76 thoughts on “News/Politics 11-4-20

  1. I went to bed as usual, since nothing was going to be finished last night. I found it interesting to hear this morning from someone on Facebook, that every single race, that was voted on in person, in our township was won by the Republican. He does not know about the absentee ballots. That is a huge change in this area.

    Liked by 1 person

  2. It’s silly.
    Still waiting to count ballots. Everyone knew who he was voting for a month ago.
    They should close the balloting at the end of the voting day. If you haven’t voted by then, too bad.
    This is the first time I can remember such disorganization.
    Close the balloting with whatever is on hand at the close of the balloting day.
    Whoever can’t get there by then, to bad. I voted a month ago.

    b

    Liked by 3 people

  3. Seriously? A person who doesn’t know who he’s voting for until he marks his ballot should not be voting.
    That’s how we get such persons as Byden. A person who cannot even make a spech.

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  4. Lindsey nails it. 🙂

    ———–

    He should. He’s leading everywhere that’s left.

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  5. And they’re garbage……

    AGAIN! Still.

    —–

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  6. Oh, the irony… from Joe Biden: “We have the most extensive and inclusive VOTER FRAUD organization in history.”

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  7. When we were overseas in the military, we were expected to vote early if we wanted our vote to count, so it could be back into the system before election night to be counted. No way they would have said “postmarked by election day” and we will count it when it arrives. But here we are. Does this mean nobody will riot before the election is decided? Maybe on inauguration day?

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  8. With mail-in voting expected to become more common, there needs to be some more uniform standards that all states can buy into — so that some states don’t allow votes to arrive days after Election Day.

    This entire situation is quickly spinning out of control in an already psychologically fragile nation.

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  9. Here’s my frustration this morning:

    Frankly, Trump (again) continues to be his own worst enemy. If he’d applied some personal discipline, if he’d learned how to bridle himself when that best served his and the nation’s purpose during these past 4 years, if he’d focused on behaving, speaking and reacting like an adult rather than an emotional adolescent who’s easily triggered, he never would have faced this close of a race for a second term.

    He insists on shoveling ammunition to the enemy. It’s a self-destructive tendency he could never learn to rein in when necessary during his first term, unfortunately. Last night’s off-the-cuff comments were yet another a case in point.

    As someone said to me this morning, Biden can’t beat Trump. Only Trump can beat Trump.

    And he may just finally succeed in doing that.

    It’s looking now that a Biden win is the more likely scenario, but time will tell.

    It’s razor close. But it shouldn’t have been.

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  10. HRW,

    You called them an outlier. You said they were wrong. But once again, they were closest to right. Far better than what you consider reliable.

    ————

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  11. Even RCP was way off.

    ———–

    538 was as unreliable as ever. Silver is a fraud.

    Liked by 1 person

  12. Twitter continues to censor Republicans and right leaning pundits for pointing out the obvious questionable things occurring. Things like how 128K new ballots drop in a state, and every single one goes to Biden.

    https://twitchy.com/sarahd-313035/2020/11/04/this-is-bullsht-twitter-goes-into-full-on-censorship-mode-against-matt-walsh-donald-trump-and-others-who-question-pro-biden-ballot-dumps/

    ———–

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  13. (Snorts……)

    ———

    Here’s a rag to wipe the egg off with. Pass one to Nate Silver too. 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

  14. Good question, valid sources please. These charges will fly back and forth from both sides, along with a few conspiracy theories thrown in. Doesn’t mean skulduggery isn’t going on, but we need evidence and not just hearsay or super-partisan web links.

    Meanwhile, this article nails it as far as the future goes for the GOP, I think:

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  15. I’d say this election has been quite sobering for both sides.

    The messages from the voters should be considered and taken seriously as both move forward to govern and run again.

    Liked by 1 person

  16. What message?

    That they’re schizophrenic? Clueless? Uninformed?

    All of the above?

