematurely in the press in 2000, for example.
Should this now be the norm for all elections going forward or is there something specific about this one? I guess a concession from the losing candidate makes it a moot point - but how somehow doubt the same patience would have been given to Clinton if she tied the four narrowest states up in litigation.
It was the total opposite in 2000, Bush was prematurely declared the winner which elicited Gore's concession which was then retracted.
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2016 was arguably the most anomalous presidential election in terms of popular vote compared to electors since USA politics became a contest between the Democratic and Republican Parties. Trump in 2016 didn't just lose the popular vote by a small margin and eke out a tight win like George W Bush in 2000, he was well behind in the popular vote, and yet actually won pretty big in the electoral college - when George W Bush was re-elected in 2004, he got a smaller electoral college victory while receiving a majority of 2.46% of the popular vote.
Trump flipped five states from Obama's win in 2012 by narrow margins in a result which could easily be interpreted as all kinds of fraudulent (complete with the late come-from-behind surges in key states like FL and PA), and yet the reaction here was simply that the polls must have been wrong (I scrolled back and checked). Absolutely nothing to suggest anything untoward at all.
Compare that to this election, when it looks like Biden has won by quite a margin when all is said and done, with an electoral college margin historically in line with his popular vote win, with a lead in the polls all the way through, and suddenly it's fraud city and conspiracy theories galore?
2020 vs 2016 election map charts courtesy of CNN. I'm sure more of these types of analyses will roll out over the coming months, but it's hard to see much in the way of patterns of fraud when Biden did so much better than Hillary vs Trump just about everywhere.
Here's a conspiracy for everyone - the winner was a centrist Democrat with well over 40 years political experience of working with very disparate groups in the coalition that is the Democratic Party, who was once the youngest Senator in history (minimum age is 30 and he was elected at 29, turning 30 before the official start date of his term), who drew together the Democratic Party using his vast experience and popularity, who was VP to a very popular president in Obama so plenty of experience in the White House to draw from, and Obama was campaigning for Joe much more strongly than for HIllary (she didn't really want either him or Bill to so they largely didn't).
Maybe instead of going down all the conspiracy rabbit holes that we didn't bother with in 2016 when the results were much more of an anomaly, we could just accept that Biden has probably won like the polls said he would, and if not or if there was fraud, it will all come out in the wash when the counts are rechecked in line with state laws.
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