    I for one won’t be standing by quietly while libs try to run roughshod over our rights, healthcare, and incomes. I’ve joined the Resistance now. Both sides can play that game of politics.

    They can take their message, whatever it was, and stuff it.

    Plus you will now see just how petty and vindictive the Dems are as they pursue Trump once he’s out of office. Their message to voters is just more un-American garbage. I could care less what they want or what their message is.

    Some may choose to knuckle under and play nice with the people who want to crush us and our way of life. But thankfully, I’m not one of them.

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  17. Fortunately, we have the electoral college. It will be interesting to see if they follow the expected route or if they follow what it appears the voters were seeking.

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  18. It could still go either way. But it’s looking more likely like Biden at this point, at least that was my take this morning in looking over the outstanding states and trends (many of them are now counting mail-in ballots last and those tend to skew Democrat, so those races appeared to be moving more toward a blue outcome).

    We’ll all have to just wait this one out a little longer.

    I wouldn’t at all be surprised if there were instances of fraud, but some finding of the facts by authorities is required to verify that and I’m not sure there’s any hard evidence at this point.

    There will probably be anecdotal cases cited (I’m guessing this occurs in most every election but not usually — or maybe ever — to the degree that it would affect the results). On the other hand, this is a very close race so that might be more possible in 2020.

    But this also is political climate in which allegations, most likely some false ones, are flying back and forth with some regularity. Substantiation will be important going forward.

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  19. It used to be mail in ballots were Republican as they came from military personnel. But even that has changed significantly. Once people learned they could vote themselves money….and they learned in school that they were all worthless….honesty and integrity seemed to go by the wayside.

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  20. And yes, with the rise of more mail-in ballots, we need to make sure that process is better secured. I’d say it is more open to being messed with — or even to simple incompetence in terms of both voters and jurisdictions not properly handling it.

    AJ, did you read the article I posted? I think many of your points were made by Dreher.

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  21. With all of the strong positive women out there, in politics, I would be embarrassed as an American to have her as our first female president. A giddy school girl.

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  22. My friend told me that Stacy Abrams called her personally early on concerned about all people getting to vote. She sent out a ballot from her office. Later my friend received one from the county office. Fascinating how that works. My friend only sent in the county issued one that had her full name on it. My friend is honest. How many others received that temptation?

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  23. Daughter living here received an unrequested ballot. When she went in to vote, they said she had received an absentee ballot. she told them it was unasked for and unused. They checked, marked her absentee ballot as unusable and let her vote. No idea how effective that is.

    Liked by 1 person

  24. And I received something from NC to Sharon by text wanting to know if I wanted an absentee ballot. Then I kept getting texts from Dem organizations encouraging me to vote. All I can figure is that my phone # previously belonged to Sharon who was a Dem. Of course I did not request that ballot, but someone less honest might have.

    Also in the mail today from our county was notice that we could not vote in our usual polling location but needed to go elsewhere on Nov.3rd. Now that is a day late and a vote short! Not really since we did advance voting. More than likely it was a postal delay that caused that glitch in timing.

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  25. Now that’s the incompetence that I’m sure happens more than we know.

    What is the ‘resistance,’ is that an actual movement or just a term indicating an overall stance in the face of an opposition administration?

    I’m being bombarded now by Real Estate Guy and former editor who keep telling me it’s all OVER, the country’s going down, down, down, there’s absolutely no hope and I’m an idiot for thinking otherwise.

    Both are nonbelievers which I think helps add to that gloom-and-doom perspective. It’s almost funny, but sad, too, they can’t see anything but darkness ahead.

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  26. Wow……Went to bed when I realized Penn had stopped counting when I woke up they hadn’t started counting yet. Now they are just over 80% but it looks like its not needed for Biden, esp if Nevada holds. It should as its usually urban and absentee votes that are counted late — and these are Democratic.

    Most of these mail in votes have been sitting around for over a week (Its not like these were last minute voters) . Arizona and some other states started counting early and can announce results right away and then there is Pennsylvania; this year’s Florida. Obviously there needs to more consistency in regards to mail in ballots — Oregon and other states have no problems. However, states decide how they are run.

    Much of Trump’s campaign strategy was to discredit mail in ballots and then his team acts surprised and all suspicious when these votes are almost all Democratic. Of course they are. Biden followed normal campaign strategy which was to encourage early voting to prevent people from changing their minds. Unfortunately for him, this looks weird to many people as these ballots are counted later.

    Calling states or a district depends on many factors; amount of votes counts, where they are from etc. At one point Ohio was +5 Biden but nobody called it because it was a few urban votes. Meanwhile West Virginia, Wyoming, Massachusetts, Washington are called immediately as its obvious. Hence, they hold on calling unless the right factors. Initially I watched CNN but I found their graphics annoying then I switched to ABC. CNN called Indiana immediately but ABC held off.

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  27. I believe you can vote in person instead, mumsee. There should be only one signature for her ballot.

    When I hear that people had to stay way far away, but they could use binoculars (in Philly), I seriously wonder what is going on. Then again, I well remember the Franken fiasco and we have Omar to top it all off.

    I would prefer all the lawsuits go forth for, at least. the next election.

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  28. The level of intentional fraud is far lower than people think. Both sides are making alot of wild claims or citing isolated incidents. Right now my facebook is blowing up with images of Trump supporters breaking into a poll station in Detroit yelling stop the count. In reality in won’t make a difference.

    Wisconsin allows same day registration to vote so any discrepancy between votes cast and registered votes requires an updated list that’s not available right now.

    Trump’s legal team is demanding a recount of Wisconsin but a stop to counting in Penn — you can’t have it both ways. Count all the votes and then recount votes if necessary according to local and state rules — relax and let the votes be counted. Honestly — the doom and gloom on both sides of the aisle is unnecessary — in the end politics is local and the urban-rural split determines your neigbourhood’s politics.

    When people see 100% vote in a poll going to Democrats they shouldn’t be shocked — first many districts are gerrymandered to pack all Democratic voters together, second its not unusual for one neighborhood to vote in a similar fashion especially given the Democratic preference to mail in ballots vs Republican preference to in person voting. Taking my own ungerrymandered district for example — 75% vote socialist or liberal, 15% conservative and 10% other. The conservative vote in concentrated in one neighborhood. My neighborhood poll station could easily report 100% socialist and liberal (about 75-25 socialist-liberal).

    I worked as a poll watcher once — the ballots were sealed in a container and then the poll electoral officer took the ballots to a central place using his own car; so a picture of someone loading a box of votes in his car isn’t surprising,

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  29. Aj — I agree with you in the amount of money spend on some election races was as useful as lighting it on fire. Its a strong example of why electoral reform is needed. Perhaps ban all donations and move to publicly funding elections. Second I also agree it would be far more efficient to just give the poor the money. This waste is a good example of the failure of trickle down vs bottom up economics. In this case, we had people make a monetary investment with their money and then it trickled down to various employees and businesses with very little pay off. Meanwhile with a decent taxation rate, gov’t rules and electoral finance reform, this money can be given directly to the poor who would support local business, industry and service in a bottom up investment process.

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  30. A little early to be assessing the pollsters/

    An outlier is a data point that is out of the ordinary — it is neither right or wrong but it may indicate something. Normal statistical analysis would require you to put it aside for later. A Trafalgar Poll giving Trump +7 when most polls are+3-5 for Biden with outliers in the opposite direction at +`10 Biden. In the end, its probably going to be +1 for Biden (I forgot which rust belt state this applied to). Meanwhile there was a +17 Biden poll for Wisconsin — obviously an outlier but RCP included it in its average, hence the RCP was pulled 2-4% too high. The lesson here is ignore outliers even if its a reputable firm.

    The concept of hidden Trump voters was weird to me. If you are too embarrassed you support a certain candidate either because of the candidate or his supporters perhaps you should reconsider your vote. You’re hiding your intentions from an anonymous caller; weird. Then again who takes part in surveys these days….I don’t even answer my phone unless its my mom. However it appears hidden Trump votes are a thing….

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  31. You clearly implied that Trafalgar was unreliable and inaccurate. So far, they’re the closest.

    Another 23 ballots “found” in Philly. Every single one to Biden. Nope, nothing fishy there.

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  32. It looks like Trump will be voted out.
    If so, he will move out of the White House.
    But I doubt that he will leave Washington.
    Biden (or whoever his handlers are) will have a hard time.
    I.e. I predict that Trump isn’t going away.

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  33. And what the heck is up with NC? Trump’s leading, and now they say they won’t have the final results until Nov. 12th?

    As one Twitter user opined, “that’s Bull@#$%.”

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  34. Nothing fishy here…..

    No one knows what the COVID capacity is. They won’t allow Republicans to view the ballot counting. They’re preventing Republicans from reentering the hall to watch the count.

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  35. Irregularities everywhere.

    ————

    You smell that?

    Something stinks.

    https://texasscorecard.com/federal/video-wagons-suitcases-and-coolers-roll-into-detroit-voting-center-at-4-am/

    “VIDEO: Wagons, Suitcases, and Coolers Roll Into Detroit Voting Center at 4 AM
    Poll watcher raises alarms over suspicious activity in Detroit during early morning.”

    “A new video provided to Texas Scorecard from a poll watcher in Detroit shows wagons, suitcases, and coolers moving in and out of a vote-counting center during the early morning.

    In a video taken by Kellye SoRelle—a Texas lawyer and member of Lawyers for Trump—a white van is seen parked in front of the location at 2:40 a.m. A box is taken out of the van and placed into a red wagon, which is then pulled inside the facility. SoRelle is raising alarms that the box may have been a ballot box that arrived long after all ballots were expected to have been received at the counting facility.

    Other images appear to show suitcases and coolers moving in and out of the secure area where mail-in ballots were being counted during a shift change at 4 a.m.

    According to SoRelle, visitors were able to enter and leave the facility where the votes are being counted without any identification check. The workers were apparently working in six-hour shifts, meaning they did not have a need for overnight luggage.”

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  36. Trump will probably go back to building hotels and taking swipes from the sidelines, though I’m not sure he’ll get much attention. He’ll be the flame that exploded and burned intensely — and then will be gone from the political scene just as fast as he showed up.

    Former presidents do best when they retire quietly. Trump won’t do that, but he might not get much attention. Conservatives need to plot a way forward, Trump pretty much sucked up all the air while he was president, throwing the party itself into obscurity.

    There needs to be some new leadership that can emerge.

    Liked by 1 person

  37. Something smells. I hope Trump stays if he is not elected. But that would only because he cares about the country. He would have every right to go off and enjoy life again.

    Liked by 1 person

  38. As I said both sides will claim irregularities. Anecdotal stories are floating on both sides of the internet.

    As I said before; same day voter registration means an updated voter registration list is needed before any claims of over voting can be made.

    Checking the county vote in Pennsylvania — there are some counties reporting 90% in favour of Trump and then urban counties (Philadelphia) with an opposite count. Its entirely possible a poll could report 90-100% for one party or other — I’m sure there are polls in rural Oklahoma with a 100% Trump votes.

    Trump and the Republicans will exhaust all legal options first. Once he’s declared the loser, he will move on to his next con. He is a selfish narcissist. I’m sure he will write a book whining about being a victim. His other problem is several civil suits and criminal investigations he currently faces. Right now the DoJ is paying his legal expenses but once this ends he will try to evade responsibility in an other matter.

    As for polls; I wasn’t impressed with Trafalgar’s methodology — asking who people thought their neighborhoods relied too heavy on hearsay and not data. Not to mention the lack of a representative sample.It appears they had something with the notion of “hidden” Trump voters –
    – but still in Michigan their last poll was +2 for Trump; the final result was +2 for Biden, they were off by four. Insider Advantage had +2 for Biden — they were the accurate poll. In Arizona, Trafalgar and Rasmussen were +3 and +4 for Trump. The result is so far +3.5 for Biden — they were off by 6%. The CNBC poll was +3 and Reuters/Emerson were at +2 for Biden — they were far more accurate than the Trafalgar. In Ohio, Wisconsin and Penn they were accurate in other states they were not. Their record isn’t much different than the other pollsters — its just the focus right now is on Penn.

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  39. I expect one hundred percent same votes in corrupt countries. Here, we are too independent to vote like everybody else. Even if we think one is the best candidate, somebody has to buck the trend. Maybe we are now one of the corrupt nations. Or, as Kizzie just shared, perhaps just inept in a right now world.

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  40. A friend, who is a staunch Republican and Trump supporter, was a poll worker yesterday. She explained to someone about how the names of those who voted by mail are already checked off, so if they came in person to vote again (as one elderly gentleman, who forgot he had voted by mail, did), they cannot. And if they vote in person, and a mailed ballot in their name comes in, it will not be counted.

    Another friend, on the way other side of the political spectrum, volunteers at the polls in her town every election. She says there are so many security practices that she thinks it would be almost impossible for anything untoward to happen with the ballots.

    At least, that is the way it is supposed to be. I’m sure there are exceptions, but supposedly messing with the ballots is very hard to do.

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  41. I think there’s a valid concern about the election process — this year, 2020, after all, was one plagued by Covid-19 and so alternative voting methods, including widespread voting by mail, was encouraged. We here in California all received mail ballots, whether we requested them or not. Even discarding fraud, it was a year that seemed ripe for problems like duplicate ballots. Combine that with two politically-motivated sides that had a whole lot to gain or lose, and that’s a valid reason to be extra careful.

    I’m not opposed — at all — to a close look at procedures or practices. And in the future, I think those need to be seriously address to make sure protocols are in place that will ensure that valid ballots — and not duplicate or faulty ballots — are being accepted and counted.

    Liked by 1 person

  42. But along with Kizzie, I think most poll workers take their jobs seriously; if hanky-panky occurs, it hopefully would not be enough to change any results.

    But I also get that elections that are this close, make that an important question.

    Liked by 1 person

  43. Yeah, you just keep telling yourself that…..

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  44. Where there is a will there is a way. I see a loophole when people are not removed from the rolls when they move out of state. Then there is extra access to an unused ballot for unscrupulous people to use in a fraudulent manner. Who knows how many of those are in the system? All the checks against fraud seem to be within the states and not on the national level to ensure people don’t vote twice. The Sharon person tied to my phone number obviously had an absentee ballot awaiting use in NC, but if she lives elsewhere now or died, then someone could fraudulently use that ballot.

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  45. In Arizona and Nevada; Trump supporters are chanting, count the votes. In Penn and Georgia, they are changing stop the count……..

    Georgia is alot closer than the last time I looked — if the last 2-3% of the votes are coming from Atlanta — this may get even more interesting.

    In Penn, the last 10% of the ballots are coming from Philadelphia, so it will get interesting there.

    In both cases, people shouldn’t act surprised or think its a conspiracy, urban votes always take longer to count since there’s more of them.

    And if the majority of Nevada’s uncounted vote is from Las Vegas; Trump should prepare his concession speech. He won’t of course because he will drag this out longer than necessary.

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  46. However, this is a very interesting report from the Next News Network. If true, then the actual declared result for Arizona will happen by Friday – a victory for Pres. Trump in Arizona paving the way for an overall election victory! However, I’m sure there will still be a battle…

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